shibbolethian
It's the moment when the relief hits. Complete is never used when something good is over. It's always an ordeal, always a stress, and when it's complete, things are better, things are good, everyone's fine, everyone will live to see another day.
It's a fractured, bubbled thing, curved with such a perfect curve, shattering light and putting it back together in a form that makes sense to the rods and cones within our eyes - incidentally, behind another lens.
Ah, Rome! Chestplates and feathered helmets gleaming in a sun, brighter than it could ever be in modern days. Chariots of fire and centurions with silver swords.
Such an official-looking form! Such plain black and white! Where to sign your name, where to read the terms and conditions! What has literature become?
It's a gray, lost notion, twisted in the eaves of spanish moss and unrecognized by the casual passerby - so often met with yet so seldom noticed. Twisted by remorse.
Secure is not safety. Not mommy tucking you in. Secure is the word that men in camouflage use to let men in gray suits know that the veil of safety has been yanked, ever so ceremoniously, over their eyes.
It's not the same kind of secure as when your mother tucks you in. It's the secure of a mental institution, of a penitentiary, of a straightjacket.