Dancing with the Memory

It has been a long day.  One of those days that you can’t wait for it to be over, but then when it is over you realize that you have accomplished nothing and must do it all over again tomorrow.  Here I am at the end of one of those days.  Which also means I am approaching another day potentially just like it.  When did this become my life?

I put on the music.  As always the divine disc changer knows and has predicted before I even arrived, where my head would be.  “Bad” by Kristy MacColl hisses slowly from the speakers.  The sultry hi hat cymbal, The western movie guitar riffs,  The cobra enchanting clarinet line.  Like a cross between the set up for a duel in Tombstone and a broadsword challenge in Cairo. 

Oh divine disc changer how do you always know?

I lay down in the dark and close my eyes.  The music envelopes me like a storm cloud and all I can feel is the bass line rumbling through my bones.

“Are you there?’’ I ask the darkness.

“Of course I am,” he answers.

“What do you mean ‘Of course?’”

He sighs, he has been here many, many times before.  “You needed me tonight so I am here.  What is it?”

“I’m not sure what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing?”

“Surviving.  Still alive at the end of the day, the week, the month, the year.”  I take a deep breath and hold it in, as if to test the validity of my last statement.  As the tightness in my chest explodes I ask, “Do you hear this song?”

He listens for a moment.  As Kristy laments on the ordinariness of life – look out world I’m about to be bad - the music resting in a minor key asking; daring someone to challenge this statement.  “What does the song have to do with this?  You’re not bad.”

“I am glad to know you think so.”  I not sure if I mean that or if I really want him to think I can be bad.  I don’t turn to look at him.  I just feel his breath on my neck.
“But I’m not exciting.”

“I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

“I used to be that kind of person.”

“What kind of person.”
“The kind of person who could be found in a Spanish bar.”

He chuckles, “What?”

“Meeting someone who would go too far or wait too long for a token of my affection.”

His tone softens, understanding where I am now.  “It’s just a song,” he says.

“Get swept off my feet by a perfect stranger.  Excitement, danger.”

“Not every day is like a song.”  This is why he’s here.  This is why I need him tonight. 

“Yeah,” I sigh, “Not any day it seems.”

The clarinet returns to tell the story of a sad and yet exciting encounter with excitement.  Simultaneously drawing me in, tempting, teasing, and pushing me away.  It glissandos down into the new vision, maybe the true vision, detailing the failure of personality to maintain anything strong or worthy.

He sighs, not quite happy with the song that has been chosen.  “Not awful, not dreadful, and not helpless.  Is that how you see yourself?”

“Some days.  Today, helpless for sure.”

“You’re being a little dramatic, don’t you think?” And although I do not look at him, I can hear the slight smirk in the left corner of his mouth.  Always the left. 

I rise up slightly on my elbows, still not looking, but taking a position of emphasis.  “Funny how depressed can be translated as dramatic to you.”

“Depression does not own you, and today does not represent the sum and total of who you are.”  He takes a deep breath, now knowing for sure that this is why he is here tonight, “Listen – you have had excitement in your life.  Just not today.  Maybe not this week or this month either.  You’ve had danger.  Maybe not with the perfect stranger.  But you walked quite a dangerous edge back in the day.” 

He stops, giving the image a chance to form in my clouded mind.

“Remember,” He waits.  Somehow weaving the picture, even against my will, until it is there, fully formed.  I can see now.

His breath softens on my neck and his tone turns almost to a lullaby or a bedtime story. 
“Remember when you used to ride your bike over to my neighborhood, and I would have to meet you at the railroad tracks and walk you the rest of the way, to make sure nothing happened to you?”

“Yeah,” I close my eyes and turn toward him, a tear rolling down my cheek.  “What happened to that girl?”

“She’s still here,” he whispers.

“And where are you?” I ask, my eyes still closed.

“I’m right here.  I always am.”

And for a moment I think I can feel his hand brushing the hair that has fallen on my cheek.  I almost believe him.

“Stay.”

“Of course.”

I fall asleep into the arms of the darkness as the song rolls to its end, along with another day.