Folded Thought of the Day:


The aging gunslinger sits alone in his cheap hotel room,
surrounded by all the gathered notices...a collection of
achievements in brave headlines and mediocre details.
If there was anybody to ask it's difficult to know if
he would fill them in.  Would he talk of his life or
would he shrug it off?

Two-bit saloons and dark jail cells, hardened bartenders
and make-shift lawmen -- he would likely defer to their
judgement.  Resting now in seclusion, neither on his laurels
nor his pension, but on an easy-chair that would represent
some final destination.

Fighting fevered memories of friends and faces with prices
resting on their heads, blurring together in recesses.
At odds with his years and his reason, would the standing
lamp provide any clarity or, when the night offers nothing
but a clear screen for all the scenes to play, would he
reach for the switch and seek solace in the darkness?

Old eyes struggling to see through, making little sense
of the progress, hollowed and lonely and running out.
The world moves on and has little to offer history.
Like some relic in a second hand store, with value lying
only in resilience and defiance, his presence will persist
but will not be honored.  In some supposed awareness of time,
he will always draw an easy conclusion but will his final
breath draw anything near understanding?

Will words suffice?  Do the history books do justice?
Do the inheritors understand that he just always did
what he had to do?  Caught at a point where the lines
were drawn out of desperation and often in blood.  He was
the match that met many a desperado...and he burned through
decades, riding a trusted steed and delivering honest wisdom
to honest people in an honest frontier.

But he's drifting now, accompanied by an old sweet folk tune
that could have easily been written with him in mind -- some
sappy chord progression behind down and out vocal lines -- and
he coughs out a knowing laugh...an understanding that this dark
corner is the only place left for someone like him, in this age
of reason.

Nodding off, as he journeys through the dusty roads of
his mind, in some ancient reflex, his hand will make one
final grasp towards his hip, and one more man in a
long line will fall.


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