And so as I wielded the axe in my brother’s name, and as I watched the bare branches toss against the sky, a feeling came over me, or else I felt surrounded by a way of feeling that preceded me and would carry on once I was gone, an awareness of catastrophe just beyond the garden gate, some small and precipitate decision of my own sending me careering towards it. After all, there was nowhere else to go, everything reached its terminus. It was an anticipation congenital, intermittent and providential. It was barely concealed and not totally unwanted.
