Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary?.were the last coherent words I heard on that All Hollow's Eve so many years ago. I closed my eyes and I felt myself falling?.falling into a deep and fathomless abyss. For so long I had felt this restlessness within me?that when I began to simply lose myself I did not fight it.

When my eyes slowly opened again I was surrounded by darkness and moving shapeless forms that seemed to be waiting?waiting?I had been waiting my whole life for something to happen? so many things happened actually but somehow I knew nothing really ever had; There had always been that something behind a veiled shroud that kept me from what was to be my destiny?.my eyes drifted back to the deformed shadows swaying closer and closer as the sounds of approaching overwhelming thunder seemed to fill everything around me.. The loud pounding began to fill all my senses with dread and I began to run aimlessly. It didn't matter where I was going or what unforeseen danger lied ahead of me. I only knew that I must run or loose my very soul. I ran without direction, tripping, falling and getting up over and over again, running, running randomly trying to outrun death itself or life?I didn't know then?.not as I know now?

As the cacophonous roar seemed to get closer and closer I felt my whole body come alive, for the first time I could remember every nerve ending twitched with anticipation. Never had I been more aware of my body nor more terrified. A scream escaped me as I felt something huge and darkly menacing overtaking me. I felt the breathing on my skin before the hand that reached out to me touched my very soul and filled every breathing nerve ending with something foreign, unknown.

Suddenly I was lifted from the ground by an iron grip. I felt myself flying through the air and finally brought down to sit on top of a huge black beast. The black stallion seemed to be breathing out smoke from its nostrils as it huffed and it began to fly through the air once more; its dark tresses were long and for a second covered al, in its mantle of darkness. The pounding in my ears was deafening and the rapid beating of my heart threatened to rip my chest open and kill me with fear.

I turned to face the presence whose tight grip was threatening to squeeze all the air out of my lungs. I came face to face with the grotesque mask of a rider all dressed in the darkest color of blood red. I felt the vile rise to my mouth as fear threatened to make me loose consciousness. The grip around my midriff tightened. I felt my body being pulled against muscle and strength?I also remember now that I felt an intake of breath at the contact?at that moment I thought it to be my own?now, I am not sure anymore. All my senses began to reel and as I felt my very will oozing out of me and a moan of what I experienced to be pleasure escaped my starved lips. My head fell back and with half way opened eyes I could see its piercing eyes through the mask and in those dark eyes I saw the reflection of a million souls that had gone before me and I resigned myself to death and I closed my eyes to it. If only my eyes had remained opened I would have seen more?so much more.

We rode for what seemed like a lifetime. My body became one with the rider?its body perfectly molded to mine?each movement?each breath? I felt the years being drained from me. It was then that I also heard the horrible screams of anguish and despair that no one wants to hear through the night as we road from town to town and from horror to horror. I had been a willing companion. I had shared the night?the fear?and the ever growing pounding of my heart as it met and paced itself with the being holding me tightly against it. I had not fought the inevitable and perhaps that was the difference. Perhaps that is why I was still alive. I felt myself swaying ?waiting?knowing that my end would soon come as well and I too would be just another one of those horrible voices that I had heard filled with fear and then disappear on this ride.

As we neared the end I leaned back further, surrendering to my fate and closed my eyes?.and that is when it happened? at my surrender it happened?. I felt that softness of a caress and a warmth filled me with such rapture that all I knew was sheer joy. A moan began slowly to grow within me as I felt the softness of a hand at my breast. I leaned further back and all that filled me was sensation and breathing? suddenly I felt passion as I never had before and my body was filled and lifted and what followed changed me forever?

The world's motion seized and all that I could feel was pleasure and I gave myself to it and we became one with the stillness. We moved in blissful abandonment as the world stood still and waited?.my sated body leaned back and I felt the rider pull the reins back, the black beast bucked and again we seemed to ride through the air, the ground ripped open and a great fire flew up towards the heavens from the open pit.

"You are not afraid." I heard its voice say softly into my ear. And I felt myself shake with dread and the knowledge of what was to come. I did not understand?. how could I have known then?

"No." I answered softly. I had not run. I was ready. Fighting was after all futile. I had given into the beast and had welcomed its taking of me?I had not fought the pleasure nor I had wanted to deny what had transpired between us.

At that moment the arms around me loosened and I found myself being softly placed down on the ground. I stared up at the rider expectant, waiting?did it want to hunt me down after it had vanquished me? Was I to be its last sport of the evening? After what seemed like a torturous lifetime I saw the rider remove its grizzly mask and I braced myself, preparing for the horror that I knew to would follow? my breath escaped me as I beheld a beautiful face looking back at me. That moment lasted a lifetime?.no words were spoken?.but her eyes?. her eyes showed me her soul and at that moment the fear that showed in mine cursed us for all the years to come. I did not understand?how could I? I saw her truth?all the beauty, all the horror and I chose to see the ugly instead of the beauty of the face of death?. For that brief moment death had felt love and I had only seen and allowed myself to feel the fear.

A red gloved hand went out to me?I could see the desperation and the desire?.why fight death? I would not give her sport. I would challenge her with my surrender and just let myself die: death at this point would be a welcome relief. Horror stood before me with the face filled with such beauty that left me breathless?. I closed my eyes as my hand went out to meet the gloved hand reaching out for me. When I felt my hand still empty I opened my eyes and found the rider staring? just staring. For one brief moment I knew?I had been given my life. For how long I didn't know nor did I care to ask.

I stared in surprise at this knowledge. Her eyes turned from me?she was turning from me. The black steed then bucked again and into the fire of hell itself rode the red rider. The heat that followed made my hands cover my face. I experienced a plethora of emptiness I thought I could not bear and I covered my eyes and wept as I fell to my knees?.my eyes opened again and I was as I had been, sitting on my sofa, in front of a roaring fire. The poem by Edgar Allen Poe on my lap. I stared around in surprise and incredible relief filled my being .. I was alive?.it wasn't real? nothing had been real. I would make myself believe that.

It has been sixty years since that All Hollow's Eve. I'm not sure if I want to thank the rider for the gift of my life. Sometimes waiting has been more of a torture. On every single All Hollow's Eve I have waited, on every single one?waited alone for I know that one day she will come for me again and this time I will be taken. I have waited as the years have passed. I have married, had children and still I wait?.No one ever understood ?.how can they. I don't think that anyone has ever believed what happened to me that night on All Hollow's Eve. Tonight I'm waiting again. My body is tired and yet I feel an anticipation that I had only felt once before. I hear the wind blowing outside my window. The fire has a newfound luster to it tonight. I read the words?I hear the thunderous roar as my eyes close I smile. I will never know another morning. I have had a lifetime of them. This night?this hollows night?.she comes for me?this time I will take her hand and surrender to her passion as I ride into the deepest recesses of the earth?for their with my red rider I shall once again feel alive?

The night has many faces and every sound is a world within itself. Every time we open and close our eyes?.. Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary?..I felt passion call? a hand extended and all that followed was?.

THE END