I couldn't have continued without saying that.

I was coming out of my skin.

"I'd take you all the way to Alaska if I didn't have an 8:00 mass."

Why should I choose between the man and the Maker?

Better ways to do this are few and far between.

Yes?

"It was revealed to him that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan who defends his religion."

And if that's not irony, I don't know what is.

Wolves Should Avoid Poisoned Prey.

And I just stood there, panting like an old wolf. It was silent out, even in the forest. Trees can’t talk. I had to keep reminding myself that trees can’t talk. Even though they had eyes, swayed in the breeze, and saw everything that I had been; they still couldn’t speak. They weren’t going to confront me. No one would ever confront me. I had done the thing, and no one would ever know, unless you would count the silent trees from a silent forest. I had been a true wolf, a real hunter; and I had gotten away with it.

After a few minutes I could breathe again. I started to walk aimlessly through the woods, occasionally kicking a dead branch with my absent footfalls. I was lost in thought, and thought is dangerous for someone who had just been where I had been. So dangerous. I knew that no one would know, would ever confront me, minus the sullen brown forest men and their sullen green forest eyes. And they couldn’t even talk.

But I couldn’t help but think that I belonged in Andersonville, or San Quinton, or at the depths of the burning, knawing Lake of Fire with the Evil One himself. Or in solitary confinement in a watching, swaying forest. Everyone was watching me, and they all wanted me incarcerated. Everyone, everyone, and all of these hateful ancient trees. Only, I knew no one was around for miles and miles.

I have heard some people say that immediately after the fact, they can’t remember the reasoning or the decision process leading toward their sin. That isn’t me. I knew exactly what I wanted, and I did what I needed to get it. I thought out what I had to do, made the necessary preparations, and acted. Exactly like an old, grey, hunter wolf. A hungry hunter wolf.

As I walked along aimlessly, mixing enough internal fear of being caught and reasoning to know that I wouldn’t ever be, I saw something that looked sharply like where I had just been. Like what I just done. It must have been a merely coincidental resemblance, surely. But still, in the back of my mind… Was this some kind of a trick? A sick joke? Was my conscience betraying me, or was someone who had seen my act toying with me? No. No, No. This couldn’t be real, could it? I couldn’t walk any farther, couldn’t turn my back and run away like the swift wolf that I had thought myself. I had just done this, and known that I wouldn’t be caught.

But there it was. It was more than graphic. It was every single related thing that I had ever felt or planned for, lain out in excruciatingly clear definition. Suddenly I was in a packed movie theatre, listening to the shocked crowd’s gasps while watching myself on the big screen from stadium seating. I was reading my New York Times bestselling non-fiction account of every sin I had ever committed, and then told the world all about. I felt like Claudius, watching the players pour poison down the king’s melting ear. Like Raskolnikov after he butchered the pawnbroker. I retched. I collapsed. I could see myself doing it, over and over and over. I had had the fortitude to carry out the deed, but now it seemed that I could not carry out the baggage. My intestines burned as I became sicker and sicker. I had not counted on this. I had not thought of this minor detail. The perfect sin, committed by the perfect, calculating sinner, was all in vain, because I could not bear to relive the gory glory of my actions. And I thought, “This is what it must be like to eat poisoned meat out of a wolf trap.” To taste the flesh, and then feel the metal teeth dig their way into my snapping legs. I could not live with this. No. The festering knowledge of my sin eventually would have poisoned me, and I had not planned for it. And as I retched the blood and the mucus out of my stomach, I realized that I was going to die. That the perfect, consequenceless sin that no one had seen me commit, was going to kill me; for I could not live like this. It didn’t matter that trees couldn’t talk, because I could not even bear the slightest reminder of my action, much less their wordless whispers.

I didn’t think that it would end like that. I was supposed to walk away, supposed to bury my memory, save for the sweet sensation of the successful moment. There were supposed to be no consequences. No one saw me, minus the sullen brown forest men and their sullen green forest eyes; and they promised not to say a thing. But, oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God. I should have realized… God damns the wolves who hunt, and accidentally eat poisoned, helpless people.

Nobody says it like Andy.