It's a sneaky bastard, that's what it is. And fucking persistent.

I lock the doors and I bar the windows, and I think I'm safe. I'm not safe. It gets in. It wends its way through the tiniest cracks in my soul.

Hope for what, exactly?

For a chance? That time expired a long time ago.

For a miracle? Nope. Too little, too late.

Maybe, I think, for a series of miracles. At least a dozen of them, each more improbable than the last, culminating in a singularity of...

...something.

I don't know. I just don't.

To nonsensically need what I don't want. To desperately want what I don't need. To count on the impossible. To deny the inevitable. All are true, and all are false.