Took a walk on the Promenade tonight, because I didn't know what else to do. I had a candle in one pocket, a camera in another. Casey came with me, and he knew it wasn't an ordinary evening walk. The people on the street were acting different, more people than usual were petting him, telling him how cute he is. More people than usual were acting like they weren't the only souls on the planet who matter.
Then there were the lights in the sky, the two shining towers of bright blue light so square and straight you could almost believe they were solid, instead of just luminous reminders of what we'd lost. You could almost see yourself walking up to the base of those lights, going in through a door made of metal and light, and taking an elevator to the top, up in the clouds, just like in the old days. Only now the towers of light were so much higher than what they'd replaced. So high that when you looked up at the top they seemed to bend forward over your head. They were like pedestals of light, put there to keep the stars from falling down into the pit. The pit that is all that remains of what was there before.
At the flag pole I lit a candle because I didn't know what else to do. I put it in a glass and set it on the paving stones in front of a child's very earnest crayon drawing of the towers. I knelt down to take a picture of it and Casey leaned up close against me. Now I know I make fun of him a lot, but at heart he's a very intuitive dog. He knew what I was feeling, even if I never could have come up with a word for it. He knew it had something to do with the bright blue lights in the sky and the candles on the pavement. Maybe he didn't know the why of it, but he didn't need to. For the rest of the evening he licked the hands of everyone who petted him. It was just his way of doing what he could.
After a while I walked him back home again, because I didn't know what else to do.
