Exhale.

I stink of cigarette smoke and the ghost of last night's beer. There's a touch of whiskey there, I'm sure; I drank one glass and had the second spilled on my left arm by someone who'd had much the same line of thought in regards to drinking.

Drinking is an exorcism; it's certainly my favorite way to remove spirits from someone's house or business.

I try to think back to last night and realize that I wind up looking forwards; mental mirrors reflecting what's yet to come. It's not a refusal to dwell on the past, per se, as I'm trying my damndest to dwell. I don't seem to have much of a desire or need to, and that's as pleasant a surprise as any.

My ears still ring. Ghosts of sounds, monitors at that perfect volume where I can snatch a single instrument out of the wall of sound without losing the bigger picture. The roar of crowds. Hollers of 'cheers' and glasses clinking, conversational murmurs. Singing.

Singing along to the music.

It's a good feeling to know that some folks have taken words you had a part in putting together and committing them to memory. They've listened enough to have taken part of the song in. Music's a shared experience.

And now I'm drinking wine. When it comes to wine the glass is always half-empty, mostly because I've drunk the other half. The sun is setting slowly, hanging low and pregnant over a forest halfway between great towering buildings stretching up past clouds, reaching as hard as they can for God.

This day is full of ghosts. Phantom whispers, long-past moments played over and over in my head. Most happy, some melancholy. All bittersweet, much like the wine.

The sun's gone now, and now the ghost of light lies across the sky in shades of copper and rose and bruise-purple. Some folks will start to think about lying down while others get ready to leave and not return till sunrise. That'll come, too, hopefully -- I want very much to compare this dusk to a dawn. I'd imagine that will come with its own hauntings. In a way, they remind me -- dawn and dusk and memories and phantoms and all -- that I've done well. I've been lucky, and there's no point in slowing down now.

I welcome all the ghosts.