The stars blaze as a backdrop defying
cinematics. The lighting's all wrong. The world's all real.
Her filtered breath comes deep. A dot glows in a childlike fury, a tiny voice getting all worked up. Her face is accentuated in a splash of orange. The glow fades.
The cigarette leaves her lips slowly. Calmly. Like a beautiful model with all the time in the world sliding out of a sea of
the most comfortable pillows and
never truly wanting to rest on land. It hangs nestled between her fingers.
Her lungs pour out tortoiselike,
caressing the midnight air. A great white ship embarking on a year long journey dipping into a nearly waveless black ocean.
To no one in particular she speaks in a siren's voice that makes
angelic music no matter what it's used for, "
We live in an age where logic and science have failed us."
She sings, "
Smart went crazy, but where did you go?"
The gears of the universe crawl onward. Gargantuan slothful gods.
Time crouches, puts its hands beneath itself, leans back, sits down, reclines, and finally lays in the grass.
The sands of the hourglass pour on and on and on.
All this happens in
silence.
And I
think.
Smart went crazy, but where did you go?
Where did I go?
I
stood, and I
saw.
Then I walked.
I climbed mountains and saw forests.
I smelled every rose I was ever given.
I kept every silly love letter, I threw away every bill I was ever sent.
I looked at the stars.
I read all the books.
I
damned the system and
fought conformity and the idea that anyone could
make people better.
I told my science teacher that there were
better men than astronauts, and
those men came before you or me, and I was ridiculed.
I told my history teacher that
things may not be the best they've ever been, and I was ridiculed.
I told my economics teacher that
money might not be the answer, and I was ridiculed.
I bought my weights teacher the
Tao Te Ching for April Fool's day, and he
laughed.
More than that I decided that
I would not live in a filing cabinet.
That
man is not a number.
I went against a manila folder existence, and I will die doing so.
Where did I go?
I went to live, because I was afraid that if I didn't do it soon, I might never be able to.