As the deadly vapor, carried by an evil wind, came rolling ever nearer, I felt again that strange impulse, to stay, to watch the yellow billows of the mist until they washed over me. The suicidal instinct, despairing desire, was borne out of a sort of færy beauty, an otherworldly etherealness, like seeing suddenly a vast mountain rising overhead, or, when nearly walking off a cliff, finding a deep ravine full of shadows at one’s feet. The effect was sharpened by the threat of impending death, but it was not wholly subsequent on it. Yes, death made the beauty more poignant somehow, as if this sallow fog were perhaps a door, a way, into and beyond this world, a threshold one could cross, but not recross. No, he would be as silent as the others who lay dead under the rising cloud.
Breaking my heart, I turned away from the cloud’s enchantments. Slowly, I marched toward the hill, leaning heavily on my stick, each step running like fire up my broken leg.
Tale Told 
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