I felt tired today; these limbs ache and lack energy I repeated to myself. Thoughts started but then slurred like far off voices, whilst barely visible black dots became patches, became a darkness that dominated my vision and finally dulled my head. At this moment, as per usual, I was supposed to be receiving some kind of spiritual message: my life was supposed to flash before my eyes. Minute by minute, hour by hour, still shots of memory imposed itself with burning intensity before melting down like old projector film and spattering into my brain. Pulling out the negatives I watched reel upon reel of footage that jerked from frame to frame displaying pictures of aging mills and coal mines, where exhaust fumes marked cracked boarded windows and stained dusty brickwork. There were noises like children crying and the screeching of worn brakes, the rattle of old machines, winding creaking sounds regularly spaced as if someone here were turning the handle of a rusted old mangle. Looking around there were no signs of life, just a slightly pretentious parody of the day that I was about to receive. Although sulfur and ash from long dead fires clogged the airways and stained the skin, my mind was numb and seemingly void of all that could even want to care. Drifting through memories that I barely recognized and had no desire to recollect, I came across that piece of me that cared, that teardrop that fell that had fallen upon all my abandoned intents. Everywhere I looked this barbed bead of frost confronted me, I shied away, turned my back and covered my eyes, shaking, scraping this thing from my dry and cracked face. Re-hydrating ducts, glands and dried out waterways, day by day this process began awakening limbs and organs that had never wanted to feel this pain again. Over the days I began clutching my head and hoping it would finally explode, It had started and I was now fit to beg for heaven's help.