Lo and behold, I was summoned to the sacred place, among others who helped MagicDuel keep up with the contraints of matter, or perish. When a system achieves stability, be it plant, human or other, it stops evolving, unless some powerful event threatens its existence.

The mirror was veiled, and I asked why. 'I wonder why', he said. 'Think for yourself'.

Think for myself, I thought, and I began to think. But I didn't know why. Well, I still don't. But there's something I learned today, being so close to death, close as I've been before, but more lucid, oh so lucid. I couldn't sleep these years, and I kept searching for something. I didn't know what for. I kept running from something. I didn't know what.

Now I know. I kept throwing myself in something trivial, in something that is defined as 'vice' and I couldn't stop, even if I didn't like it anymore. What was it that made me want to escape? Where was I escaping to? I 'll tell you where - I saw myself reflected there.  It wasn't something outside my body, it was part of me. I saw myself reflected in everything. In the word, in the light. In the faces of the people, in the words they said and hurt. In the words they said that felt good. In the way the wasp buzzes and in the way the scarab builds. In the concept, in the idea, in the time and out of it. And I was slowly, but beautifully...dieing. Every now and then, things like food kept telling me there was something outside myself. I wasn't the universe, I wasn't everything. It came with pain. Pain and fear. When something's outside of you, not a part of you, it causes that. So you try to gobble it up, to be filled. Otherwise, seeing the outer world, uncontrollable and threatening, you get scared. Otherwise, not filling the days and nights, you feel empty, lonely. I needed to see myself there. So we make rules. We believe. Until we don't, and the weight of the world crushes us.

But if I wasn't to look in the mirror, or better said, to 'make' the mirror, then what? I would gobble reality up anyway. Fill the paper because it's empty, eat the food because it's there, say what you have to say to get by.  I would, but then I would be...fighting to live. Strangely enough, I would be slowly living instead of slowly dieing. Does it matter which of the two it is, when you die either way? Probably not, but I've been looking so much into that mirror that is life that I am dieing. So much it makes me say life is a dream, the body - a constraint. So much I can't talk without creating ideas. So much I feel sick, and I'm going to veil it. Veil it. I am here, and there's a lot outside of me. This isn't a dream...or so I'll feel. Throw my cane, my mirror that gobbles up suffering and fears. Embrace the prospect of death and look at the sky for the breeze. Yes, there's very little about me now, I'm a small man with narrow views. I used to be different, like when I was writing this.

I asked why the mirror was covered with a veil. 'I wonder why', he said.