Straw Fields

I'm sitting on the bench and my breath is misting in the afternoon air. Somewhere in the distance a guitar is playing a paean to a man who left a legacy of love and pain. "You can't stand here," a man tells me. "But I'm sitting down," I say. He moves on. Crowds are milling to say goodbye again to this man they barely knew, that they couldn't know and yet did, because he was magical. Out on the street the brakes of cars squeal, but right now it seems so distant. More people file by, people from countries and worlds I've never seen and never will again. How many of us will be remembered? The people cluster in little groups, trying to hold in their warmth against the invading cold. The wind blows, blows right through me and then picks me up and I'm flying into the sky. A woman floats by offering cookies that read, "Eat me." I take a bite and nothing happens. "What did you expect?" she asks. "More than this," I say. "These are the wrong cookies for that," she says. "She's got the ones you want." I turn and you are there, framed by the sun. Your warmth draws me in, but it melts me before I can reach you and I'm tumbling to land back on the bench in the park, surrounded by knowledge and ignorance. I look up and you're still there, far above me in the afternoon sky. I close my eyes and feel you shining down on me as the page turns. I can't hear the guitar anymore; it's been absorbed by the growing crowd of people who press forward like sheep, each seeking a piece of happiness to take with them, a remembrance of this man who touched them all and left so much undone, and I wonder if that's the way you think of me.