Another evening of driving rain whispered dreams of cleanliness to me in my sleep. I woke in a start, a vision of a shattered padlock in the cellar, the echoing thunderclap of iron chains snapped, the instantaneous achievement of loss. Through the window, the frost white moon blazed amidst a thrash of soaked branches and curtains of rain. The storm's frenzy was naked, unsheathed in the moonlight. In the dark mirror across the room, I sensed myself, watching the watcher, the eye beholding the beholder, wondering what does it see, who is the one toiling in the cellar, scouring scrolls of Baal, listening for eternity's secret in the screams of the penitents, letting the blood of angels, opening the wound to close the circle. "It is I, lord," I called to the puppet master in the mirror. He met my rapt gaze. As the exquisite sensation of holy judgment rushed over me, mounting me like a steer, the rising wails of the storm outside drowned out the cries from the cellar below.