[Imladris]

I felt hot tears roll down my face as I stroked the harp like an obsessed, deluded lover. Long had that instrument been my friend, where I could pour my feelings into a single melody. Curse my blindness!

Standing up and wrecklessly striding to the window, I pushed the shutter open and leaned out, so that the sill dug into my stomach. I breathed deeply as I felt the wind caress my face with biting sharpness and tug my hair as it tied it into mishcievous knots.

Leaves of the trees rustled softly, their singing soft and low as they were plucked by the breeze as it tripped merrily by. What was hidden in the branches, what secrets did they contain? What insects haunted the rotting wood? What lady bird warmed her egs in her woven her haven of twigs and mud? What woodland seat was molded by the twisted roots of ancient oaks?

What colour of the sun streamed through this window (if it indeed even entered into my little room)? Did it land upon the wooden floor with a golden splash of tumultous brilliance, or did it creep softly within, glimmering upon the walls as it traveled to the west?

I could feel that a splinter had wriggled it's way through my rags and lodged itself in my stomach. I didn't care. The pain, annoying and burning as it was, was a welcome distraction from my questions which only taunted me. I bowed my head to the sill, the roughened sides digging into the the thin skinned flesh of my forehead. I was weary...weary of living.