Folded Thought of the Day:


You find yourself following the sound of a distant music box, 
through the streets of the night, beneath the shadows, past 
the lurking hawkers with trench coats and top hats and thin 
faces and eyes whose color betrays more than a few years worth 
of nocturnal sleeplessness.  

Psst, meet me in the alley to see the quality merchandise.  

On a simple quest to never surrender.  Standing proud in the 
trenches with the rats and your fellow soldiers.  Feeding off 
Government-issued rations and balancing word from the front 
with the news reports from home.  

If you listen carefully you're sure to hear many a story 
told and re-told by the men gathered around the garbage-can 
fires.  Stories recounting days of building railroads 
and forging steel and casting iron.  Of laying groundwork.  
Rubbing once strong hands over the fire, re-kindling dreams 
and hopes and memories.  

Brother can you spare a dime.

Stumbling upon an avenue of cobblestone, a jagged collection 
of loosely connected memory blocks.  Doesn't all of this look 
oddly familiar?  Just like all those places you've been in 
your dreams.  You move through the scenery with a knowing 
you cannot quite account for.  

The seasons come and go.  You can see them all from a 
corner window.  Spinning past in large vehicles, hot on 
each other's heels, narrowly avoiding collisions and 
clipping the occasional bystander.  

Glancing towards the sky for the source of the music.  
Never seeming to get any closer.  A haunting melody 
that must have been written to lure its listeners, to 
tempt their fate.  

Should the occasion arise do you think you could hum 
a few bars?  Would you have faith in your ability to 
carry the tune.  Haven't you been carrying it all along?  
Waltzing beneath the gas lamps with your invisible 
partner, the one person you could always count on to 
follow your lead.  The one who was always there when 
they struck up the band.  

The flame seems to be waning.  Perhaps the air is 
getting thinner.  Or maybe it's just running out of 
reasons to burn.  I've heard it said that whatever 
the fire does not consume, consumes the fire.  

In the dying embers you trip over the music box, 
but the tune has stopped.  So you search your 
empty pockets and you sigh and take a seat on the 
nearest bench.  And next to you is a silver dollar, 
which will do just fine -- fitting right into the 
groove.  You wind that old box till you can't wind 
anymore.  And you close your eyes and listen.

How does that old song go? 


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