• Shadows. Cannibalistic, forsaken and dank masses of black encroach as I sit in my chair upon the porch, scribbling away in my little journal. Caius was so sweet to give this to me, although I do not use it often, and even less to actually write in. It's the thought that counts; he always was so thoughtful. How I miss him; it's much too sorrowful that the shadows took him too. My Caius.

    My good eye focuses nervously on a peculiar black splotch on the lawn. It appears to be loping forward, closer still to the stairs. Such a wild imagination I have, picturing that little patch of dark with beady little golden eyes and a cruelly smiling mouthful of pearly white. The image takes no effort to procure; it plants itself so flawlessly over what is really a charming little grey boulder with spidery onyx veins shooting about it.

    It's quite amazing how animate the tricks of your mind can be. Naturally if you were to sit outside at my time of night (roughly midnight, possibly later) your brain would focus on the dark, heartless splotches as an irrational threat to your vitality. The night's asinine ability to make you jump so easily is entirely intriguing. I almost feel the nee to applaud it, but I won't.

    Unlike for some, the night is not my friend. Whereas others may find comfort amongst the voids of desolation that pepper my grassy yard, lit only by the lovely full moon, I do not. It is better that I stay in my chair with my porch lights on, surrounding me with an angelic halo of protection from the fearsome little trickster shadows. But there is more than one way to skin a cat. If the shadows want me bad enough, they'll take me from my warm place of resting. What a shame; then the voices will begin again. How pitiful they are.

    Like the trickster shadows, they only come out at night, when I am fully alone and quite unprepared. So mean they are, always calling names and making fun. No manners at all. Personally, I prefer when they scamper off to leave me be. I do so hate the voices. Almost as badly as marshmallow peers, which are much like PeptoBismol; so pretty to look at, but such an awful taste. I don't I'd ever eat the voices, however.

    The full moon makes the tricky little foxes worse. The full moon makes everything worse, even my PeptoBismol voices. What a shame it had to be tonight; my week has been so nice in comparison to yesterday. Now the devilish shining light-thief is going to ruin everything. Maybe I'll kill her instead.