"Memory of Brilliance" 9/7/2003

Along the shoreline of a beach covered with black sand, ocean waves break and break for eternity with water stained red and black. Clouds of methane and phosphorous cover the sky, caressing the forehead of the horizon as it weeps torrents of acid rain in the distance. A single, solitary albatross patrols the blackened sky, his bone-white body giving voice to some unsung, sorrowful requiem for this, the XXth Century.

Below, at a pace like that of the dead living, a young man clad in rags makes his way along the beach. His face, ashen and pale, speaks more than a thousand words of his life. A mouth that has never known laughter or even the very notion of happiness hangs closed tighter than a crypt below a nose covered with soot. His eyes held all the power and feelings of hopelessness that his heart has obviously been completely broken by. He's was nobody going nowhere with nothing to do but create drag marks along a wounded beachhead.

He stopped for a moment, turning his eyes upward towards the sky. The albatross has gone into the distance, now nothing more than a white smudge over an infinite blackness. The young man scratched his head as he studied the clouds and rolling darkness.

"They used to say," he spoke aloud "that there was a time where there were not so many clouds in the sky. That there was a time when one could breathe the free air and not choke on it. That there were even lights in the sky that people could see and be guided by at night and even behold with pleasure. But no one has seen stars or starlight for a long time." He closes his eyes and pauses for a long moment. "And no one knows why."

At that moment, the Daemon that haunted the clouds came down and confronted the young man, saying "The stars that give light to darkness that you have heard of are indeed true, but these clouds do well to hide them, and I know not whither they are bound. I offer you now this single star that I plucked from the gardens of the Third Heaven. If you can find an appropriate and suitable place to put it here, I am willing to bring you more."

In his aged and wizened hand, thrice fingered and taloned, the Daemon held out a single star to the young man, who studied its faint brilliance. Then, with eyes whiter than diamonds the young man spoke. "Sir, I'm not qualified to receive this magnificent gift, and the sky is so vast and so dark that I cannot think of where I could possibly put it." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Give it to me now, and I will place into the yonder top most peak of the mountain over there, so I will always know where to look when I want to see light in the darkness."

He made to grab the star, but the Daemon pulled back, narrowing its grey eyes at the young man in contempt. "Stars belong in the sky, where all can see them." It snarled. "And you'd place them somewhere only you would be able to see? You are indeed right, young sir. You are in no way worthy of this gift, and so you shall not receive it."

With that, Daemon of the sky floated up to deposit the star back where it could survive, and the young man continued his aimless journey across the shore, looking for a place to die.