Hello, Goodbye

A shaft of sunlight peeking through a pane of dirty glass, pooling on the floor as motes of dust dance lazily in the smoky light. Sharp edges become fuzzy, indistinct in that weak light, but retain their sharpness, ready to bite the unwary and the unwise. Pandora's Box waits quietly in those shadows, patient in the knowledge that her siren's call can not be resisted. Things get packed away in attics for a reason, to moulder in the dust of the past, a nagging presence not so much forgotten as ignored. Yet they have a hold that can't be broken, pulling back the willing and the unwilling both, and curiosity kills more than cats.

Nostalgia can be a funny thing, softening what was with a seductive yearning for what those things, in truth, never were. Memories fade and blur, lose their sharpness with the dulling of age, and yet retain moments of startling clarity so sharp the then becomes a terrible now. Some lines scribbled in haste on a page, some words spoken or, worse, not spoken, a fading photograph or a scrap of an old uniform. Time, in its relative way, melts away as the mind makes connections between what was and what is, whether those connections exist or not.

Dancing with the Bears on a moonless night, waltzing among the clouds, there isn't anything quite so beautiful as tracers glittering like jewels amid the darkness. Heart beating faster as the music of the indifferent and the damned leads the partners on, dipping, spinning, children playing at the business of gods. An impossible fluidity of motion, two bodies become one, a lover's tango with no beginning and no end, only the passion of the dance. The partners change but the dance goes on, don't worry, they're just bullets, all they can do is kill you.

Staring into the darkness until the darkness stares back at you, an old friend, perhaps, but never a comfortable one. Eyes straining, waiting with a quiet urgency to pick out the faint speck of light, home, as it pitches and rolls out there in the black. Laugh about it later, remember it fondly, but it's amazing just how focused things get when your life hangs by a thread, by an unfortunate twitch of the hand. A good landing is one you can walk away from, a great landing is one where they can use the airplane again. Just another dance, timeless, hook meet wire. Please.

Friends go out, and sometimes they never come back, broken angels falling from the sky on broken wings. No words, no time for regrets or goodbyes, no time for anything at all except the rythm of the music, note upon note without pause. Don't mean nothing, as they say, even those memories fade until only the cold, hard kernel of loss remains, unresolved in its terrible finality. Your enemy can only kill you, but your friends will disappoint you, and who is to say which is worse?

Pity the warrior with no war to fight. The memories can be packed away into the attic, but the music remains, a call the uncaring years have made it impossible to answer. Just to dance among the clouds one more time, to sit upon the throne of God with all the world spread out beneath as a stage, to spin and soar as the music fills you, becomes you, leads you from the mundane to the sublime. But the price of opening Pandora's Box is the toll of the years, to feel the music but watch the dance move on.