Tend Towards

Dzacomo

If there is a part of me I thought I had lost, or left behind, somewhere in the times I've been to, I couldn't tell you what it is now. Did I love the sound of the rain, or the scent of paper books?

Maybe "now" is forever - a harrowing, cataclysmic, microscopic cycle of a brilliant, fiery birth and the eventual, painstaking, timeless heat death of the universe, but it's in your mind, flying under the sensible spectrum of your thoughts. Maybe it's not. Did I weather storms, or love reading?

The haze is too much. It grows thick and heavy on warm afternoons, and sleep creeps in beneath it. There must be something beautiful out there, and last night I might have cared, but if there's a part of me I had lost, or left behind, I wouldn't know what it is, what it was, or what it ever would be. Did I die, then never notice? Did I forget?

Dzacomo is wise enough to avoid philosophical snares. He says, "I know the world, and its ways, shouldn't be pondered on for too long. If you feel brave, then in the light of day you may muse. Never in the night, however, and certainly never delve. Therein lies only despair. Here, eat cookies and drink cider."

Still, Dzacomo is a wise young man. "Happy is the hand that holds the drink," and "Saccharine lips are sweetened by treats," are his choice of profound teachings today, particularly around table three on the deck. It is well-known, after all, that the wise men of the world come from somewhere in the East, and, being of an East-ern ancestry, Dzacomo's esoteric witticisms must hold some arcane secret for life-fulfilment. He's phenomenal at Cider-and-Cookie sales, nonetheless.

The more I try to understand, the more confusion alights. Despite everything, I am still here. I looked, and I found nothing -- no body, no crime, no sense of self abandoned in the gutter -- I am just... here. Maybe I loved the rain, and the scent of paper books.

Maybe I am gazing up at the sky, on a moonlit night, and casual quips from Dzacomo are falling stars. Maybe "now" is forever, and warm afternoons are calm oceans I sail on, wishing on Dzacomo's words for meaning and guidance. Despite everything, I am here, eating cookies and drinking cider.