Anachronistic Eulogy

Look out into the darkness and hear the remnants of cities. The faint, ghostly echo of music wafting through the air, carried by the smell of cigarette smoke before it grows stale, that diffuses the light so exquisitely to make you believe, just for a moment, that you are under the blanket of another era of time. Secure in the notion that this memory has always been so romantic. That the singers and musicians will always play in perfect syncopation and the ladies will dance with their pearls clacking together and the men cheer and drink to the night. Drink to the ideals of the Great Gatsby himself. That to be young is never to die and it will not all grow twisted and sour and disappear as suddenly as it was remembered. Fading back into the pristine dark, the heavy silence that still almost rings with the cacophony of the reckless. This is not to say that these things are no longer attainable, that nobody clinks drinks any longer or laughs or sings with abandon. But the hauntings of a time that has already placed its bets and faced its dues plagues those of us who scrutinize too closely the new composition. Beckoned instead by the tarnished golden hue of smoke diffused haze. Quick to barter the glint of one grand age for another. And though one day you may come to lie awake in the ethos of glass and dripping in your absinthe stained velveteen tailcoat, remember who you are. Remember fondly the absent moments as they flicker like marque bulbs and twisted carnie sounds. But do not pray to the dead, the old gods can give you no comfort here. For you are not where you were before, and can never truly be again.