Powdered footsteps furnish the scarcely audible whisperings of settling wood, the hush of unencumbered wind, and the gentle clicks and flaps of artifacts gone adrift, lost to a time of a similar fate. One with the setting, you do not need to contemplate the resilience of the stubborn pillar, keystone obstinately intact; you do not need to see the gentle flutter of a choice few determined embers clinging their way out to the sky in vain and littering the ground in exhaustion, to understand that the atrocity, the marvel beneath your feet, was recent. Because the air runs thick, clouding your lungs, permeating your throat. Because the allure demands hiding and your eyes burn. Because the orange light bordering the horizon is of a dubious source and because the air tastes of ash, and of fresh dust, steeling itself for the war against space that is sure to come.

    The footsteps, already muffled and almost nonexistent, fade away just as soon as they begin. I have stopped. I stop because I'm overwhelmed and I want to get lost in the indescribable emptiness. I stop because if I stand real still, the dust cannot help but to consume me. I stop because I'm not strong. But how would one know? They say that a life is mapped in each footprint, even when it cannot be seen by the naked eye: hushed murmurs stuck on repeat for anyone willing to kneel down close and listen. But how would one know? Let’s say I stopped to put my hands in my pockets, feet placed strategically apart, shoulders back, eyes on fire, observing, with pleasure, a page of history, tucked safely away in the soft folds of a coat, torn away from a book, or maybe two, possibly two hundred. Let’s say I stopped to break down. To listen with all my might against the ribcage-shattering pressure of my own sobs, that maybe it won't all come to naught. Let’s just say I stopped to balance on the insecure beam running slightly above the lot, to bathe in the cinders and dance in that staccato, awkward manner that speaks to life and the painful strength of individuality. To scoop them up into my palms, shower them over my sun-turned face and declare existence, just to spite fate for it's cruel corruption.

    And these footsteps are strong: they tell stories born of imagination as opposed to reality, of memories as opposed to the pale imitation of experience. But while my footsteps tell me that I'm strong, that I am what I make of them, I did not stop for these reasons. I stopped because I wanted to live in the moment, I wanted to absorb the picturesque, to feel without senses, to be these people that I am and am not, who knows; I'm too afraid to open the box and check. I stopped because I can't say can't and I can't say can. This could be a significant moment, but then how is one to know? And who cares anyways? Those things can be of little consequence, I realize, sitting first row as the lights dim, viewing just a little piece of history. Rarely can one savor something vaguely historical and yet so personal to themselves. And so it is that that is all that I do, and the light from the magnificent projector shines on my face alone, capturing a truly honest moment that may never burn so bright ever again.