Ivory
Do you know anyone who is truly alive, the kind of person whose very presence will light up a room, so that it seems to be less when they are gone? They are like a sharp flare of brilliance, like the intense silver-white of burning magnesium that stays imprinted on your retinas long after it has gone to ash. Like lightning in a storm—powerful while it lasts, but here now and then gone. Standing out from the rest of humanity like the gleam of gold in a sea of sand, and they draw us, like moths to flame.
But the moth will still live long after the candle has guttered out.
It is the life of them, the way they live with a fury, living each moment to the fullest extent possible so that they seem more than they really are...
Larger than life. Is this where the term comes from?
He is like that. Laughing, living a devil may care whirlwind existence…but sometimes there are shadows in his eyes. It seldom shows, and they come and go so swiftly that sometimes I feel unsure of their existence, but they are there. We think that we know him but we don't, not really. All we know is what he lets us know-- and I fear the darkness in him.
Oh, he controls it well, but it is still there…
If ever he were truly determined to achieve something, I would not care to get in his way.
I turn to look at him, watching him tease the others with a broad grin. I can't help it, but my mood is lightened by the reassuring fact that he is here, with all his secrets locked away where I cannot see. Not that I want to see.
I remind myself that he is stronger than he pretends to be and will not lose control.
He senses that I am watching him and turns to look at me, quizzical, then smiles and winks.
I blink, then turn back to the work that I should have been doing but neglected in favor of losing myself in contemplation of his person.
I think… that I consider him a friend.
I would trust him with my life.
But right now, in my present morbid frame of mind, all I can do is hope that my trust is not misplaced.