Old friends, indifferent to my feelings, barge into the room as I stoke a fire that I am not prepared to make. The auditor stood like storm clouds over me, calling for dues, making the clocks in my house spin faster than everyone else's.
I walk the gauntlet that turned out to make my day what it has been. I stop, one by one, look my captors in the eye, and dismiss them. Maybe rain, maybe snow, but you know it can't balance or last. As I kneel over my ambition with the desire to resuscitate, I catch my reflection in dirty glass and feel like I need to call it.
I know that is not an option. I hear a bird overhead, sadly singing a song indigenous to her. I stand and meditate upon her flight in the parasitic sky. I try to piece together her journey. There are many gaps because I couldn't possibly know. Then I find an incredible and devastating clue left by her brood. Not only had the worst happened, but it had happened some time ago, and I was unaware.
As I turned the pages of the news, the tears of people I once knew fell into a private resolve, telling no stories, but leaving evidence of their love and respect. As for me, they have no idea the impact this one had on the course of my life. There is no way that I would be where and who I am without that treacherous meeting one cold October night thirty-six years ago.
It feels like a betrayal of the laws of physics. This would-be assassin, who became my true friend. Nothing could shake him. He was a rock. Then, gone. As I let the news sink in, I opened Ecclesiastes, Chapter 9, Verse 11:
"I have seen something further under the sun, that the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unexpected events overtake them all."
I pay my respects to a man who was who he was and nothing more, and certainly nothing less. He will always live in my memory and heart as the man who gave me direction when I did not know if I could ever walk again. He helped me fly, and he never intended to motivate me; he had no such intention. Was it his contrast from what I was told that he was? Was it just the good man of heart that he was? I know that the details do not matter. I can still hear his voice, and because of that, he lives every day. Those who love him do not even remember that I exist. That too has to be alright.
I shudder a little because I just had a thought. November is turbulence for me. If October is like this...
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