Just wrote in a an email to a great friend of mine (who knows what I'm talking about) that "violence is the permafrost of the soul." It's funny, for me, that violence is always associated with fire, burning, etc. I see it on the contrary as chilling, massive, absolute. That's what I try to describe in my stories - what I have seen and experienced. The power, the impact and the destruction. And, like frost and concrete, it infiltrates the soul and breaks it apart, leaving deep scars. But sometimes (sometimes) these scars are beautiful. Because violence, like art, is a frozen mystery. And the only warmth you'll ever feel from it is blood.