Long Time Gone

   "It's been a long...", sounded the words as he paused a moment to think about what he was saying, then he continued to imagine sitting in a chair, playing an electric Fender guitar in the middle of a dimly lit stage, where the light - a soft, smokey bluish-grey, silhouetted his performance. And then he repeated the verse which he'd started a moment ago, "It's been a long ... time coming." He thought of Woodstock in the Sixties, and how his raspy voice would vibrate as it came forth from their acoustic chords. Snapshots of dreamy images flashed throughout his mind. The neurons were connecting correctly that night. They flashed ever so brighter and caught each other's signal like an overwhelming onslaught on an unsuspecting, innocent nerve, bare and open to any attack. 'Here I am!' being communicated simultaneously, instantly and triumphantly. They have found their purpose - those quirky little brain cells.

   He had stopped playing and words were no longer being heard. He lad lost himself in the song.

   That was twelve years ago. The eight by ten square foot room, which has housed his simple life for the past for few years, now suddenly appeared in focus. He was sitting back in his office, fading away slightly more easier than most people he has known. The fighting colours of blood red and midnight black no longer shade the picture of his life, the emotional battle is being erased and the white flag waves for the last time in salute of surrender. The other side has won.

   "Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity...", and with the change of venue, the ego over took the self. It was now entirely about him, his feelings and his life. No one was more important. He was at the center of his reality where the reality was him. Expanding to now encompass social thinking and public opinion over the past forty years, he thought of the nuclear family, smiled briefly at the ignorance and arrogance of George W. Bush, and thought about how it slowly grew apart, transformed into individual greed and egotistical, needful ideology. The family is now singular. He was special. He was unique and was now, utterly alone.

   You need someone. She needed sunshine. He wasn't it. He was done with the good. Or maybe this was simply a perception of his imagination. The real and the imaginary, and the line which defines them, are constantly re-invented anew, being re-drawn and re-positioned increasingly more frequent over time. A real life is with people and in the now. The meaning to oppose still stands firm, the false life is with past technology. The machine is about to crash. Playing the same game, night after night until it becomes year after year, and never achieving any true purpose, forced the rider to ride again.


   Amen and God Bless (translated to Kellyan - let all there is shine upon you and light the way on the path to your dreams)