"A reason to live, isn't it?" I remember her saying it as I sat staring across the street. This is such a moment to live. I have so much to tell you. I am sitting outside a cafe. It's 8:45 pm and my phone is a brick. On the table are an empty box of matches from Clyde Common, two empty glasses of wine, a single ticket to a 9:45 pm show at the film festival for VENGEANCE.
The old men who frequent the cafe sat at the table next. French in origin I can tell with a friendly parrot named (something) which climbed on my finger and made the appropriate bird sounds. The cold evening slowly descended. "I lost the other ticket" she said as she got up to fetch a jacket from my office next door. I ordered just another glass of wine for us to share but the bartender who runs the night shift happens to be her new roommate and poured us a full carafe instead. "If you don't finish it someone else will."
Dusk is when you can see inside from the outside just as clearly and vice-versa. This is what I love about it. And that I can sit here and smoke your cigarettes while people heading home from work pass us by. "I couldn't get you a seat this time but next time. Go check out the film instead" she said as she ran across the street and jumped into a friends car headed for dinner at Chez Panisse. We had been discussing our project until then, something I pitched to her last fall which she instantly tuned into. We had our first fundraiser last week and this was our first chance to do a follow up talk. Our conversation consisted only of suicide, commitment, and fools. Still through this I'm reminded of the reasons to keep on with the project. When the reasons are unreasonable it isn't good to try and put them into words. The stories around them are sufficient. Many people will never get that. I hope to always get that.
As I lay here on my head, feeling awake but uncertain about it, I allowed my thoughts to travel back many years and slowly creep up to some realizations. That in my detachment I have along the way with careless disregard caused a number of people a great deal of pain. I deeply understood and feared that I am absolutely incapable of emotion beyond the duration of a moment. And that a moment is approximately 19 seconds long.
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