The sun dips slowly, retracting its warmth and painting the lingering, wispy clouds in a pale reddish hue as I amble along the cobblestone streets, passing the once-bustling bookstores and cafes and salons and restaurants and antique stores.  The outdoor seats and tables stand vacant, collecting a layer of dust, pollen, and scattered twigs.  I search desperately for words to describe this emptiness, but find only the surrounding wraiths—the demure woman reading below a striped cafe parasol, her arm draped effetely across her lap; the weathered old man sharing an ice cream cone with his grandson; the ardor of a young couple in the throes of springtime love; the drunken, boisterous pack of twenty somethings; the violinist serenading sotto voce the distracted dinnertime patrons; the Rastafarian loudly and rhythmically clapping along to music audible only to him, the unabashed testimony of his love for Yahweh.  The wraiths flow gracefully and effortlessly through the adolescent leaves, twisting and turning, unburdened by the weight of their past and exhaling a collective sigh. I am envious.

I stop walking and close my eyes.  The air stills as an eerie silence descends like humidity after a summer rain, flooding my ears, and punctuated only by the sound of me inhaling the fresh air laced with the fragrance of blooming lilacs and linden and cherry blossoms.  I remain still, allowing my breath to settle, my senses to adjust.  I am alone, a singular being moving through a world frozen in time, a world where the seconds and minutes and hours and days and months and years no longer seem material to life’s relentless waxing and waning.  But time does continue, the world continues spinning, and the weight of it all seems so unbearable.

I yearn for the courage to abandon all hope, that fleeting fiction that sustains the inexorable march of time.

I give myself up, sinking further and further below the weight.  I yearn for the courage to abandon all hope, that fleeting fiction that sustains the inexorable march of time.  With arms outstretched and head tilted back, I beg God for mercy—to unburden me and permit my soul to depart alongside those invisibly filling the space around me.  

Suddenly, a gentle breeze passes through the fine hairs running the length of my arms like wind caressing a field of golden wheat.  The breeze births a shiver that quickly expands to my shoulders and chest and core.  Then, and without warning, the silent void explodes into a chorus of previously imperceptible sounds—a cacophony of the melodious trills of unseen birds and the staccato of a frenzied squirrel’s tiny claws as they attempt to grip the cobblestones.  At once, the trills lift me high into the trees and the pitter-patter grounds me in the moment.I open my eyes and again survey my surroundings.  Nothing has changed.  Yet, everything has changed.  So I keep walking, unsure of my direction, but certain that life eventually fills the void inside.  And that’s enough to sustain me for one more day.