burn42

My eyes seem to wander the city pavement as I walk at a fairly quick pace down the broken and cracked blocks that lay seemingly infinitely down the city streets. Droplets of rain tap me on the head and make tiny dark spots on the sidewalk. The sky overhead is dark and heavy with gallons of rainwater that hasnt fallen yet. I walk towards a large ornate building, hundreds of years old. Its outside is decorated by statues and gargoyles; wrought iron gates with small metal spikes almost surround the base. Makes me wonder why they needed all those nasty spikes, probably not to prevent invasion from an outside source, but to keep colonists from overthrowing the government placed in city hall. I look up at the dark swollen sky as a streak of lightning breaks through the black like dark marble that supports this old building in which he had spent many hours. Every day he would come, not to pray to any god that might be hanging on the golden cross at the front of the church. But to enjoy the solitude and quiet. There was something about a wide-open building, completely empty, a bit of majesty about it he could never put his finger on. As he sat in the perfect silence, he would let his mind wander into the blur of his thoughts. Constantly amazed with the amount of time people spent thinking about other people. Occupying their time with relationships, work and friends. People are interesting and complicated; he never doubted that, they just never interested him. As he stares deeply into the wood grain of the pew in front of him, he pictures the world spinning on its axis and the sun came up over the graveyard just like yesterday. Though this time someone was watching intently, it was the dawn of a new millennium for this part of the world. As he sat in quiet awe of the golden hues of light refracting through the clouds on this mid winter dawn he pondered the past year and how it has changed him so much. Over the last year he had felt emotional highs and lows that he never thought possible, and it had reorganized his mind. The stone underneath him said a man named West was buried there, along with his wife. They had both died at the ripe old ages of 78 and 68 in that order. The young man wished that all the people buried beneath the frozen soil, now covered in a thick layer of snow could rise up, just to watch this sunrise. Another thousand years of human existence have gone by. Well, we are still here. As he is sitting on the grave watching the early morning sun creep across the frozen graveyard another man makes his way hastily across. Hes probably on his way home somewhere after a night of drunken New Years partying. Hey the young man sitting on the gravestone shouts, Happy New Year. The man doesnt respond but swerves a little in his walking and increases his pace. What would anyone be doing sitting on a gravestone early New Years day morning. I keep walking and quicken my pace, every step hoping the creepy bastard will stay sitting there and not attempt conversation, or to follow me. I reach the woods at the end of the graveyard and look back, knowing that he cant see me anymore. Its a surreal and interesting image to see, a man in a long gray coat sitting atop of a black headstone silhouetted against the pale morning sky. I had better get home, the alcohol that I drank with such fervor is still affecting me, and whatever it was in that pill I took could be causing me to see this. I just want to be home now, in the dark warmth of my bed, to hide from the morning sun of yet another year. I wander unsteadily past a fallen tree and can see each line running around in crooked circles along the wood. Like a twisted dance, they spin around and around marking down a new age in the trees existence.