[1] Never is a hard one. It is immovable, as well as impassible. Never is a solid brick wall, barbed wire fence and guards with guns behind sandbags. There are ages of rust and moss telling of its persistence where it stands rooted along the patrolled barrier of lost possibilities.
But Never is also the dream that slips from the mind upon waking, it can be elusive as well as stoic. In this way never is like sand, which cannot be further crushed, but if you tried, squeezing your hand until it hurts, the sand would only slip loosely from between your fingers grasp. Never is nothing, it is endless, it is murky, it is cold.
Sorry, I really shouldn’t be speaking in such abstract terms. The footnote is here to clarify, right? What never is— what it really is, is the word that signifies the end; the end of hope, the end of possibilities, the end of a future.
[2] Let. Let always makes me tear up. Let is the hand that lets a glass fall to the floor, shattering into shards. And Let is also the hand that lets a bunch of balloons float away into the endless blue.
There are so many things we let happen, that we cannot attribute to luck or fate. There are so many possibilities that we shut out of our lives (but not our dreams) when we choose what we will let ourselves do. But this is retrospective thinking. At the time, things seemed much different. This is referring to the story above, when letting things happen was a matter of grace, no matter what turmoil boiled inside at the time. I held my head high, blinked away tears, and, with grace, accepted what will never be again.
[3] Me. I am the protagonist of the story. But there is really not much to say about me, even though I am referred to in one quarter of the full text. Me. I guess, since I both wrote and appear in this story I should take the time to explain the whole thing. I know it’s short, but I couldn’t write it any other way. The words written above were spoken, but also felt, and also, more importantly, left unsaid. But now they all blur together, which leaves me with the question; How does one elaborate on a story that demands such shortness? A sentence which I can barely understand myself? A thought which floats atop memory like oil on water, marring the surface, disguising the clear blue beneath? That which is still a dream— but the kind of dream that the more you think about it, the more everything else becomes that dream? So I guess— in this way, I am living in a fantasy world now— one where I can continue to add details as they come to me, like adding footnotes to an already finished text. (or into the title of a British novel I haven’t read)
[4] Go. The story ends with Go. (If one can say it ever ends at all.) In our age Go implies speed, highways, jet engines, electricity and radio waves. Go is always moving, changing. Go is sleek and clean, washed with the wind that howls as the car rips through its tranquility.
The great part about Go, is that when you’re Going, you don’t really have time to think about the past, or irresolute futures that squat in the darkness of dreams. All there is is speed, the road and time unfolding in front of me, chasing the sun west as it folds itself into the dimming horizon. After a while I am forced, by darkness and fatigue, to stop. I hole up in a roadside motel. I lay in bed, struggling to find rest in the thoughts that precede sleep. I think about the next day that will come after this wishful, hopeless night. Nostalgia runs deep. Never let me go. Never let me go. Never[1] let[2] me[3] go[4].
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