Stay: Hanging Day

I walk into the "Stay" gallery and he's putting away his brushes and pigments. "I see you've hung the one from last time." 

"It fits, doesn't it?" 

"Yes!"

"How do you like my new one?"

I walk over to where it's dry on the easel, waiting to be hung. It has all my favorite colors. I could have painted it myself. 

"May I help you hang it?"

"Certainly."

Analysis

I just sit and look at him, elbow on armrest, temple resting against a relaxed fist. He clicks his beak at me, "You look exhausted." I don't even try to reply, falling asleep in my seat. He blinks. I'm not too tired to suppress a faint smile. "It's been awhile...," he says. 

"Yeah."

"You're completely gone." 

"No, not yet." 

"Then may I direct you to the first page, third paragraph?" I dig through my bag until I find it, my rarely used notebook, and flip through it's pages to find the faint words. There it is, the fourth sentence, the one I couldn't believe when I heard it the first time or when I read it the million times after. 

"It seemed so impossible then."

"Paragraph six now--anything stand out?"

"Same thing as usual."

"Keep going."

"Oh, I get it. The last sentence of paragraph six corresponds with paragraph three sentence four?"

"In this case, yes."

I keep reading, but paragraph eight stings. "If only sentence four didn't come without the others. Why is it so hard to find sentences four and two at once? Sentence four was the hardest to fulfill and now I've found it, but I'm missing two. Three just out-right frightens me." 

"That doesn't mean paragraphs three and six are connected to eight. There's some very distinct diction there." At once I wish there wasn't. "No you don't. Hold off on paragraph eight for awhile. Don't forget it, but don't worry about it either. There's plenty of time for that paragraph." 

"You're right. As for the others..."

"O ye of little faith." 

"Yeah, yeah. Rub it in."

"Thanks, I think I will."

Fireflies

It's darker than a normal night, the blooming clouds cover the stars and let down their sparkling tresses--soft whispers of rain that accumulate slowly on new, broad leaves and fall in great heavy drops onto green grasses and weeds reaching their arms to the branches above; the mists pack the dusty earth, and I walk through an active fog. The trees surrounding me form unfamiliar shadows in varying degrees of dark. Fingers of light from a lone lamp grope their way through zealous leaves and trace the rings of ripples in the river under the rain. The yellow light is a faux-friend--a scant substitute for the milk-light of the moon. 

I make my way under and across bridges. I walk on damp trails and mud splatters my calves and wet weeds slap my feet. I pick  through the darkness only by the feel of the cut earth under my steps. Only the sound of the river rushing against rocks or lazily lapping its calm banks accompany me. 

The mist and the fog subside and I raise my face to look for the sky between the canopy; but I see no white lights above me--only the fleeting, flickering lights blinking beneath the leaves. They are ephemeral and esoteric, but they are bright--glowing orbs of miniscule lights. On this night, it is the yellow, blinking lights of fireflies that break the dense darkness