Dear Reader,

Now as you have found this journal, broken its paltry seal and turned expectantly to page one, I offer you this.

Let us enter into a pact, a treatise if you will. Ours will be a simple dichotomy of like-wise restraining our human natures. Herein, you have my oath in writing. I swear to write the truth, no matter how damning it is, no matter it could be-speckle my reputation or that of anyone whom I care for. I swear to confess through this quill every last twitch of happenstance so it will be one whole, writhing piece of truth. So be it.

And you? You vow to not don powdered wig and take up a gavel in which to judge me by. You need no pulpit here, no walls behind which to hide. My humanity will not get on you too. This, I swear.

Will you nurse from these pages? I am only ink and vellum now, easily smeared by the warm whorls of your finger tips. Absorb the last of me into you so I might live but for a fleeting moment in your imagination but judge me not.. I plead.. until the last page turns in your grasp and you put my confession to bed, tucked between the sheets of your memory.

Have we a deal struck? Very well then.

Read on.

[0 petals fell]