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victims! How delightfully thoughtful of you!” The tearing
and snapping sounds intensified as “Marvin” began to swell
and split, firing blood and flesh and staples and stitching into
the shadows of the nightmare. Something was stepping from
beyond the ruined curtains of Marvin’s dreamed flesh. The
End of the World was as monstrous as it was marvelous.
Heedless of the unearthly transformation and the doom
and pain it foretold, my sisters and I advanced. But before
we could engage Marvin’s lovely counterpart, my father’s
massive arm swept us aside, clearing the way for himself.
He roared with laughter, stepping before the monster Marvin
had become. “I didn’t expect the end of the world to be so
puny, whelp!”
“Come, then, you fool!” Marvin raged back. “Do you
really expect to defeat the end of all things with an axe?”
“With this axe,” my father bellowed, holding up the giant
weapon in front of his burning eyes, “I do, indeed!” My
father charged, only to crash headfirst through the gigantic
window from a blow that, should it have been delivered
outside of a dream, would have beheaded a man. But
it was a dream, and my father was no ordinary man. My
dread forbear immediately recovered from his flight, firing
thunderous laughter up through the twinkling rain of glass
shards. The End of the World leapt through the shattered
window after him, following the stream of burning laughter.
My attention lay elsewhere, however. After my turn
through the window, I approached the shivering man in the
straitjacket. The forest was on its last breath, the fleeing
wind having shrunken to murmurs. The quiet of forgotten,
ancient things swelled monstrous.
I looked back into the broken sky of the nightmare, where
glass tumbled like broken teeth from the gaping window.
Two devils wrestled across the worlds of three minds, all
of it held together by the unseen hands of a dark Shepherd.
My father continued to laugh in the face of The End of the

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