I lit a fire up on the dust-dry mountain top with some sticks that I found as dusk fell. Birds sailed through the evening cool with their usual thoughtless serenity and the crickets started up the usual tuneless song. Gentle breeze set the smoke twirling away into the endless sky.

I wondered why you'd gone, where you'd gone, what that meant. I got about as far as everyone else ever does with those questions.

I never talked much in philosophy class. One day the teacher asked me what I thought the meaning of life was as we packed away, out of the blue. You know it's honest when it's out of the blue. I said to her, "I get the feeling that we are probably all just dicking around". She laughed a lot and said it was a very interesting answer, and that she had been a nihilist at my age. I don't know what a nihilist is, but I don't think she really appreciated the seriousness of the thought.

Night began to fall and the fire burned itself out. Perhaps something of you floated back towards me on the wind, and told me something. Perhaps I listened. I don't know.

Gentle breeze set the smoke twirling away into the endless sky. Illiterate. Timeless.