EVER PRESENT NOW - PART VI - The End

Someone told him his name, but a curious thing happened. He forgot it almost as soon as it was spoken. Words came to him in the great torrent in which they always come. People complained, lamented, cried, laughed, told him their dirty jokes, but they went in one ear, lingered around his brain for a few tantalizing instants, and then departed like a soothing breeze. In fact, he compared everything that came past the bow of his self to some meteorological simile: that disappointment will pass like a wind; this joy is as fleeting as spring rain; this pain will go away like a sudden summer storm. There was just an ever-present-now, brought to him courtesy of a wave and a boulder. But what did it matter? Wasn’t this present wonderful.

He looked out at his friends: Sam, Sally, Derick, Gary, Laura. They were all young and hopeful. Their bodies were taut. Their hair was long, tangled, unkempt. The road to the future was abstract and unfilled, and of course the path that hasn’t been followed has yet to deliver any displeasure. There was just sunlight and a long day. And despite all this, he began to cry. He cried from the beauty of it; even though he knew that this too would pass; that both the beauty and the crying would trickle away.