The Final Embrace

I have been here before, many times before. I was here at Normandy, I was here at Thermopolis, I was here at Gettysburg, and at custards last stand. There are white bleached skulls under foot, as I survey the valley below. It is, as all men must find not a valley of death, but of despair. It is a place where warriors go as their time draws near, a place of gray and dark, of serene silence and yet a maelstrom of buffeting wind. It is the icy stab of bitter chill and the empty hollow of true isolation. It is the fear in a man’s heart as he turns to face a death he has come to realize he cannot escape. I have been here, always. Perhaps I am a part of every man who has come here, perhaps that is what you would wish to believe. Through it all, I stand here waiting; I stand here ready to look a man in his eyes and let the shadow of my scythe block out the light of his eyes. I am, the final embrace.