"Mother, may I take four baby steps into the Abyss?"

“No, you may not…”

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust – my words lay scattered in this dark alley. All is not well for mankind. No one will read these word, no will understand what these strange symbols represent. This pen was mightier than the sword, but only as long as a sword backed up every word. And the sword has long since returned to the earth from which it came, but that does not matter for there is no one left to wield it…

Carried on the breeze the sounds of the alien machinery that now fill the streets – growing louder and louder as they approach this alley I once called home. The metallic sound of the gears as they mesh, the hiss of the pneumatics growing nearer and begin to echo down this dark alley. And the words – they begin to swirl about these strangers like so much static. They neither understand the meaning nor do they care to discover what is hidden within these gnats that are that occupy their field of vision…

The words that filled my ancient existence are no more, and what I had to say in that distant past are forgotten – the merely provide background noise for an alien present…

And so it is…