And so, it’s finished finally, which begs the question of where it all began, and what if anything is the message. So, let’s proceed slowly. My wanting to write stories, began on the day my aunty Joan gave me Dostoevsky’s haunting masterpiece The idiot, on my 22nd birthday, which had a mesmerizing effect upon my consciousness, it opened a portal into another universe, from that first novel I was inspired to devour all the classics of English and European literature. In the many years since, numerous ideas for a story bubbled to the surface of my thinking, alas without any lasting effect, and yet the aspiration to conjure something of my own never left me.  I am by nature attracted to the absurd and the ludicrous. The thing I sensed with stories is that every creation is a self-portrait. This Unraveling has been a lifelong pursuit, a powerful motivator in my journey of discovery. The obvious inadequacies of my prose, however, has never really been an impediment, I’ve never written anything for an audience, nor am I inclined to finish anything, a story dies when it’s published and is read, it has nowhere to go. It becomes just another book on a shelf, a small tree in a vast forest. Anonymity is a perfect shield, with pen in hand alone at night one is free to roam like a kite with no strings, to soar to great heights, explore unmapped lands, and just see where it takes you. My scribbles are not for viewing. A story has to breathe, and to allow that one has to be patient. Publication is akin to a premature ejaculation, it’s always better to master one’s vital energies, dissipation is an indulgent feast of the weak and the uninitiated. An inspired thought or image has to be nurtured, it’s delicate fabric and strange nuances need to mature like a good wine, the longer one meditates upon beauty, the better the experience. I learned long ago that psychosis might just be the most interesting thing that ever happened to me. It taught me to let everything go and just surrender. And yes, it's scary business because our inner voices, our muse has seemingly zero interest in our mundane lives. Such is the burden of the fool’s journey which is rife with loss and hopelessness, a fatal odyssey around the island of the sirens. A confrontation with one’s numerous failures, perfectly defined in the mythic analogy of the rotting carcasses on the raggedy shore, the piles of black charcoal bones burnt by the sun. The similarities between madness and genius are terrifying, indeed both mediums border on spirit possession. Only a fool jumps into the shadowy depths of his own abyss. Deep down I sense that we all have this longing for something memorable, to find real meaning in our lives, in the brief firefly moments we have been gifted. I caution myself with the thought that everything ripens in its own season. That the deeper resonance of our creativity needs time and space to mature. That even when the voice is there, when the tongue is limber with longing or ecstasy, no