Greetings, keepers of stars, seekers of meaning, those who dare to peer beyond the veil of the familiar. Today, we embark on a journey—not along the roads of the earth, but through the paths of the soul, to a place where time loses its dominion, where the hands of clocks freeze, and eternity unfurls its boundless embrace. Our guiding light is a phrase that resonates like an incantation: "You are eternity, because eternity is what we feel, not what we measure." Let us breathe these words in, let them flow through our hearts, and seek to understand what they whisper to us in the silence.

Close your eyes and imagine: you stand at the edge of the world. Before you stretches an infinity of fields, where the grass sways like a sea under the breath of the wind. Behind you, its whisper—soft and ancient, like the voice of the earth itself. In your hands, a letter—old, worn, its lines faded, yet written not with ink but with a heart that once beat beside yours. What is eternity? We are accustomed to seeing it as an endless ribbon of time, stretching from the universe’s first breath to its final quiver. We measure it in years, centuries, epochs, as if it were something we could frame within a calendar or capture with the sand in an hourglass. But what if eternity is not an endless succession of seconds, but a single moment that burns within us brighter than the sun, deeper than the night, stronger than all storms?

Recall a moment when you loved. When the world, vast and noisy, shrank to a single point—to a gaze that pierced your very soul, to a touch that halted your breath, to a word that rang like the music of the heavens. The clocks may have ticked, their hands may have marched on with indifferent precision, but you did not hear them. Time vanished, dissolved like mist under the morning’s rays. That was eternity—not the kind that bows to the clock’s face, but the kind that dwells in the depths of your soul. It does not ask how many minutes it has been allotted, for it does not belong to time. It is like a river paused in its flow to become a mirror for the sky, like a star burning in the night, knowing neither beginning nor end.

Now recall another moment: a moment of loss. When someone who was part of your world departed, leaving behind a silence that rings louder than any words. Time marches on—days pile into months, the clock’s hands move with cold accuracy, the world around you goes on living. Yet why, then, do you hear their voices in the rustle of leaves? Why does their warmth brush against you in the rays of morning light filtering through the curtains? Why does their shadow walk beside you on the path, though you tread alone? Because eternity is not duration, but presence. It is a feeling that does not fade, even when all else dims, that does not depart, even when all that is visible has gone. "You are my eternity," he said to her, and she did not understand—she laughed, shook her head—until she was left alone, surrounded by emptiness. And then she understood: he had not vanished without a trace; he had become part of her breath, her gaze upon the world, her silence that speaks more than words.

Philosophers sought eternity in the heavens, in ideas that float above the earth like clouds. Plato saw it in the realm of forms, pure and unchanging; Augustine, in a God beyond time. Scientists searched for it in the laws of nature, in stars that burn for billions of years, in numbers that stretch into infinity. But it is closer than we think. It is not where we count, but where we feel. It is within us. In how we love, even when love brings pain. In how we remember, even when memory is a knife that cuts the heart. In how we stand beneath the rain and sense that it falls not only on us, but on those who are no longer beside us.

You are eternity, because you are the moments that defy the clock. It is the tears that fall not in vain, but like a river nourishing the earth. It is the laughter that echoes through the years, like a sound reverberating in the mountains, untouched by oblivion. It is the love that knows no end, even when its bearers step into the shadows. It is the silence that speaks when words run dry. If eternity is what we feel, then each of us is its bearer, its voice, its light. It lives in every glance we have given, in every word we have spoken, in every silence we have shared. It exists not in the future or the past, but in that elusive "now" that is fleeting yet everlasting.

Open your eyes, friends. Look at the world—at these fields, this sky, the faces of those beside you. Ask yourselves: where is your eternity? In which moments does it hide? In what laughter, what pain, what gaze does it reveal itself to you? And let this question become your compass on a journey through the river of feelings that knows no banks of time. Let it guide you to where you are not a speck of dust in the hourglass of fate, but a star shining beyond all measure. For you are eternity, because you are what lives in the heart, not what perishes beneath the ticking of clocks. May this thought linger with you, like a light that does not fade, like a river that flows through all things.

Professor Victoria. 2025.

Lucius and the woman passed the bottle back and forth three times before the shouting started. Angry male voice cutting through twilight. Heavy footsteps.

"The fuck is this?"

Raiders jacket from the gas station. Face twisted with suspicion. Eyes darting between the woman and Lucius.

She flinched. Not surprised. Just resigned.

"Just talking," she said, voice small. Twenty-seven, maybe, but sounding younger under his glare.

"Just talking," Raiders jacket mimicked, high-pitched, mocking. "With some fucking bum behind a liquor store."

"It's not—"

He grabbed her arm, yanked her close. "I been looking for you for an hour."

"Sorry."

"Sorry don't cut it." His fingers dug deeper. "Get in the car."

She handed the bottle back to Lucius, wouldn't meet his eyes. Let herself be pulled toward the parking lot.

A small sound escaped her. Not a scream or a call for help. Just a whimper. Like a dog that's been kicked too many times.

Something stirred in Lucius. Not chivalry. Not heroism. Just an echo. His sister's face when Marzetti's guys came around. That same resignation.

Lucius stood, brushed off his jeans. Time to go. Not his fight. Not his woman. Just another night in the city.

He walked toward the alley mouth, opposite direction from them.

"Where you think you're going?" Raiders jacket called after him. "You think I didn't see you with my girl?"

Lucius didn't turn. "Nobody's with your girl, man."

"The fuck you say to me?"

Footsteps behind him. Fast. Lucius half-turned.

Raiders jacket's fist caught him in the temple. White flash. Knees buckling.

"Think you're some kind of hero?" Another blow, glancing off Lucius's shoulder as he fell. "Think you're gonna save her?"

Concrete hard against Lucius's palms. Then weight on his back. Raiders jacket straddling him, breath hot with beer and rage.

"Nobody wants to be saved from me." His fist connected with the back of Lucius's head.

Lucius twisted, bucked, threw the larger man off balance. Rolled. Got halfway to his feet before a boot caught his ribs.

Air exploded from his lungs. Can't breathe. Can't think.

But instinct remained. Prison yard instinct. Skid row instinct. Survival.

Lucius grabbed the ankle before it could retract, yanked. Raiders jacket stumbled. Advantage enough for Lucius to scramble up, back against the wall.

"Just walk away, man," Lucius wheezed. "We got no problem."

"Talking to my girl is a problem." Raiders jacket advanced. "Sharing a bottle is a problem."

The woman stood frozen by the dumpsters. "Mike, please—"

"Shut up." He didn't look at her. Eyes locked on Lucius.

Mike lunged. Wild haymaker that Lucius slipped. But the follow-up connected—knuckles to cheekbone. Copper taste in mouth.

Lucius ducked another swing. His hand found the plastic trash can lid. Heavy-duty commercial grade. Like a shield in his grip.

Mike's next punch glanced off plastic. Confusion crossed his face. The lid wasn't part of the script he'd planned.

Lucius blocked another blow. Then another. Mike growing frustrated, swings wider, wilder.

An opening. Lucius stepped in, swung the lid like a frisbee. Edge caught Mike across the bridge of the nose. Cartilage gave with a wet snap.

Blood. Immediate. Dramatic. Mike stumbled back, hands flying to his face.

"You broke my fucking nose!" Disbelief through bloodied fingers.

Sirens in the distance. Getting closer.

Mike looked toward the sound, then back at Lucius. Calculation behind the rage. Then decision.

He charged, blood-slick hands reaching. Both men went down hard. Rolling in garbage and gravel.

Lucius got on top. Raised the lid again. Brought it down.

Sirens louder. Flashers painting the alley walls blue-red-blue.

"POLICE! BREAK IT UP!"

Voices. Footsteps. Hands grabbing Lucius from behind. Pulling him off. He didn't resist.

Two uniforms. Young guys. One for each fighter.

"He attacked me," Mike said through the blood. "Crazy homeless guy."

The woman stepped forward. "That's not what happened. Mike came at him first."

Mike's eyes flashed murder. "Shut your mouth, Angie."

"Both of you on the ground," the taller cop ordered. "Hands behind your backs."

Plastic zip ties. Cold against wrists. The ritual of arrest. Familiar to Lucius.

"You got ID?" the cop asked Lucius while patting him down.

Lucius nodded toward his pocket. "Wallet."

The cop checked it. "Lucius Taylor." Into his radio: "Run Lucius Taylor, DOB 6-15-89."

The reply crackled back. Lucius couldn't hear it.

Mike's ID produced different results. The cop's eyebrows raised.

"Michael Vasquez. Outstanding warrant for assault from San Bernardino County."

Mike's cursing turned the air blue.

The woman—Angie—moved closer to the officer holding Lucius. "He didn't do anything wrong. Mike started it. I saw the whole thing."

"You're a lying bitch," Mike snarled. "After everything I done for you."

"Step back, ma'am," the officer told Angie. Then to Lucius: "You're being detained for disorderly conduct and public fighting."

"What about him?" Lucius jerked his head toward Mike.

"He's going in too. Plus the warrant."

They were led to separate cruisers. Angie followed Lucius and his officer.

"I'll testify," she said. "It was self-defense."

The cop's face remained neutral. "You can make a statement at the station."

"Will that help him?"

"That's for the judge to decide."

The cruiser's back seat smelled of vomit and despair. Door closed with the heavy finality of cell doors. Through the window, Lucius saw Angie standing in the blue-red wash of emergency lights. She raised a hand—half-wave, half-salute.

Behind her, in the other cruiser, Mike glared hatred through the glass.

The engine started. Radio squawked. The alley and the girl and the night disappeared as they pulled away.

The way we consume,

is one way I could describe the way a sour stomach might churn and twist from eating something foul.

Because every day the life within humanity eats the same old rancid bowl.

Decay, conflict, inner and outer intricacies dance with the line of moral balances. Here we might come to consume, to consume the outer things while our worldly being eats from the table of poison.

Nothing can save me from within, from the moral decay I'm in.

There is one way I could describe it. The way that humanity makes me feel like I'm tearing myself apart to live within it, when I am just as much it as it it is me.

We break bread over a broken filthy table, eat, and eat from the food we pull from within.

The spoils of war, the spoils of all from glittering inedible apples of foam to the heart retching screams of those behind walls.

We are the eaters,

the ones who dress this table with our fruits born of poison.

Is there no place where we don't all taint the ones we bring to our dinner?

Or is dinner the place where we carve up and open the things that were never meant to be there?

Hell. I think I might have been on the table, once or twice.

Have I spilled enough innocent meat to spoil it all? Or is it customary to serve each other rancid meals?

But we consume, consume in the ways that make us all very poorly ill.

Where is the sake of morality when humans live for the thrill? For the forks we slam butted ends to tables, marking and marring the wood.

Are we all but fickle beings, of flesh and bones until we fall to the wicker wood?

"Burn the corpse,

eat the flesh."

Either way, it all looks so unreal from behind the glass,

of the house made with plastic.

And I might put my eyes to the outside, and stare from within,

wondering how I managed to sneak away from the poison table.

Because where within, within me rots, the parts I cannot get back...

The parts where the public all dined in.

On my bleeding body,

Where all would.

Pinch.

Skirt between thumb and forefinger.

A bent knee,

a closed eye.

Spin, spin round on a ball of flesh tonight.

We shall spin around,

round and round until the lights dance above us.

Oh so high.

Kirei.

Kirei.

Kirei. Kirei. Kirei.

One hand up,

one leg tucked against the tipping top.

A kick to propel,

and she spins round and round.

Kirei.

Kirei. Kirei. Kirei.

Kirei nikaiten suru.

If only you know the beauty in the delicacy of the dance that we do.

Death is the city of black.

Like light faded veils of black coating glittering white and yellow lights.

Of the city, we can only believe that it gives its very best.

Whether at your or my behest, it is the city's, of the city's, the no shi no.

Yes.

Because death is the city of black, no shi no. No more mine than yours.

My hair is black again.

If the lighting of the room had any tricks to play,

it might be here.

Telling me fibs, like my hair goes from brown to black.

Sleek... slender, snake-like black.

If only I could read my hair like the color that drains from my eyes when I'm feeling particularly starved.

Like the rain in the sky, and the land I stare at, that reflects back in my eye.

If only I could read my body, like the way I perceive myself in the mirror with my mind's eyes.

Narrow... Pale. Barely brown, with eyes that look as black as pitch.

You almost couldn't tell they were brown,

like the lighting of the room had tricks to play on you and me.

Like the demon within, is only waiting to play.

But my hair is black again.

I wonder who's staring at me in the mirror.

The deals we make when we're under pressure.push comes,push shoves.

Elbow room,next to leg room.Missing body pieces,in an anatomical museum.

Used joints and limbs.Choose your member.

Do you like sports?We have a great deal on a used tennis Elbow.

Do you like music?

We have a brand new hip hop disc.

I did hurt myself on the dance floor.

Well I recommend this disc so you can let your back bone slide.

I like music and sports.

Do you have any southpaws available?

Who's your favourite musician?

Michael Jackson.

Whose your favourite athlete?

Billie Jean King.

That's very interesting,this might work.

What might work?

Do you see the connection?

Billie Jean and Billie Jean King.

This can be doable.

How would you like two different parts,a new part and an older part?

A new part and an old part!?

What part of Michael Jackson would you like?

I would like his left hand.

I'm not sure if he has a left hand,he always wore a glove.

How about Billie Jean kings left hand?

I think she's still alive,that wouldn't be a good idea.

What about a different body part?

As you can see,I only need a left hand.

To take a rest or to suffer without one,

That's the question.

I wish it was easy to refill the bottle of soul that's inside us,

To keep writing,

To keep making memories,

To keep smiling,

And to keep dreaming.

But everything comes at a price in life.

To take some time away from all of it,

Dreams,

Art,

People,

Uncreated memories,

The outcome varies.

You might get what you want from it.

But you might also lose things when you're trying to shut your soul down to rest.

People might leave you.

Dreams will fade.

Skills might damage.

But there might also be a dim light once you refill that bottle,

Your change in perspective can help you create more and better things.

Your calm after surviving the inner storm will help you in your relationship with the people around you.

And that dream that is so, so far might just be reachable.

To take a rest or to suffer without one,

A gamble every human takes,

For the never-ending journey of a human

Until a new one begins,

When we shut our eyes forever in this life,

And wait for the memories to play.

the way of life, as sailing ships

everything enroute...

cumulous, and sands of beach

our vitrification, of porcelain

and imported teas

the winding pattern

of current and thinking

surely, in this we are skilled