In an instant I remembered everything

A regrettable end to a long, accomplished silent streak. Fact is, I don’t need you so much as I need your memory. You, frankly put, are a foregone conclusion, but the idea of you is a veritable wealth of potential, even if it ultimately is nothing more than a conceptual trap.

What am I, but a devotee? A student of a school decommissioned long ago. You’ll find me within its abandoned and crumbling building, sealed inside by the padlocked gates, studying manuscripts by what little slivers of light can sneak in between the slats of shuttered windows. It’s likely been condemned by now, and perhaps someday my studies will be interrupted by an explosion of plaster and wooden shrapnel as a wrecking ball rips through. Someday, perhaps… but not today.

Today I continue on the dutiful pupil. My quill is at the ready, scrawling rivers of ink across the topography of each page. As many maps as I produce, though, not one of them bears the ‘x’ that marks the spot. Fixating, you think? Well, as a great man once declared: I PREFER the term “treasure hunting!” Stalker, you say? Well, as I myself once declared: I prefer the term “third party examiner!” (I could play that game all day, but what’s the point when it’s already been won by a man who suggested a rapist be instead deemed a “unilateral involuntary boyfriend”?)

Semantics aside, a shoe-box once enlightened me to the fact that “obsessed” is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated, and I am nothing if not that. Inanimate objects, however, are not to be trusted. I put my phone down last night to grab a different manner of box that offered its own enlightenment: squeeze, click, change. So, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, clicked my heels together and… sad to say, nothing changed. I’m still a hopeless pedantic.

Wait, that’s not right…

I’m a jester in my own right and in my own court, where I’ve personally appointed all the judges, and where the ball will indefinitely remain. Oh, but I’m not a bad sport – I just like to play. More so than in the past, I do it well with others, but in absence of participants I’m only too happy to play with myself. It’s all about the game. Each season finds your ass on the sidelines, maybe even entirely ejected, and my ass hustling on the field. Me? I’m not going anywhere. I’m like Brett fucking Favre.

Sure, I’ll be the aging spectacle, putting on a show for anyone who cares to occupy the bleachers. You’ve a standing invitation for lifetime reserved seating. And don’t doubt that I can draw. Heck, it only takes me three simple words to shock and amaze. Such is the nature of the beast called truth. Yes, the crowds will come, and I’ll captivate the spectators until I collapse and breathe my last gasp. The fans will turn their faces upward in anticipation of celebratory fireworks, but nothing will boom but the eagerness for a bit of pretty.