the devil lay like some grand imposter

mimicks truth

by the wayside

intent on pursuading travellers that he did not exist

as if to comfort their nerves that they were on some good path not an evil errand beyond their reckoning

every specie of men examined their conscience before their God and resolved to continue this life

yet the options they owned thinned out as dark princes in their palaces of wintered dreams confiscated any notion of destiny to which they clung like changelings

they staggered blind and forward as no man can see the future any more than change the past

and the devil was well pleased with his work

he rested on the 8th day of creation