Not a word.

[KB.]

It will not do to leave a live dragon out of your plans if you live near one.

~The Hobbit



I don’t make plans. I don’t have a day planner, an appointment book, a calendar, or an itinerary.



I’ve got a 9 month plan. Nine months, 270 or so days. It started today when I got some news I had been waiting on for a week. I decided to start this nine month "process" if the news was positive. It was. Positive. I’m giving myself nine months to get debt free again, buy myself a nice newish (it is a word if I say it is) car, and use some old connections that reside north along I-55.



We’ll see how it goes.



There is a dragon, a monster you could say, in my closest. I know it is in there because he keeps tripping over all the damn skeletons and making way too much racket. I can either leave it in there and let it continue to keep me awake at night with all of the commotion that seeps into my head or I can open the door and help it out. I’ve never been all that afraid of monsters or skeletons.



I won’t talk about the three couples I have had the pleasure of talking with at work over the last week, who just happened to live in St. Louis, I won’t talk about two of them living in my old neighborhood, and I won’t talk about how all three loved to go to a little bar located on the corner of Russell and Menard. I’m not even going to mention it.



Not a word.



I won’t talk about how my oldest friend, a man I have known since we were both seven years old, is moving to St. Louis in the summer to finish his last year of law school. I might tell you about the dreams I have had almost every night for the last three weeks. I see myself sitting on my favorite bar stool, in my favorite spot at the end of my favorite bar. I’m always doing a crossword and there is always my favorite meal in front of me. You should know what it is. The time of day is my favorite, right before the lunch crowd starts to pour in. I get to catch a little conversation and then when it gets busy I get to catch a little quiet. Solitude.



There will be no running from or towards anything. There will be just a slow walk to a corner bar. I did it almost every day for 13 months. I figure I can manage it one more time. Slow walk. I’m not going to leave a place to get away from something and I won’t be going to a place to try and grab hold of a chance. I’m just going to take the long way, enjoy the cool breeze and the summer sun. I’ll smile at a baby and hold the door open for a pretty girl. I might wink at an old woman and show my "dimples". Take my time. Enjoy the walk.



Not going to talk about it though.



Most folks who know me, well they know me. A man I have known since we were both in grade school walked into work last week looking for me but it was my day off so he talked to my room mate. Once he found out he was talking to my roommate his first question was, "You’re KB’s room mate? You’re not worried he might just pick up and leave any day?" My roommate knows better and answered accordingly, "Nah he won’t do that." And I wouldn’t. "He did just get back from St. Louis though and he sure didn’t want to come back." I didn’t. I did.



I’ve never left a place "the right way". Things change. You can’t make a good start if you leave on a bad ending.



It is the only place I have ever lived that I would live again. I was living too. It brought me back to life and I am the person I am today because of that second chance I was blessed with. The blue eyes that I saw myself in. The non-judgment in them. I’ve never seen it before and I have not seen it since, except in the same place I saw it the first time.



It’s a grail, a lost ark, a city of gold, a fountain of youth. It’s a dragon. Mythical maybe. A figment of the imagination. My imagination. It is a sentence fragment. It is an idea invented and marketed by a man to himself. Snake oil. A cure all. A fragmented utopia.



I’ve seen it and I saw it reflected in another man’s eyes not so long ago. I saw the reflection of it as he looked across the bar in my direction but slightly to the left. If it has a reflection then it must be real. Right?



I don’t need to be in possession of it. I have no desire to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I don’t need to drink from that fountain; I just want to see the ripples on the surface of it.



Most likely I will suffer the same fate as all of those other men who tried to grasp at a myth. If I could choose a place to die it would be right there. Then people can whisper about whether or not I found what I was looking for. Hell I found it almost two years ago.





and the story I read was simply perfect and yet completely complex. She was real. I saw her. That’s what amazes me the most....words don’t do the thoughts justice. Sorry."

~Mandy





Mythical creatures have that affect on people.

Kevin

[Clodhopper]

Shangi - La, Avalon, Hy Breasil: the lost lands of our imagination and dreams (and probably spelling) where the White Lady lives on the morning dew and by magic; Kraken guarded by sea, by Fire Drakes in the skies and by land she is not to be found.

It is the searching that counts. She can only be reached when all is lost, or by the truly innocent who gaze at the world with the sky-wide eyes of infants.

[KB.]

I've been waiting on you to show back up.