As I wandered through the fields one day, I happened to notice that the familiar warmth had passed. The wind had grown chilled and it brought an ache, not to my joints or muscles, where those sorts of things are usually felt, but deeper. It was a sharp and prickley sort of ache, one that could not be massaged away or forgotten or dulled with any sort of brew or concoction no matter how potent. It was almost like an itch that could not be reached, or perhaps more like the gnaw that accompanies the growl of hunger. It seemed to me the oddest sort of ache, and I wondered where it had come from and when it would pass. The further I wandered the more distracted I became; the ache did not dull in the least. I did not sleep that night, my only companion was the ache; a small creature curled up inside its nest, refusing to be roused. Finally the rosey-cheeked dawn peeked over the horizon but instead of the warmth of a smile that I welcomed at the start of each day there was only a gray and clouded scowl. I began my wanderings anew with a heavy heart, the ache seemed to be even more sharp, more acute. The land around me had taken on a sick green hue, so different from the shining emerald it had been just the day before. All the day the ache was there, spreading, consuming my thoughts. When it began to turn dark I looked about and realized that I was hopelessly lost. So enthralled was I with the ache that I now shared my body with that I had lost my direction without even realizing it. The cold embrace of an empty night surrounded me, it was as if I had never been warm. I lit a fire but it did nothing to warm me. I ate my food but it had no taste and still the ache was there, an unwelcome intruder in my body. I sat huddled by the fire, lost in the sorrow that I would never find my way home and that the ache would never ease. It was a ravenous beast that would not be sated until there was nothing left to consume. It was a blight that would spread throughout the land, tainting everything with its foul touch. It was in that moment that I knew the ache for what it was: isolation, the partner of despair. The presence of one invariably brings the other close behind, waiting to feast on unwitting prey brought down by the hunt of the first. Recognizing the beast is not enough. It has no fear of recognition, knowing that by then it is usually too late, having its claws already imbedded in the soft underbelly of its prey. Now I am posed with an interesting dilemma, to seek out those that might drive off this beast and risk that it turns its bloodlust on them, or not to fight and to instead wait here for the powerful jaws to finish the task. In truth, I suppose that it does not matter.