Fall was in full swing on this early morning in November. It was a Friday. As I walked from my car towards the school, patches of wet ground tricked my mind into thinking it had rained during the night. It had not. I looked up as a gust of wind blew from behind me and swept my hood up over my head. Leaves swirling down from the trees broke the eerie silence in a symphony of scraping noises as they crash landed on the pavement in front of me. Suddenly everywhere I looked I found new sounds to add to my melody of the morning. The faraway sounds of the freeway and cars passing on the main road, the careful tapping of some wood pecking bird, the scratching of the leaves, and the deep thump of a drum starting up from the band room quickly joined in. This morning melody made me smile as I crossed under the fantastically rectangular arch leading from the parking lot deeper into our campus, and continued on my way towards the 200 building. I noticed now that, in fact, it hadn’t rained the night before and the wet spots on the ground was merely a product of the morning dew which had lifted its crystalline curse in surrender to a rising sun.

Rays of light shone diagonally across the campus in front of me, falling on the vast expanse of green grasses and sidewalks which make up our school’s quad. Before I could get lost in the “beauty of it all” I turned inside and cut through counseling shuffling across their carpet with my head down, no eye contact, making it clear I didn’t have a question, I was just passing through. Time blurs and I’m standing with her in front of her locker, time blurs again and I’m at the door of my last class of the day. In my mind it’s been five minutes, I’m not under the influence, I remember everything I learned, I just never remember learning it. It feels almost as if I can teleport, even though I know to truly teleport would be impossible. The bell rings and I’m driving down Miramonte, she skips a song on the iPod, we are parked in San Francisco.

Bitter cold wind funnels itself down the alleyway, the line isn’t too long and we are near the front. An array of colors and unique hairstyles litter the crowd and we wait anxiously for the doors to open, and the music to start playing, for the feelings and the freedom we have come to associate with concerts such as this. We are inspired by the thought of no thought, and the knowledge that at this moment there is not a thing in the world to worry about but dancing all night long. The line starts moving and I anxiously study the sidewalk so full of wear-and-tear character, littered with trash, each piece leading back to someone, each piece with its own story I will never know. Things like this are what make me marvel at the world and fall back away from it in fright. I shudder. The wind has died down but it is no matter, ill be inside soon. I hide my food in the hood of my sweatshirt just seconds before the security pats me down quickly rushing into the venue before he can call me back and question me for possession of “illicit materials,” a.k.a. M&M’s. The lights go down, then in an instant flare back up and it has begun. Careful binding of our hands keeps her close to me as the crowd sways and moves to the music. Lights spin and flash, smoke shoots across the stage, cascading down into the audience, over me and over her. I am reminded of some distant memory in which a little more than a fog machine played part in. It cuts through the music and suddenly I am lying underneath my bed, hiding quietly, crying quietly. The smoke begins to build up and seep slowly into my hiding place. I begin to cough violently. Then everything is fire. That’s when the first blur ever occurred, and like magic I was transported to a room of white, full of nice faces and fancy machines. “Hey, HEY, are you ok?” she shouts over the noise of the crowd and the band playing up on stage. I reply that “I am fine, just dizzy that’s all.”

We take a break out in the lobby. Sit down on red carpet, installed by the owners to feign luxury and notoriety. The carpet was a lie, like every word that had ever been spoken to me of love. I thought about betrayal, I thought about my past, and the past I choose to share with others. The one who cheated me of my dignity, and the girl who promised me love she could never deliver… just as this carpet would never deliver stars the likes of which its majestic red color suggested. I glanced up at the clock, the night was young yet. So was my life. I glanced out the door at the glittering sky framed by buildings and lights. I looked back at her beautiful brown eyes. The second hand moved one Tick. Like some kind of super computer I ran through the possible scenarios that could come of our eye contact. Every possible extrapolation of our futures from that very second till the day we both died. Tick. I smiled . Tick. She stood up. Tick. She smiled and walked over to the door. I followed her to the door, grabbed her hand, and then moved onwards into the night. The door was vacant, scraps of paper and Band advertisements blew around in whirlwinds in and out of the cold, almost as if they could not decide whether they were chilly or warm. Time blurred and so did the sky. The stars faded and the sun slowly rose on a Saturday in November and the clock went Tick.