On Assignment: Cleveland, Tennessee-Day Five

"En Memorium" by Wes Aldridge

This one is for Brother Jack tonight. Sadly, he won't read it because his Life was prematurely snatched from him from last night. "In coelo quies est"

Jack was one of Us, and if you aren't, its really hard to make you understand just what that means. We are a different breed that most "normal folk" can't cope with, or in some cases fear to. We need little sleep, less food, and more and more and more of everything savage and ruthless in life. We live hard and play faster and come up for a fresh gasp of air only on rare occassions amidst the chaos that we wallow in.

Don't get me wrong; we don't lurk in shadows but we more so luster in glistening beams of Night's starlight. We are rockstars, high-powered mutants, superhuman, or maybe just plain monsters, but I guess those kinds of titles are left to the observer of such beings. Its uncanny that we so eloquently flirt with the razor's edge and somehow never seem to cut deep enough to truly wound ourselves. We've done lots, tried more and pushed it about as far as people dare to endure just to see what happens when you get really close to something you can't forsee. Hell, we all do, all of Us that is. I'm not sure if you consider it a fatalist point-of-view or simply living extremely dangerously with total disregard for anything sacred, but we were never afraid of what could come. Oh, I am sure we all once were, back a long, long time ago. Since then, the innocence and respect of our consternation has fleeted far from our eyes, and even farther from our minds. I think when you scare Fear away, its about as close to immortality as you can get, at least for a while.

Jack was one of Us, and now Jack is gone. It leaves me wondering where I float. If it can happen to one of Us, surely it could happen to all of Us. Maybe immortality is a thing you don't truly gain, but perhaps you can string it out for yourself if you dare. Today I think the frailty of humanity makes us only as tall as our shadows. They grow longer in the normal ways that shadows manifest from the sun, and they are longest right before the sun goes down. In our realm, the game is to let the shadow stretch as far as possible, and god we let it stretch so far, but don't let it disappear. Yet at the same time, we don't grow afraid because we think we can cast a shadow forever. There is some kind of cold-comfort in being the monster. When your eyes dialate to their fullest you can see so much more and then Fear becomes your friend. What we see would terrify most of the populous into hysterics or mass exodus. They would run and watch over thier shoulder just to make sure the beast wasn't nicking at their heels about to over take them.

Maybe its all an illusion, this great Power we possess. It doesn't occur to Us that it might be delusions of grandure and so we keep on pushing it, our bodies, our minds, our luck. We hammer down and grit our teeth screaming full-throttle into the fire, and for what reason? Simply because we think we can.

In any event, the passing of Jack has made me more cognizent of my brittle life-line. An old friend called me tonight, noticably upset. She wasn't upset as much about Jack, but more so about Us, about me. She said she didn't want to get that same phone call about me. It was a sobering comment and now I am left with decisions to make, steps to take, a life to live.

How long and hard can it go? I definetly bought the Ticket, and the ride is in full effect... but for how long?