A cloud. A gray little mean little shadow, not far off. A joke, an annoyance, a faint sour taste, the taint of something rotting, the taste suddenly all you can think about, swelling in your soft mouth, the shock when you realize this is worse than you thought, this is something deep, bitter, toxic, striking hard at your bones, your heart, your very breath, moving swift among those you love the most, comfortably laying about right and left with a bloody club, while it laughs. It laughs. Because who’s suffering now. I ask you. And it all started out so modest: a cloud, a taint, a little shadow.