Desire. Desire is like the creeping cold slowly constricting around your throat in to choke you out of your existence. It comes hot and passionate at first. It feels right. The power, the control. But then you make one false move and the trap is sprung and you melt away beyond recognition. All who loved you, any who called you friend, will run in terror at your face. Their harsh shrieks grate in your ears and refuse to let you forget. Their eyes pleading for mercy, the tears splashing on the floor, the despair that radiates off them as they say "Please," will haunt you for the rest of your life.
I have known many forms of desire in my forty-five years of life, if you can call it life. Desire for power. Desire for my wife. The desire for her to be always to be by my side. When desire to be recognized by the Jedi, the desire for power, and the desire for my angel became more important than my love for my wife, my child, and our dream of a life together then the ticking clock started and my days were numbered.
We had a dream together, a dream of a family. We wanted to be together forever and always as a husband and wife are meant to be. We would watch the child grow up and dance in the waterfalls that my wife loved so much. I would laugh at my wife's face as our child brought to her a new pet begging to keep it. The baby would smile and run in the wind, hate the sand, sing for the joy of it. Our child would become great in the eyes of the world. Smart, intelligent, powerful.
Six months ago, I cut off my son's hand. My saber cut through the flesh of his arm and the bone of his wrist. I called out to him to join me. I called to him to be my son in more than just flesh. He shook his head, screamed that I lied, and he fell. Death was preferable to a fate with me.
Where did I make the fatal turn? Who did that little innocent boy that gave freely to his friends become? When did I choose this living hell over a life with my son and my wife? How could I have decided that chasing my desires was better than chasing a toddler with a dirty diaper?
I felt it the moment he caught the bars that let him hold on to life. I heard him scream to his precious "Ben," begging to be told why Obi-wan had lied to him and said that Vader and Anakin were separate, in saying that I murdered Anakin. Oh, my son, your father is dead. I, Vader, killed him long and slow. Anakin will never again stand redeemed before the world. I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt the princess respond to his calls and return for him. He was out of my reach. Sidious would not force me to mutilate my son beyond recognition as I had murdered his father.
Forgive your father, my child. Do not fall prey to Desire's fatal grasp as I did. Do not let your eyes stray from selfless goals. Do not desire power. Learn to let go. Do not be my son in more than flesh. Be the son of that little slave boy from the desert planet. Be Anakin's son.
