text: She smiled. That beautifully radiant smile. A smile that could beat back the darkness of night and the bleakness of despair. It was a smile that many a man would readily die for. And it was for me. Her fingers entwined themselves in mine, holding them firmly enough to let me know she was there. I resisted the urge to squeeze them any harder, for fear of breaking the spell. I was utterly bewitched and she knew it. I was powerless to resist. *It’s not the fall that hurts. It’s the sudden stop that kills you.* The strains of music drifted through the air. At least, I think it was music. At this point it didn’t really matter what it was. It was everything and nothing at the same time. It was the perfect soundtrack to a movie of our own making. We were the stars of a show, written and directed by suns beyond our sight. She turned away, and dragged me through... a crowd? I don’t know. It mattered as much to me as a man’s debt does to an ant. I didn’t care. All that I yearned for was to be with her. In the here and now. Even if I knew that I didn’t deserve it. That I’d somehow used up all of my life’s luck in just one night. *But what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger... Right?* Why was I even here? Doubt creased my face with line upon line of impotent sadness. Words whizzed about, shouts and screams filled what anyone would readily perceive to be the air. But none of it reached me. I was an oasis of self-deprecation, unable to move beyond the pitiful cycle of self-immolation. The music changed. I think. I tried to clamber back up from what was a dark pit of ridiculous, nonsensical anxiety. What good would it to do to me to take myself apart like this, piece by piece? *I should just enjoy this. Even if it doesn’t last.* She must’ve noticed something was wrong. She pulled me close, and held me tight. I was conflicted, a maelstrom of opposing emotions competing to plant themselves at the forefront of my consciousness. I closed my eyes, and drank in the moment. The stupidity of the doubts crystallised in my head, and began to melt away. She pulled back, and looked straight through me. Her eyes sparked with the fires of life and passion. She was gorgeous beyond belief, her face contoured and sculpted by the gifted hand of the Maker himself. The exquisite lines of her being flowed from one feature to the next, never ceasing to amaze me as I watched her glide through my vision - a study in indescribable, breathtaking magnificence. *Things aren’t beautiful because they last forever. They’re beautiful because they can’t.* I finally returned the smile, a pale imitation of the loveliness that was before me. She let me go, satisfied that I had picked myself up. I finally heard the music and let it bounce around in my head. It moved me, us, bringing us up and down as wave upon wave of joy washed up on the shores of my soul. I was happy. She was happy. And that was enough. I tried hard not to think of what would happen once the night bade farewell. Maybe it would all be over once the music ground to a halt, and any number of fat ladies stopped singing. Maybe this was all it was ever going to be. Just another moment in time, lost amongst the infinite nothingness of irrelevance. *Hold on to that smile. You might never see it ever again.