Sitting here upon a wooden chair at this corner table, with my back against the wall, able to see the door and all coming and going, and catching a brief glimpse of her in those shadows across this smoky room. As I lean back against the wall, both watching and hearing the singer and song – watching as she steps almost gracefully from those smoky shadows into the light, and seeing both her pretty smile and her sorrow- filled eyes that look almost broken.
Finding myself sitting up now and watching closely as she moves from those shadows, and following and tracking her pretty outline moving through that bullet of light. Knowing that in those shadows there are many eyes watching around me. But I am unable to see a single one of them out there as she slowly stepped out, as I watched her tilt her head, smiling softly as she followed the singer and his song. While I sat here half listening to the singer's playing and the song that went on, long, and being almost able to see and hear her thoughts as she swayed slowly in time to the song.

Having no idea why I should have this feeling, as I felt draughts of cold air swirling about each time the door opened. Hearing the sound of the icy wind blowing too, as a massive front moved through. Which has me thinking back to all of those people I have met and all of the places I have been and met them in. And I find myself drawing a blank as I was unable to figure out why those feelings should be here with me now, with the time currently being sometime between sundown's finish and midnight's toll. And knowing that it isn't any use to sit here and wonder why or how I might know her, as the song went on slowly and the guitar's silver strings looking as if they were spun. With the moment seeming to be frozen as I watched her swaying to the words of the song. Thoughts pounding hard, like the sharp point or head of a slick arrow that pierced through me, echoing.

The singer finally finished the song and laid the guitar down, as the dim house lights came back on and that single bullet of light went out. I looked about in those dim house lights and through those smoky shadows in here now. I looked for that girl who stayed and swayed with her smiling face and tilted head, who kept in time to that long song that the singer had just played and sung. While the singer was on his break I got up and looked around, and I looked for her shadow here in this smoky room, but couldn't seem to find her. So I made my way back to my chair here at my familiar corner table against the wall, and sat back down as the houselights dimmed and the singer started to play a new set, and I sensed that shadow to be nearby and couldn't figure out why that feeling was so strong now.

Finding out that reason I couldn't find her here in this shadowy light, for she had played the oldest trick in the book and had hidden right here in plain sight. As she was now sitting there across from me at this corner table, her back to the singer and his song. There in my corner, where I was supposedly able to see all that was going on around me. Her winter coat was on and hiding the light coloured dress she was wearing, as well as covering her clear outline that showed in the light when the lights had dimmed. I heard her saying that it was good seeing me again and it had been a long time. It was a long time since we had been together in here on that long ago summer night and the drive that we took, out to those pecan groves and onion fields when the dawn started to break over the mountains. Out there on that old road where the night trains run.

We both have seemed to have run the full cycle of time - both of us having felt those winter winds and both of us a little older and wiser now. But both of us have never forgotten that summer's night that we spent with the dawn's light breaking over the mountains, when we held each other close in those fields near the pecan groves and pledged to be with each other: always, now and forever. As like with all things, times and events managed to change all everything. Our plans have been filed away and as we found out during our meeting now, that the past can only be held and cherished in our hearts and minds... as we sit here in this place where it all began.

Copyright February 2004: Timberwolf International LTD.