I was walking down the trail with a group of friends. We were talking, singing, and sharing stories of truth and hope. The day was mostly sunny, even though there were rumbles of thunder heard now and then in the distance. I was not worried.
I noticed that those on the camp's outskirts vanish without explanation. With them, only their art remained. Some would become even more famous as the years passed, while others were awkward and did not fit well in the modern psyche.
Towers of song as far as the eyes can see hum with indiscriminate sound. A band of millions all playing a different tune. Those left standing, voices stripped of them, they go on even though it is all gone, the ship is sitting on the ocean floor, and yet, they stand on the deck holding their little bouquet.
Our exodus from one world to another has been going on all of our lives, every moment since we awoke. Our closest ones are spreading the news, letting everyone we encounter know that things are not what they seem. In the misinformation age, people talk, people listen, but just like always, they cannot hear.
Some give so much that they become our rock. It never comes to mind that we are just people. We live and we die, no one does anything else. I wake up on the turntable. The red label below me. I am too small, too close, to know what it is. I am in the midst of greatness. I did not know. I did not know that it had a thousand heartbreaking expiration dates.
The construction of the towers was well on its way on the day I was born. There was fire, there was energy. All of the hope, all of the dreams. We skipped along the sidewalks, ears covered with music, kindness being our vintage clothing. If I were lost in the moment, another dancer on the path steadied me and smiled. I smiled back, and then we bounced off into our respective sunsets. We never thought demise was around the bend.
The valued artists all around me, who defined every moment of my existence, public and private, were being picked off by the sniper that no one wins against. The early ones were absolutely shocking and were the exception, not the rule. Today, I stand in the ruins of nuclear creative annihilation and cry because now, it is so normal, so inevitable, that we lament over our lack of sincerity about everything. Just selfish little children, playing in our mud puddles and sand boxes. We were too stupid to understand that a summer day is but a blip seen out of the corner of one's eye.
Give it all back to me, and I will show you! You want to see appreciation, yeah, I got that. People talked to me and I answered. I was numb and did not know it. My inattention was indeed a crime of ignorance, of selfish distraction. I walk in the burning wasteland of a billion cried tears, knowing that no matter what I did, we would still be right here, in this mess. On the edge of the city sit more towers than I could ever count. A million voices sing to me as I listen. A whisper, a cry, a memory of those who no longer live. I hear them every day, every minute, and always. Someday I will be gone, and the towers will continue. They will sing in the wind, always.
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