A Slender Flame, A Burning Name

So the world is showing evidence of ending in 2012 I'm being told. At least it can surely be confused as preparing itself for this fate. So I run in the mornings to enjoy the finite sunrises we still have in our account and today I took a withdraw and ran early...long before sunrise.

2008 has reached it's end and drew it's last breath (a heavy one, at that) tonight.

While running Town Lake I noticed several things. Mostly visceral observations that were inescapable. My tendons popping in my knee, leaving me lame for the remainder of the day and reminding me of my ascension in age. 37 degree weather probably doesn't help. Two homeless men sleeping hunched over bobbing their heads up and down from sleep deprivation on the benches of the pedestrian bridge remind me how important constant movement and metabolic rate are to warmth. They seem to be losing their battle with the cold and their breath is tangible and in rhythm with their shivering.

In the great opening of Auditorium Shores stands a 30 foot wooden clock. Lighted from all sides in the blackness of night it stands like a spooky pagan idol just under the skyline of downtown. It's being tended to by a handful of workers who almost seem hypnotized and at the behest of it's ordering and directive, almost life-like nature. It's gears turn and grind behind it's oval face, and it's weapon-like hands move frantically over Roman Numerals. There are artful spires and gothic towers surrounding it throughout the neighboring grounds and they tower above me as well. There are little campfires to either side that are surrounded by it's keepers and ultimately it's guardians. You can hear their inaudible conversations in the quiet, still cold. In time, it will be burned down.

I stand alone and while looking through my own breath, I'm a little spooked by it's presence. It's dark, really dark. There are four or five people tending to this clock and it stands there, like a real-world incarnation of the Clock of the Time-Dragon from the novel I'm reading right now. It's alive. Like it jumped out of the pages of the book I'm reading and landed in Austin.

On the news today, people filed into the park to write down their resolutions and fix them to the clock. Everyone is encouraged to do so. 2008 has left scars on the American psyche and I think we are determined to find a suitable send-off for this year. Write your wishes, your fears, your resolutions, your hopes, and dreams. Your lusts, your sleepy boredoms, your lies, your truths, your demons, your saints, write yourself on this clock, because time is ticking down. The TV news told me today that when it does reach it's finality, the whole thing is going up in a ball of flames. This morning, witnessing it's birth in the pre-dawn hours, I have a feeling it won't go easily, and I won't be there to see it.

In the dark morning light it shines brighter than the moon. Like it's trying to outshine the great lunar orb. Almost as if to exact an ancient revenge from some distant and long forgotten time.

It stands there in abject denial of it's existence as a temporary figure amongst the skyline. I don't think it was gently accepting it's fate, and why would it...set ablaze amidst selfish cheers for wishes and desires going up in its smoke and laying lifeless in it's ashes. It bore little resemblance to the phoenix, but I think if hope was animated, it would rise from the night and pour solid magic on those who ooh'd and aah'd.

A few things remain that I would like to throw on that fire before all time finally stands still.

yawny at the apocalypse - andrew bird