Mark how the fevered hand reaches not for salvation, but for the gilded cage of its own undoing. 'Tis a banquet of fools, where we gorge upon the oyster of the world and adorn ourselves in cold pearls, blind to the truth that hangs above us. Behold Luxuria: she who drapes the grave in velvet and paints the fingernails of Death in passion’s red. We are but actors in a silken tragedy, grasping at shadows, whilst the skull grins at our brief and borrowed pageantry.