Before a chilled pane, frosted by the crackled hoar of staccato chatter, inane and unintelligible in this leaden atmosphere, I stand and wait, detached and inarticulate, as life flitters around me with broken wings in a seemingly disordered flight My charts have faded, as the compass needle wavers aimlessly, and the pathways are unlit, even to the seasoned and sharp-eyed. Perhaps the hiatus will heal, and threads will join the loom again, yet part of the pattern has gone, and weave and weft are irretrievably lost.