That Night We Ran Away with the River of Lights

Now that The Great Gatsby is coming out in movie form, all decked out in the kind of frivolous extravagance to be expected of a movie of that era; now that it is summer, just as it was the year Gatsby constructed the infamously haunting fantasy; now that I am back here, in this basement, in this room, hungry and pained, once again, now that I am in front of the computer typing in front a familiar screen with a familiar pain in my throat—where has the past year gone?

Once again the room is hollow, once again only my shadow steps in place with me. Once again I cannot stand up straight and soldier on, I am instead shivering in the slightly chilled air mulling over the past few days, the past few months, the past few years that have slipped by so silently I barely had a chance to turn around.

Maybe, just maybe, "tomorrow is another day." I have always hated the ending of Gone with the Wind, because I want to believe in the happy endings, but if life must end in uncertainty and heartbreak, maybe we should still stand proud and hopeful. The Ashleys in our world will always remind us of our painful pasts and all the horrible mistakes we have made, but maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky, the Rhetts in our world will bring us to our senses—wake us from our nightmares and save us from our callousness.

. . .

Is it late enough yet?

Lately I have been rereading Homestuck, since the author is on a hiatus. The first time I read it was last summer. I spent a good couple days up all night reading the pages in a dazed fervor, and when it was all over, I had to face what had been tormenting me with my full consciousness again.

Reality.

I have often said that I write to face reality, because in words black against the white, I can slowly take them in without having them burn me alive. In life, the overwhelming thoughts are suffocating, parasitic, and all-consuming. But reality is rooted in life, and more often than not, my writing is merely reactionary.

Is it late enough yet to talk of the nights spent draped under a thin felt blanket, crying into the telephone desperate for the tiniest amount of consolation? Has enough time passed that the stars are now hung high in the sky, cold and out of reach? Are the bells tolling midnight, past midnight, much past midnight?

Is it too late to retrace our steps and pretend we did not just take a detour into a land that tore us apart and rebuilt us with desolation? Even if we do not know where we should go from here on, even if there are a million paths and every but one of them leads to horrible suffering death.

And if we can, could we still build the world we want to see?