Some Things Considered (excerpt)

"'Feeling. The most crippling of all feeling is that which is felt alone. It seems as if inside there is a universe with unexamined knowledge waiting, but the beholder lacks the ability to express and therefore eats itself up. It eats up everything; the mind, the heart, the soul, the very fabric of life until all that is left standing before it remains a reflection of a hollowed shell that embraces nothing but to expand the lungs and pump oxygen to the dead organ inside its chest. Yes, surely I am uneasy of the future for such beings. So alone, so alone and so skeptical. No one ever taught them to be that way. They will wander on into a field of shadows, battling the whisper of 'fool' to the south of them. Happiness. Indeed, happiness is far from what lingers, rotting on the skin of these beings. What fools. What bravely gorgeous fools.'
The Ferryman shook his head and boldly struck the water. He was dragging on toward a deeper death, much to the dismay of the lingering being cautiously absorbing the information provided by such a seasoned soothsayer and reluctantly enduring psychologist to the recently passed.