I frantically raked my fingers through the charred remains in the long-doused fireplace. The black ashes clung to my hands like darkness had onto my father's mind. It had to be a cruel irony then that the man who had taught me sciences and grand philosophies had succumbed to the tendrils of paranoia that crawl forth from obsession, only to subsequently burn all his writings in this vast hearth. And what had once contained a comfortable warmth, now laid cold and desolate whilst I desperately clawed for a trace of my dear father.