It was the music. It’s always the music. But maybe it was the alcohol. Could it have been the alcohol? No, no, now I’ve got it, it was the moment. Yes, hundreds of them. Hundreds of moments colliding, swirling, devouring and ingesting each other, all combining to create the one. The one moment.
I can remember only the last time I remembered this moment. Tables being turned by the man with a fist in his ‘fro, his head down and ears open reading the room. His hands showed us his heart, while molding our energy into a masterpiece.
Strange bodies surrounded me, absorbing the chill from the first night in October. Every pore on my body open and crying with joy as I tried to merge with the stranger in front of me, halted only by layers of weaved fabric.
What the hands played may have been heard by all, as I listened it elevated me. What I smelled, what I tasted, what I touched and what I heard became intoxicating.
As I looked into this stranger’s eyes it all melted away, leaving only possibilities, revealing that every breath taken before now was practiced, all practice for this moment.
A moment that can never be relived, can never be recreated, a moment that will change yet remain the same. In this moment the quest ended; in this moment love was realized.
Written by Jamal A. Bilal
Illustrated by Josephine Lee