He stands beside me with a can of spray paint in his hand.

“I have no idea what to write.”

I throw out several suggestions, most of which aren’t serious. After he rejects them all, I decide he’s better off thinking alone. I step carefully across the steel bars that make up the floor I’m walking on. I can see through them – 42 feet down to the stage below.

We call it the “grid” – because that’s what it is, really. Just a grid made of metal, suspended above the stage, used to hang lighting and curtains and set pieces above our theatre. Every good techie has been up here several times, and most of the actors are at least familiar with it.

What makes it sacred, the thing that elevates it from just a crisscrossing of iron, is the paint covering the walls. Scrawled across the concrete, on every single wall, are names, graduation years, initials, phrases, sometimes even symbols or pictures. It is a tradition that is relatively unspoken – the seniors come up here year after year to make their mark in spray paint. There are names dating back to 1984, 1993, and several from 2003 and 2004 that I recognize.

My symbol is on the far right corner, simple and pink. An anarchy symbol. It stands for Anna-archy, a system of government where I control everything and everyone. Beneath it, an ’06. So they all know where I came from.

We’re both killing time. I came up here to say goodbye, he came because I reminded him he still needed to spray paint something.

He’s still thinking. I’m not sure how much thinking he’s getting done while he stares at me, but if that helps, so be it.

I glance down through the slats at the underclassmen working on their scenes for class. They seem so small. It’s not just because I’m nearly 50 feet above them, either. They are so innocent, so naïve, so unassuming.

We’re graduating in five days. After that, this place isn’t ours anymore – it’s theirs. Theirs to mark on, to play upon, to live and breathe and love and dream. Just like we did.

Thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. All the things I’ll never see them do. All the things we did, the moments that live in my memory - even the ones I’d rather forget. All the grief and the hardship that brought us together. I wish I could give part of it to them, to look at, to learn from, to take and make their own. I wish I could tell them I love them. I wish I could spray paint that on the walls.

I love you. Do great things.

AN, ’06.

He walks up behind me, the can still in his hands. He shoots me the “you’re moping again” look. He can never just let me mope.

“I’m just watching them,” I reply in self-defense.

I receive a half-smile in response, the kind that means “I know you better than that”. I hate it when he knows he’s right.

Two seconds pass.

He complains, “I still don’t know what to write.”

I am not your muse, dear. Go find your pretty little girlfriend, if you want inspiration.

I continue to wait, to look around. I read the words of those who walked here before me.

This will be me a week from now. Just a memory. A name on a wall. Future thespians will come here and see my pink anarchy symbol, and maybe they’ll wonder who I was, what I looked like, what I felt and thought and did. I wish I could stay here to tell them.

I look back up at him.

No. No, we have better things to do. Lives to live. A future to build, just like those kids are building theirs.

Finally, I hear the hissing aerosol noise.

Thank you, muse.

I follow him as he sprays, sideways along a crossbeam on the ceiling. A long quote, his initials, and “06”. I inspect it. Not bad.

He locks his eyes on mine again. At the end of it all, I’m the one he’s here with. I’m the one standing next to him as he writes his last words. I was the one who witnessed everything he’s leaving behind. If I could have any wish granted, I would ask to be allowed to walk with him through all the footprints of his life. Of all the gifts in the world, I just want him to give me the privilege to stand next to him. Now and forever.

But all I can do is wait, and hope.

We walk back towards the ladder, and I look around for one last time, at all the marks left in paint. At that moment, I understand why they’re there.

Yes, we seniors leave our marks on the walls in spray paint. But those are just physical reminders, a nod to our memories, an allusion to the fact that we were here. What are important are the marks we made on each other, on the younger ones. The tears we’ve shed, the blood we’ve spilt, the lives made and broken on this stage.

Those are the marks we leave for future classes. Our hearts, our lives and our influence.

I only hope it’s enough.