When he has nowhere left to turn, he tumbles back--back into lands he knows by rote: rhyme, meter, form. He creates about him a world in which everything fits because everything was crafted specifically to fit. The universe is but fragile spinnerets of glass, tinted and formed with the love of a life-long endeavor. He walks the corridors of this land with care--but he knows the ground he treads intimately. It is a part of his soul.

And still he looks out of his fragile world and feels ruin approaching. So he moves sideways, out of time and around it, entering a world of numbers--of grace, and of preternatural beauty. He moves more assuredly where he knows the lands are rooted within eternity itself, and where he, too, has found root before. He finds flat ground and looks behind him--

--still it follows. He flees, scared--flees into the very essence of life around him, moving faster--frantic now--farther, until he reaches the edges of the known, and the numbers begin to break

begin to slide, become
more complex and interconnected and
harmonic, begin to resemble--
jazz

as universes of knowledge whirl down around him, calling out in chaotic, sultry tones, he does not find courage, no, but he finds solace. He turns, and faces down the ruin which wears his face, smiles his smile. He faces the ruin which is he, but no answer is his to give. He is alone in his worlds, left to wait in a dread solitude.

Left to wait for an answer.