"I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played....Such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh, Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath such a burden?" -- Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan

For Heidi Pitlor

One day in 1972, I came home from work and found my wife sitting at the kitchen table with a pair of gardening shears in front of her.