A Quest, Maniacal

HELL ... is a different place for each of us - a many-chambered hall of horrors, sui generis ... some make only a single, memorable visit, Spending the rest of their time avoiding all that may chance to once again open its iron door. Others, such as I, have made many trips, and often ... the dark arms reach, nails scratching at ankles, Pulling us into the oppressive bleakness, black flames licking at our skin, turning mass and marrow to molten metal. Still others - fate's tragic forsaken - live there ... Some by their own hand and action, but many - far too many, are there by circumstance, tragedy, or ill body or mind, not their own doing. I often muse how inane and foolish I must seem to them, that I visit so often and wholly and horridly, all for the sake of a poison imbibed with will and knowledge, I, a gallipot, a master of potions who knows the beast so well - Has seen its ravages daily on the face of humanity, felt its rattling breath crush the tympans of my ears! Still, I placed its icy fingers around my throat and commanded it "Strangle!" "Wring the best of everything from my course and blood!" "Take it all, but for one more moment of rapture!" How those who are doomed to Hades' fires by happenstance must revile me and those of my asinine ilk ... With every fiber of their existence! And should they curse me forever to their underworld, justly, I have little to redeem, and naught to do ... but burn.