I was once asked: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? No. The mistakes that I’ve made, and the mistakes that others have made, have made my life what it is today. And though it may not be spectacular, it’s my life, and I like it. Each mistake that I have made, and each mistake that other people have made, have all taught me something new. Mistakes, believe it or not, build you, they teach you lessons so that hopefully, you wont make that same mistake twice .. or more than twice. If you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never learn anything; you’ll never learn disappointment, which means you’ll never appreciate pride. You’ll never experience sadness, which means you wont appreciate happiness. Making no mistakes almost turns you into a robot, a constantly happy robot, but still a robot. .. I don’t want to be a robot.
Late one night, so late, it was early, I went out to my deck. There was a pinkish glow from the street light in front of the house behind mine. But it only reached so far. Then the shadows began, the shadows, where you could see the clouds. The sky was a darkish blue, grey colour. Clouds covered it. And as I sat there, I looked up into the sky, searching for the stars. There were few, but the one's that were there, they were always there. They were the stars you could rely on to be there each and every night. Never leaving. Sitting there, thinking, the sky soon began to resemble things. And as the clouds that crossed the moons path disappeared, more resemblance came. These clouds, you could see them, clear as day, when they weren't in the moons light. But once they reached the moons light they appeared, to have disappeared, until they completely crossed the moons path and re-appeared on the other side. There were a few clouds, they were a different kind of cloud. They didn't disappear in the moons light. Instead, they showed themselves, they didn't hide in the light, and appear in the shadows. They appeared in both. Though they became transparent, they appeared. The clouds that totally covered the moon caught my attention the most. They came along, and they completely covered the moon. To a point where the sky looked moonless, lightless .. lifeless. And as the tears began to stream down my face, as they do now. A whole new meaning came to the clouds, and the moon. These clouds, they covered the moon, you couldn't see it, .. you couldn't hear it. And what are you to do when you can't hear the moon? It means you have to listen to the clouds, or listen to nothing. But what you really want to do is tell the clouds to move, tell them to go away so you can hear the moon. And they obey your secret wishes for glimpses of time. That glimpse is soon gone though. Its hard to listen to the moon with the clouds there. But if you try, really try, some nights, you can just hear it. Sometimes, it has a message to be deciphered, and if you don't decipher it correctly, it could change everything, and if you do decipher it correctly, you may not always like what you hear. And when the realization hits you, and hits you hard, sometimes, listening to the moon hurts.
I was lost. I didn't know where I was, where I was going, who, or what, I was searching for, but I knew I was searching for something. Aimlessly wandering for 18 hours and 13 minutes gives you lots of time to try and figure things out, but when you have no foundation to start your thinking on, it tends not to go too far. Eventually, you're left to wander, by yourself, and make sad attempts at figuring out what you're doing. The streets were abandoned, the houses were empty, windows in buildings were smashed, gas station pumps were out of the ground on their sides, many street lights were burnt out, and it was the heaviest silence I've ever heard. As I had seen the town from a fair distance away, I had hoped to find whatever it was I was searching for here, but as I entered the town, I had a feeling I wouldn't be finding it here. I entered the town warily. Not knowing what to expect I made sure to make little noise. The streets went by numbers, 5th Avenue, 8th Avenue, 9th Avenue, etc. Trying to get some human knowledge, of date or time, I headed over to the gas station. As I entered the building of the gas station the door fell off its top hinge. I didn't jump, for some reason I had expected this. I walked up to the counter, trying to find a clock, or datebook, I would go on anything at this point in time. I hopped the counter and scrounged through the shelves behind. There were cigarettes, multiple receipts, a few old chocolate bars, which I put in my pocket for later, and an old watch. The watch showed 10:12, I prayed for the hands to move so I'd know it was true. They never did. I hopped back over the counter, leaving the watch there, and went back out to the abandoned streets. I walked over to the crosswalk. The streetlight above me flickered, and went out. I sprinted across the street, feeling I was going to get hit by an invisible car or something. As I passed a big red brick building, I caught my reflection in what was left of a window. It hit, it hit hard, and it hit too late. The streets flooded with cars and honking horns, the street lights all came back on to their brightest ability, people were getting gas from the gas stations, now fully revived, the windows of buildings were no longer broken, and you could hear the sounds of children and parents in their home, of neighbours having bonfires, and the cheery hello's of people passing eachother on the street. This time it hit on time. I found it. The numbers you want are everywhere if you look for them.