The End of Nights

I stepped outside yesterday into a world gone mad. As though bled into by some hellish demon, the sky had turned a strange color, and there was something foreign--alien--hanging in it: a ball of fire. Lines of its terrible radiance shot down, searing my retinas, forming a golden ladder from the Kingdom of Heaven down which one hundred million angels descended, chirping their hellish song. I felt a strange sensation come over me, a sense of a prelude to burning, as though my flesh were anticipating the righteous hellfire in which it soon would burn for all eternity. I cast down my eyes, seeking in vain for the comforting shadow of sin in which I had dwelt for so long, and a voice cried out from behind me and slightly to the left, saying "It Is Done."

Yes, that's right. The snow melted instantly on Tuesday, and suddenly Spring is upon us in all its unholy, cheerful, sunny ruthlessness, like the wrath of a particularly easy-going and friendly god. I have written on the calendar with mine trembling hand: "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here, For Ye Will Feel Good Whether Ye Likes It Or No."

...and I thought I'd better commemorate this occasion.

What I'm Reading
Barry Buzan, Security: A New Framework for Analysis
Bernard Porter, The Lion's Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850-1983.