En Memoriam...

Friends. The last day of school. Weekends simply hanging out. Conversations over coffee. Discussions about books. The first day you've seen each other in a long time. Reintroducing yourself after years apart. A game of pool. A beer. A passing hello that triggers a memory. Thoughts about times passed.

There's a feeling you get, or a feeling you remember, when you consider time spent with friends. Somewhat inexplicable, usually pleasant, sometimes painful and sometimes it brings a smile to your face. Think back to that first 'last day of school' when you realized... something. A change, a shift in the dynamics of your first real friendship. A lasting bond that formed in that split second and you suddenly felt older, wiser. When that last peg fell in to the board, the one you'd been trying to get to fit for some time. When what you were missing was suddenly what you had and you finally realized it.

Imagine never having that feeling. Never coming to that realization. Never experiencing the loss when that person, that relationship, is gone. The dissolving of a thread that bound a part of your mind together. Imagine having never had a friend. Never experiencing that part of life.

Imagine never losing that bond. Never having to experience the loss of a friend. Never learning the lesson, never having to realize that you can live without some person occupying a small part of your thoughts constantly. Never having to hold someone to console them, to assure them that you are there, even when a part of you is gone, seems empty.

Consider having only lost. Having that feeling, the other part of your soul, then losing it every time, over and over. The depth of loss that numbs you to the rest of the world. Filling a gaping void in your soul with apathy, uncaring. An unflinching, ceaseless, roiling sense of blase. Unending laissez faire (see 2).

Now imagine having to live that every day. Being in a perpetual state of flux, never stopping, never slowing, never stabilizing. Endless, almost monotonous change, no predictability. Never a bad day, just bad moments but never knowing when they'll come. No continuity, no dogged grind. Just a turbulent sea of events.

What would that be like? What could that be like? Would you want it to end? Would you want it to change? Would you simply wish to cease to be? Or would you just want to be on the outside looking in, a casual observer, never involved? Or would it be better to float, unaffected, in the void, never knowing anything? Perpetual loss or perpetual joy? Endless flux or constant monotony? Contact or seclusion? Thoughtless or riddled mind?

"For in dreams we can climb the highest mountain or reach the farthest stars."

Gryyphyn, out.