Then that same song played on my radio. The radio that plays discs that allow you to program them to repeat. I played that song all night long. I played it as I wept. The velocity of the song kept those living in my house from hearing me. They slept like they haven't in years, dreaming about things they will forget in the morning. I won't get to forget mine.
The notes alone crush my stomach. It reminds me of when we were kids. We did crazy things. Things I don't believe anyone ever has done in the history of the world and that was the point. We faked being in a mainstream band to a Total gas station clerk every night when we went in for pre-fishing coffee. He thought we were so cool. He may have even believed the things we told him. We shot ducks with blow darts by luring them in with bags of popcorn. The darts would fall to the ground and the ducks would flee to safety. We would drive around talking and the whole world would go away without a trace. It would be me and you two on the grid. In our minds, this was all life needed to be. I believe that would still be enough for him to stay here. But those times are gone and he never really got a chance to adjust.
I have nothing practical to offer tonight, just abstract descriptions of what you have been through before too. My hope is that you go back while reading. For me, life was in them. I didn't have one apart from them. They were what God gave me to survive. They were Christ in the form of two innocent, yet dead end kids...just like me. We recognized it in each other immediately. This blank stare, this longing for something we could never have. We could reach, but never touch it. But we were innocent all the same. We were just kids. Kids shouldn't turn out this way. No kid should grow up and lose hope in life. No kid should choose lifelong sabotage over happiness. No kid should spend the nights wishing everything was just like it used to be while keeping all the beauty he has now. But this is the way of the Dead End Kids. We knew when we built those rockets that they could only go so high before fizzling out and falling to the very same ground that launched them.
I am not finished grieving. Every few weeks when I think things are getting better, I am flooded with everything he was. I am overcome with the ghosts we left behind, still repeating their joy and their folly.
Photo credit to: http://umayumay.deviantart.com
Sing.
Migrate.
Thanks for reading...Z
