150 Words: All That Jazz

Maybe it was the wine. 

He didn’t drink much and a little wine went right to his head.  Whatever it was he was humming songs and shedding soft, self-serving tears, and seeing Technicolor things that touched his weary heart. 

Jessica Lange, shimmering in waves of luminescent white, was smiling patiently, alluringly, inscrutably.  Emmylou Harris, gloriously angelic and thankfully earthbound, was singing sad songs that didn’t make him cry. 

And there was dancing…lots of dancing…and sex and laughter, sweet life and sweet death, lasting truth and lingering lies…visions of the future, the past, and all that jazz.

Maybe it was a dream bleeding into the waking world, mixing the magical and mundane in the fevered imagination of a poor mortal fool.

Maybe it was it just a movie, an artful mix of fiction and reality carefully crafted to stimulate the senses and draw emotion out of playacting.

Maybe it was the wine.

The Next to the Last Day of the End of Time

It felt like rain on the next to the last day of the end of time.  That was cool with Victor…he liked the rain and the grayness, he really liked the grayness because it made him appreciate the sunshine that much more when it came back.

The wind was heavy and moist as Victor wandered the avenues on that gray day but he barely felt it.  Despite the fact that he hadn’t bothered to take a coat or a hat none of the blustery, storm-heralding weather made him the least bit uncomfortable.  Why would it?  The next day was one that he had been looking forward to for a long time and the utter finality of it warmed him, admittedly in a strange and sad way, to his very core.

The sun shone brightly on the last day of the end of time.  It was an almost perfectly blue, gently blustery day.  And that too was cool with Victor.  The threat of rain the previous day had made this day more sparkling and though it was a shame that there would be no more it was still a glorious backdrop for the end of time to play out on.  Victor drank wine and smoked cigars and let the rays of the sun caress him and all of it chilled him, in a strange and sad, way to his very core.

It felt like rain on the next to last day of the end of time.  It felt like spring, bountiful and welcoming, on the last day.  It felt…right…and that was cool with Victor…he liked feeling, at least once in his life, right.

The sun set and the evening shadows gathered.  And darkness held Victor close…it was the last day of the end of time and he was going…well, Victor didn’t really know where he was going but he was going just the same…and that was cool with Victor.

150 Words: We Heard Him

The bus was quiet in the early morning and we heard him.  We all heard him.  But we pretended, as people do, that we did not hear him at all.

He sat, by himself, all the way in the back, staring out the window at the cars and the sad eyed people shuffling along the avenues.  He sat, murmuring in a voice that cut through the masculine hum of the bus engine. 

He sat murmuring…we all heard him…murmuring that children’s prayer. ”…now I lay me down to sleep…” 

But we pretended, as people do, that we did not hear him at all.

He got off the bus, at the edge of downtown, still murmuring.  ”…if I die before I wake….”  He disappeared around a shadowed corner and was gone, that prayer still murmuring…sighing musically…in his wake.

But we pretended, as people do, that we did not hear him at all.

The Way of the World

Sometimes he thought he saw the boundaries of heaven.  Sometimes he thought he knew something about the meaning of life.  Sometimes…well, sometimes, he thought he knew.

But most times he knew that he didn’t really know anything of significance.  But that was okay with him…it was the way of the world after all…the way it was and the way it would ever be…and it really didn’t make him sleep any better or any worse knowing that.

Sometimes he tasted the sweetest wine…on the lips of lovers, on the tiny fingers of guileless babies, in the spray of the mighty ocean crashing against foolish, helpless rocks, in the way the sky felt on his tongue after lingering autumn rains.  And sometimes it made him feel so intoxicated, so utterly free, that he couldn’t imagine anything else could possibly ever taste so wonderful.  Sometimes he tasted the wine…and sometimes he liked to imagine that the wine would flow freely for all of the rest of his days.

But most times he knew that it wouldn’t.  He knew that it just couldn’t.  And that was okay with him…the sweetest things should always be taken in careful moderation lest they lose their honeyed luster and come to seem mundane.  This too, he knew, was the way of the world….the way the world was…the way world had ever been…the way the world would ever be…and it didn’t make him feel any better or any worse about his place in the universe.

And sometimes he thought everybody in the world could feel his secret thoughts, read all of his unwritten words, sing all the songs that he had deliberately forgotten how to sing…sometimes he imagined and sometimes it made him feel naked and exposed.  And sometimes it made him feel special, the guardian of secret knowledge entrusted to him by the knowing universe, the seeming fool who strode the world an unknown, but blessed, shaman and scholar.

But sometimes…most times, in fact…he knew that was hubris too arrogant and too fantastic to be taken very seriously at all.  This bothered him, in his heart of hearts, but as long as it remained true in his dreaming times…and it most certainly did…he was okay with the real truth of the matter.  It was the way of the world after all…the way it absolutely should be no matter how much he might wish it to be otherwise…and so it didn’t really trouble his mind…except in the quiet moments of whispering and wishing that everybody has but nobody admits to.

Sometimes he thought he knew…knew the hidden places…the secret, sacred hearts…the perfectly peaceful vistas and the eternally calm and calming hideaways…all of the gentler, more grace-filled truths of the infinite…sometimes…just sometimes…he thought he knew.

And sometimes he did know.  But most times he knew that he didn’t know much of anything and he was, only a bit reluctantly, okay with that.  It was, after all, the way of the world…the way it was and would ever be…the way it was for him, for everyone he knew, for everyone he had known at one time, for everyone he would never ever know….and it really didn’t play games with heart or make sport of his head.  Well at least not too much…sometimes…at least not too much…

I saw God in the wee hours...

I saw God in the wee hours of a particularly warm spring morning.  He was sitting in the corner of my room watching over me while I had slept.

“Good morning,” God said in my grandfather’s resonant voice.

“Good morning,” I said, sitting up in bed.  “How long have you been there?”

God smiled…inscrutably, of course…and made no reply.  Yeah, I thought, that was a stupid question.

“I know what you’re thinking,” God said as light slowly suffused the room.

“I’m sure you do,” I said, just a bit sarcastically, rising from bed and not realizing in the moment how utterly unselfconscious I was about being naked.

God chuckled…my grandfather’s chuckle.  “Ever the skeptic,” he said warmly.  He looked at me with my father’s mother’s piercing eyes.  “That’s okay, I have always believed in you just the same.”

“Why?”

God cocked his head slightly, his mouth crinkled into Rose’s patiently impatient frown.  Another stupid question, I realized, but I felt no impulse to feel shame about it.

God reached out…with my maternal grandmother’s welcoming grace, with Simon’s strong, gentle arms…and I folded into his embrace.  God smelled like honey and scotch, like chocolate and cigars…God smelled like Papa.  “Of course I do,” God said with Alan’s affectionate, slightly shy grin.  “You’re pretty calm about all this.”

I closed my eyes, my head against God’s chest…his heartbeat sounded like the best song I never heard…his heartbeat sounded like Annie laughing…his heartbeat sounded like Michael singing…his heartbeat sounded like Eli sighing softly…and I smiled contentedly.   “I’m going to wake up soon,” I said, “so why fight the dream?”

God chuckled again…my brother’s happy laugh…and kissed the top of my head.  “As you say, son,” he said.  “I love you just the same.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, not opening my eyes.  I breathed easily, lingering in God’s embrace as the first rays of the morning sun slipped softly through the open window.

150 Words: He Imagines

He imagines himself a hero.  He imagines himself a victim.  He imagines himself a lover consummate tenderness and empathy.  He imagines himself a martyr…sacrificing himself…bravely enduring terrible pain and grinding humiliation…for people who see, too late, how wonderful he is.

He imagines…he dreams and ruminates…because he is forgetting how to live.

His coward’s mouth finds no words when the object of his lust is nearby…his coward’s heart refuses to soar when the wide blue vista beckons…his coward’s spirit flags when it should stalwart enough to take him into another day on the mother world.

He imagines himself a tortured soul.  He imagines himself a misunderstood visionary.  He imagines himself taken in by grace and kept safe by abiding love and passion.  He imagines himself in a state of true happiness that blooms radiantly with no effort on his part. 

He imagines…he fantasizes and daydreams…because he has forgotten how to live.

the nights go on forever

“The nights go on forever,”  she said with a rueful little smile that I found enormously endearing.  “It’s the days that are never long enough.”

I nodded, pretending she was giving some hidden wisdom that had somehow escaped my notice.  It hadn’t.  I was a friend…no, not a friend…an acquaintance…I was an acquaintance of shadows and whispers; of cold mornings on chilly sheets, alone in the  dark, languidly pawing at indifferent erections and wondering why the nights…like this long forever night…hadn’t swallowed me at last and set me free once and for all.

‘You’re such a little boy,” she said, just a bit unkindly, as if she knew what I was thinking.  “You lie to me but I don’t care…you have sad brown eyes and hungry brown lips…you’re a beautiful liar and I would lay with you…I would make you moan my name and breathe carnal whispers to the infinite…if you really knew what love was.  But you don’t.”

I wanted to slap her.  But I didn’t…you don’t hit someone for the truth…it’s not proper.  And I always try to be proper.

“You make angels out of cigarette smoke…saviors out of chilled wine bottles…you think navel gazing singers pirate your diaries…and you pride yourself that the head on your shoulders, not the one at the tip of your dick, calls the shots when nothing could be further from the truth…you dream even while you’re ‘awake’, why the hell would you want more daytime?”

Because.

She laughed, a brittle, decidedly unkind laugh, and shook her head.  “I love you.”  She looked me in the eyes.  “Or maybe I just think I love you.”  She paused, her cool eyes mocking me.  “Or maybe I don’t love you at all but say it anyway because you want to believe it.”  She paused again.  “Do you understand that?”

I nodded.  Yes.

“Does it make any difference?”

Hot tears welled up in my sad brown eyes.  I shook my head.  No.

She frowned, sadly, and pulled me close.  She kissed my hungry brown lips.  She put my head on her breasts and rocked me slowly.  “Silly little boy,” she cooed, stroking my head and rocking me gently to a song only she could hear.

And the night, of course, went on forever.

The Beautiful Woman Next Door

The beautiful woman next door didn’t seem to know that she was beautiful.  He found that sad…and endearing.  Sad because every beautiful woman…beautiful in all the wondrous, myriad ways that beauty touches in and radiates from women…should never have a doubt about that fact.  And endearing…gloriously, achingly endearing…because there was nothing quite as lovely as a beautiful woman lacking the vanity that would make her fret about being a beautiful woman.

Even in his numb shadows he saw her…she made his dark heart skip beats he thought he would never feel again; the shy enigma of her Mona Lisa smile made him see light that he would never see again; the tender mystery in her soft dark eyes made him dream dreams he thought he’d given up once and for all.

He wondered what it would be like to be her confidant…someone she felt comfortable enough to share secrets and hidden smiles and shy tears with…to be her strong shoulder…when her own strength waned and she needed someone  take up the slack;  he wondered what it would be like to be her friend…someone to stroke her hair, someone to give safe harbor, someone who could trust her with his secrets; he wondered what it would be like to be her lover…someone allowed to kiss her tender lips, someone blessed enough to hold her tight and feel her heart beating in time with his own.

He wondered…and then he smiled at his foolish hubris…she was so close and yet so far away, safe in a cocoon of reticence and mystery and, yes, beauty…gentle, endearing, seemingly untouchable beauty. 

The beautiful woman next door didn’t seem to know that she was beautiful.  But he did.  And he gloried in that.  And he cherished that.  And sometimes…just sometimes…he coveted that.  Because there’s nothing quite as wondrous as an angel shimmering in mortal form….because there was nothing quite as lovely as a beautiful woman lacking the vanity to fret about...to even truly realize...that she was indeed a very beautiful woman.

150 Words: Proverbs

“Slow down…take a deep breath.  If you rush through life, life rushes through you.”

His friend frowned.  “What the hell is that?”

He smiled mischievously.  “It’s an ancient Chinese proverb…that I just made up…”

His friend sighed, shaking his head.  “Aren’t you clever?  If I don’t get this project done, my boss is gonna rush me right out the door.”

“But you’re running around like a chicken with his head cut off, what exactly are you getting done?”

His friend glared.  “I hate you.”

He chuckled warmly.  “I have that effect on people sometimes.  But you know that I’m right.”

His friend grinned wryly.  “Please enlighten me further, Master.”

He brushed off the sarcasm.  “A stitch in time saves nine.”

“Go to hell.”

“A watched pot never boils.”

“I’m not listening to you…”

“May you live in interesting times…”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“The early bird catches…”

“Argghh!”

The Sailor and the Butterfly (a fable)

The butterfly danced with the sailor for a brief, eternal season.   He cherished her…the strong, delicate, luminously beautiful butterfly…but not nearly as much as he should have (ever and always the fool he.) 

The sailor tried to keep her close while, fear and foolishness ever his dour companions, also keeping her at arm’s length…he watched her shimmering soft and blue, a sailor on celestial wing, in the bright sun of sweet summer and the sparkling stars of quiet autumn.

The butterfly danced, leaving kisses and perfume on his cheeks, and waited as patiently as she could.  And then, of course, she couldn’t wait any longer…time passed by, seas led to other, more golden shores…and she flew away…leaving music in her wake and sad sweet light in his heart.

He was sad and happy when she found a place that truly cherished her…sad and happy when the butterfly nestled into the garden she always deserved…sad and happy that she was with many even though none of them were him. 

And the sailor whispered…on the wandering wind…”I loved you more than I ever said.”

And the sailor whispered…on the wayward wind…”I’m so happy that you’re safe and happy.”

And the sailor whispered…on the wondrous, wondering wind…”Please forgive my coward’s heart.  Please forgive me for not cherishing you as much I should have.”

And the sailor whispered…on the wafting, whispering wind…and prayed that the butterfly, dancing contentedly in her garden, heard…and knew…and sometimes, just sometimes, saved a fond prayer for him.

150 Words: The Hours

Nicole Kidman is pretending to be Virginia Woolf.  She’s pretending to sink slowly beneath the healing waters of a gently unforgiving stream.  She’s pretending to choose darkness because the light is, all things considered, just a little too much to bear.

Nicole Kidman is sinking…slipping, disguised as Virginia Woolf, away from the sky and down to the bottom of a gently non-judgmental stream. 

I am watching and I am pretending that I do not understand.  I am crying, hot reluctant tears.  I am mocking myself…it’s only a movie. 

Nicole Kidman is sinking below the water. I am pretending that I do not understand. 

Virginia Woolf is slipping down and the hours are passing…the hours are ending but not ending at all.  Nicole Kidman is pretending to be Virginia Woolf.  Ed Harris is falling to eternity.  Meryl Streep is choosing life.

I am crying and pretending that I do not understand. 

I Imagine Your Eyes...

I imagine your eyes will save me….your mysterious eyes that speak of passion and romance even in their shyest, most shielded moments…it’s a fool’s errand (it always is) but I am foolish enough to indulge the fantasy just the same. 

Your eyes…your tender eyes…will save me.  Will save me from my shadows…will save me from the fire…will save me from myself.  And I will be whole again.  And I will be happy again.  And I will light a fire in your eyes and spend the rest of my days working tirelessly to keep it there.  I imagine your eyes…they will save me.

I imagine your touch…your gentle arms, your tender kiss, your sweet bosom, your delicate but strong hands…I imagine your touch will save me.  It is, again, a fool’s errand (nobody can save us if we can’t save ourselves) but, again, I am foolish enough to reach for the dream just the same. 

Your touch….your tender touch…will save me.  Will save me from my books and my poetry…will save me from the cold, lonely nights….will save me from myself and my missteps.  And I will be whole again.  And I will be whole for the first time.  And I will be happy again.  And I will be really happy for the first time.  And I will take you into my arms and shelter you from the world while you shelter me from the world.  I imagine your touch…your touch will save me.

I imagine your heart…your mighty heart that I know without really knowing it all…I imagine that your heart will save me.  It is, of course, a fool’s errand (a bittersweet and eternal journey) but I am foolish enough to wonder what the world would look like with your heart in my corner.  

Your heart…your mighty, guarded, shimmering heart…will save me.  Will save me from the sad songs and happy feints…will save from the heartache of memory true and memory false…will save me from starry eyed self and let my make believe heart float gently down to real earth.  And I will be whole.  And I will be happy.  And I will save a place for your heart in mine and spend the whole of eternity trying to make myself worthy of that trust.

I imagine…I imagine your eyes will save me…

Gravity

He often railed against gravity.  He always laughed at the hubris of it afterward but he did it, too often, just the same. 

Gravity weighed him down, kept him from just floating up into the azure sky, and he knew that was gravity’s job…but sometimes…just sometimes…he railed against it just the same.

Gravity held him still while his lovers flew away…but, he was realist enough to realize, that was on him…always on him and his stubborn hubris…and not really on gravity…but it was easier to blame gravity so sometimes…just sometimes…that’s what he did.

Gravity kept him grounded when his heart was ready to burst each time his wife gave birth to one of their children…gravity held him close while he held his wide-eyed, open-hearted daughters and sons close to his heart, while he held his guileless and trusting children up high to the moonlit, starry expansive of the sky and let them know that nothing other than that celestial majesty was greater than who they were, who they would be. 

He often railed against gravity.  And gravity, for its part, gave wing to his heart and gently brought his tears back down to the welcoming, nurturing earth.  He always laughed at the hubris of it…of railing against gravity…but he did it, much too often, just the same.

Learning to Fly

Gabriel smiled ruefully as looked out over the precarious edge of the precipice.  He was, as usual, afraid…but he was also resolved.  At long last he’d understood what he should have known all along…trying to learn to fly meant accepting that you would sometimes have to fall. 

And fall hard…maybe to unyielding earth, accepting the pain and trying to find the courage to climb up and try again. 

Fall, perhaps, into the arms of earthbound angels there to cushion the impact, to wipe his brow and kiss his cheek; to hold him tight and beg him not to try to fly again or to stroke his hair and tell me to try again, tell him that they’ll be there as long as it takes.

Or fall, if such is the will of fate and foolishness, into oblivion, into the darkness that waits…waits patiently, inevitably…to welcome us, the fliers and the fallers, back into the endless arms of a merciful and merciless Universe.

Gabriel smiled, his heart racing, the verdant fields, winding paths, and fragrant bittersweet rosebushes stretched out so far below him that his eye couldn’t possibly take it all in; he smiled, the unbounded expanse of creation stretched out so far above him that even his wildest imaginings were too mortal to ever truly appreciate the scope and grandeur of its promises and possibilities.

Gabriel smiled, his coward’s heart…his hero’s heart…racing and urging him on…he took a deep breath…ready to learn to fly…ready to learn to fall…he looked inside his fool’s being, his immortal soul and…too late…too soon…just when he was supposed to…he stepped off the edge…

Graceland

Elvis smiled and threw open the garden gate welcoming me home.  It was bigger and less golden than I had imagined but I felt right at home just the same.

I found some of my friends in a courtyard filled to overflowing with light and music and we danced…danced to Motown 45’s and Bach sonatas, danced to the blues and the Beatles, danced to Joni and Bruce, Billie and Coltrane.

I found my smile in a small bright corner of a warm dark hall and I put it in my pocket for safekeeping.

I found my love drinking wine and nodding next to a blazing fire in the great room while Miles played melodies for songs he thought he was never going to write.  Miles slipped into a shadow and my love and I made love on the floor by the fireplace while the music from the courtyard swept in and carried us away.

I found myself, saved by time, un-moored from the harbor, redeemed by faith.  And it was all bigger and less golden than I had imagined…but it was okay…I was at home just the same.  I was home…just the same…at long last.

Sweetheart Like You

“What are you doing?”

She unbuttoned her blouse and moved closer.  Her breasts…not too large as to distract from the rest of her enticing body, not too small as to disappoint the primal male libido…were sheltered in playful black lace; they were certainly still pert enough to command attention.  She’d let him touch them once…an awkwardly endearing moment on a cool, moonlit night that he both treasured and regretted…and he wanted to touch them again.

“I know what you want, baby,” she said in that voice…the one that was an absurdly intoxicating blend of coquettish girl and humid woman…that she knew worked on men all too well.  “I know what you need.”

His breathing quickened and he felt an urge to press her against the wall…to kiss her mouth ruthlessly…to press his crotch against hers pinning her helplessly…to hold her fast with one hand while allowing the other to take proprietary hold of playful black lace.

But his eyes narrowed instead.  “What the hell are you doing?”  He took a half step back even though part of him was screaming to take an irrevocable step forward.

She paused, looking both confused and slightly insulted.  “I can help you.  I know you’ve been sad.  I know you’ve been angry.  I know what you need…what you’ve always wanted.  Let me help you.” She took a half step forward putting her tiny, warm hand on his shirt.  She leaned up until her face was almost, but not quite, touching his.  “Let me help you, baby boy.”

She smelled like strawberries.  Strawberries and cream; strawberries and cream, imported beer and domestic cigarettes…and sex…she smelled like libidinous, raucous, bittersweet sex.  Many a time he’d wanted to get lost in her dark eyes…get tangled in the soft expanse of her dark hair…touch the sweet curves of her woman’s body…kiss the rosy pout of her forbidden lips.  His breathing got shallow and his unthinking penis rose to expectant attention.

But, gently, his pushed a half step back.  “I don’t want to have sex with you.”  It was half a lie but he was resolute.  His penis pouted and let some blood flow back into regular circulation.

She looked more confused, more insulted, disappointed and relieved.  “Yes you do,” she insisted.  “I’ve seen the way you look at me sometimes…I’ve heard the jealousy that creeps into your voice when I tell you about my lovers…you’ve always wanted to touch me…to kiss me…to fuck me…” 

He wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.  It didn’t matter.  It was true, of course, he had wanted her…sometimes he still wanted her.  She was one of those women that men couldn’t help but want…when her inner light was shining she was smart and funny, beautiful and sexy, laughing and approachable, alluring and energetic, strong and vulnerable, slightly mysterious and seemingly waiting to be swept away and ravaged passionately.  He’d seen that the moment he met her.

“Yes,” he admitted, “I have wanted to.”  He took a deep breath.  “But I’m not supposed to.”

She frowned and looked up into his dark eyes.  “Why not?”

That was the question, he thought.  “It’s not who I’m supposed to be with you.” 

They’d known each other for what seemed like all their lives…known each intimately from the very first moment they met.  They’d known each other through magical, musical nights…through moments of heart-breakingly intimate vulnerabilities, feints and truths…through doomed unions with other people…through life and death, laughter and tears, sweet dreams and bitter reality.  They’d known each other in light and in the persistent darkness that colored their souls in ways most people didn’t care to try to recognize.

“Who are you ‘supposed’ to be then?”

He reached up and touched her face; she nuzzled into his touch, her eyes liquid and hopeful.  “I’m your friend, sweetheart,” he said, whispering huskily.  “I’m your friend…your brother…your confidant…your baby and your daddy.  I have been your platonic husband…filling in the emotional spaces that your real husband couldn’t…or wouldn’t…fill…”

She started to say something…to protest perhaps…but she didn’t.

“I love you, girl,” he said, “and I know you.”

“What do you know?” she said, pouting and just a bit defiant. 

“I know that you need me not to be another man looking to feed off your light while ignoring your darkness because he doesn't want to deal with it,” he said.  “I know you need me to be a man…to be the one man…who loves you but who isn’t trying to fuck you in one way or another…”

Her lip trembled and her eyes started to tear.  She buried her face against his chest and he held her close, stroking her hair and murmuring gentle endearments.  “I hate you,” she said into his chest.

He laughed softly and moved her head back from his chest.  “No you don’t,” he said bending down to kiss her forehead.

She smiled shyly.  “No I don’t,” she said pressing her head back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat while he held her close.

Exit 11

He drove his big lazy car slowly down the highway.  He was lost again, of course.  So many avenues to explore and willfully he always chose the ones that lead to dead ends. 

He made a deliberate turn into familiar territory…the winding tunnel of love…trying to go back to find an exit that would lead him to some kind of salvation.  But he kept moving backwards…back to old roads he’d ignored…back to old roads he’d crashed on…backwards as if somehow going back would lead him forward.  Luckily he still had a fair amount of gas in the big car’s tank and a pair of rose colored glasses to illuminate the journey.

The exits were all marked “wrong way, do not attempt to re-enter” and he dutifully kept driving looking for a welcoming one.  He blew rueful kisses at the yellow brick road that splintered off into four or five branches snaking into the greater Los Angeles area.  He sang plaintive tunes down the blue road that shimmered in a mist illuminated by a lone blue star.

He paused at the exit…boarded up with a single white rose taped to its sign…that led to the road that followed the train tracks up the coast to what seemed to be a verdant valley.  He looked longingly at the exits that led to the desert…led to the sea…led to the mesa where he’d fucked up and fouled out, hiding like a scared child, in the unforgiving rubble of love’s lost offerings.

And then there it was…again…his exit.  The one that was always open…the exit that he always wanted to take…always chose to take…despite all of his protestations to the contrary.  He lit a cigar.  He turned up the radio.  He steered the big car out of the tunnel of love…out onto exit 11…and sighed without rancor or even sadness.  He was going home again.

Blues

He listened to the blues.  People sang him the blues all the time and he listened, out of an open heart and out of a misguided need to be a hero…out of a willingness to give safe harbor and out of a selfish desire to have safe harbor if and when the need arose…and people sang.  People happily sang the blues to him.

People, he found, loved to sing the blues but they were less interested in hearing the blues…at least not his blues.  They told him…your blues are self-indulgent and depressing, they make us uncomfortable, and they are annoying…how can you be a good audience if you’re trying to be onstage?  So stop it.  Just stop it.

And they were right.  He was self-indulgent, trying to sing the blues when he was supposed to be there to listen to the blues.  Not everybody gets to sing the blues.  So he stopped it.  He just stopped it.

He sat up straight.  He gave his full attention.  He closed off unnecessary parts of his heart.  And he listened…he listened to the blues. 

The Bells of Christmas Eve (Blue and Gold)

The sun sank languidly into the western horizon and there were bells…bright bells tolling in bright shades of blue and gold heralding the coming the evening…bright bells singing out the anthems and the carols of the Christmas Eve.

Sara smiled, that inscrutable Mona Lisa smile that could soothe like the sweetest balm or cut like the sharpest knife depending on her mood, and listened to the bells while letting memory flood over her.

Memory, shimmering in the muted shades of blue and gold, giving life to each bell in turn and all at once and sending Sara back to tender moments along her journey.

One bell tolls for Daddy, his quick rouge’s smile shining through clouds of fragrant cigar smoke and soft choruses of deep, hearty, often charming laughter.  One bell tolls for Mother, the stalwart rock of her childhood; Mother had gone too soon but, sternly and sweetly, kept informing Sara’s life even decades later.  Bells toll for Christmas mornings filled with peace and laughter even when the pickings under the tree were slim.

Sara listened carefully, breathing deep the stealthy chill of the gathering evening, as the bells…tolling in warm shades of blue and gold…renew connections thought lost.  Connections with brothers and sisters…laughing and crying, hugging and fighting, filling Christmas mornings with a cacophony only children could create and only parents could find unabashedly endearing…connections with friends and lovers come and gone from her life…connections with children she took into her heart and with children she never could have…connections with the magic moments of Christmas, real and re-imagined, that make her feel safe and loved even in her abiding solitude.

The moon rose lazily in the star-flecked sky and there were bells…joyful bells tolling in melodic shades of blue and gold heralding the return of old memory and the birth of new memory during the night and the coming Christmas morning…joyful bells singing out the anthems and the carols of the Christmas day.

Sara smiled, pulling her plush sweater tight around her, and looked up into the night sky…looked up at the calm golden moon, at the boundless blanket of stars…looked up into the smiles of the vigilant ghosts of those she loved and lost…and she nodded, giving silent thanks and humming along with the bells…the bright bells tolling blue and gold…of another sweetly wistful Christmas Eve.

A Whisper Lost in the Echoes (a fable)

One day he just vanished.  A whisper lost in the echoes, an afterthought that most people he knew didn’t bother to explore.  No one noticed at first…why would they?  He sought comfort in the shadows, solace in the golden realms of imagined nostalgia…he was a beloved nobody, a legend in his own fool’s dreams, a nightmare of self-sufficiency and aching, futile longing.

One day he just faded away.  A lost soul clinging to slippery rocks of love on distant shores and in dark welcoming corners until he let go and let the water…the always welcoming arms to the roiling seas…melt him away…one with the fickle Universe at last.

One day…one day he was less than memory…less than an sad whisper lost in the echoes…one day he was less than all of the dashed hopes and imaginative lies, less than the fleeting times when he was informed by the laughter of babies and the bittersweet tears of women and the faithful companionship of men, less than all of the memories…real and imagined…that colored and molded his time in the material world.

One day…or so the story, told in dispassionate whispers among the uncaring echoes, goes…he just vanished. 

And, of course, the world moved on.  It always does.