Darkness Visible

[David]

One bright day on a walk through the woods with my dog, I heard a flock of Canada geese honking high above trees ablaze with foliage; ordinarily a sight & sound that would have exhilarated me, the flight of birds caused me to stop, riveted with fear, & I stood stranded there, helpless, shivering, aware for the first time that I had been stricken by no mere pangs of withdrawal but by a serious illness whose name & actuality I was able finally to acknowledge. Going home, I couldn't rid my mind of the line of Baudelaire's, dredged up from the distant past: "I have felt the wind of the wing of madness."

--Styron