[ wp ] Describe something beautiful . It could be an alien landscape , or a person you fell in love with . It could be a gift that arrived at the perfect time and brought you up out of depression . Hell it could even be a simple conversation .

I could never have claimed to stay in the same place for long, not during those first few years. The job always kept pushing, and it was never gentle- always abrupt in its demands to go back. 
 
 `` Return to the road,'' it would tell me, `` Move further out from where you have been before.'' 
 
 Life boiled down to the tasteless broth of essentials- what would fit in the suitcase, and in the small bag I wore on my back. From contract to contract, it never held still, was never in one location for more than five days at a time. The shifts were never steady, from days to nights, and back again. 
 
 I have found it difficult to stay who you are, that is, to maintain an identity, when you're on your own. 
 
 There was no stage to perform, beyond the interaction of my career there was no audience of others who cared for me. The constructed man of cardboard and paint was my mask, covering my exterior and fooling all those who spoke to me, was not a man- but a lie. The real man, behind that flimsy shield, was losing himself further, and further still. That person was dropping deeper into a pit of gray. Every struggle against this, only served to push further down, until even the colors, through his eyes, were dull. 
 
 The man just existed. I just existed. A machine with a mask. Today I would be here, but tomorrow I might be gone. 
 
 Time rolled past, and the machine worked- for that was the purpose of this all, was n't it? Work? 
 
 Life could wait. 
 
 Only after months of this, did the dreams start rolling in. Simple at first, but vivid- always vivid. They were the kind of dreams that left a person thinking about them hours after waking up. They were the kind you could n't simply forget. 
 
 I tried my best to ignore them at first. I tried to get on with my life. This was a career, my mind reminded me, and there were bills to pay; I was making progress. Logic drove the machine onward, giving reasons and motivations outside of the ego. Those loans were n't going to pay themselves, only a few more years and life could begin. I did n't want to think on those dreams. They were n't real- this, life around me, however much I was n't happy with it- This was real. Dreams were not real. 
 
 I could n't afford distractions. 
 
 One night, though, the dream that came to me was something more. As I closed my eyes, quiet and alone, settled into yet another hotel room- far from home, I felt it sweep over me. Before I could struggle to awaken ( in the panic that sometimes finds you on that edge of awareness ) I was pulled under by a riptide, and dragged to a place I've never again returned. 
 
 I knew then, as I know now, that it was important. 
 
 The soft halls of a building I'd once spent my youth, all twisted and turned upon itself, greeted me with kindness. Warm light seemed to fill through windows and tiles of glass, while the walls seemed only physical barriers- but not for sight. Alone in this place I walked, reminiscing the place that molded who I was, before ever I knew what that meant. 
 
 There were people I remember from that time, many years ago. When emotions were manifestations of true force, and my mind was incapable of pushing logic through to hold them; I remembered passion, and color. I remembered feeling like nothing else mattered, and the focus that could come with it. I remembered the joy, and the sorrow- both so extreme my mind almost burst under the pressures. 
 
 But just so, I *remembered* these things, though I knew I no longer experienced them. 
 
 I realized that I wanted those things back. I wanted to feel more than gray, I wanted to feel sadness- even if it hurt, because anything was better than feeling nothing at all. In this place, in my memories, I did feel them. However faint, they still existed here. 
 
 As my mind carried further down the halls, I realized I was no longer alone. An old friend stood with me, her face of shadow, her skin of sand, and her eyes gemstones- they held all the color in the world, but none that I can now remember but red. The purest red, like a flame that danced without movement. Her very presence was warm to my skin. 
 
 We spoke of things, though the words have long since fell away. We wandered places I had once known, and she lead me by the hand though arches and spires, stages and rows of empty chairs. 
 
 *'' This is what life is. `` * She seemed to say. *'' This is what life can still be. `` * 
 
 If a man can truly find belief in the *soul, * I can not fault him, nor anyone else who holds to such a thing, for when she left me and the world fell away, I remember staring at those gems of fire. The color of those so bright, so true and real, it was as if I could never perceive such intensity through my flesh and eyes alone. I remember my reflection staring back at me. 
 
 Sudden noise brought my mind back to the world. 
 
 I woke with the alarm shouting, speaking of things left to do. Just like that, the dream had ended, but the thoughts still lingered. As my body rose, tired and cracking, from the joints and tendons of my frame, and I readied through the morning routine, I could n't help but dwell on them. Those thoughts stayed with me, and I looked at the world as I walked. 
 
 Something had changed. 
 
 The company car- my one true and only friend in this place, waited for me in the cold lot. No sunlight would fall for hours still, and the cold grasp of a winter night still held strong on my breath, throwing out plumes of fog, trailing behind me as I moved. 
 
 The thoughts of that dream still held me in their clutches, their embrace that refused to relinquish control of my mind. Even in the bitter cold of a Buffalo winter, or the thoughts of what was soon to come, I could not find solitude from them. 
 
 Instead, I stared up, watching the clouds float on in that strange silver light. As the wind cut in at my skin with a bitter sting, the moon stared down at me, reflecting the glow of a sun I could not see. 
 
 The sky was beautiful that morning.
