gray

"I'm scared," I said to Egan.

"Scared? Of what?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. I held out my arm, and studied it, and watched it turn gray. "Everything's changing," I said.

"That's what everything does," said Egan.

Egan is wise. But wisdom is easy. It's fearlessness that's hard. It's belief that isn't so easy. It's knowing.

"It's gray," I said. We looked around. We stood on an immense rug, a tapestry of grays and whites, blacks and charcoals. The rug surrounded us on all sides, and above us, and before us it tapered into a point, and behind us it spread off into the immeasurable distance. We stood near the point of an infinite cone.

"It isn't gray," said Egan, and he pointed away from the point, off into the looming distance. I turned to see behind me, and he was right: the threads of the rug took on many colors: fiery reds, brilliant yellows, deep greens, serene blues. But as they neared the point, they faded, and became uniform, and dull, and gray.

In the distance I saw patterns. Dancing shapes and pictures, movement in color. Behind me all was alive, and vibrant, and motion. Before me was a point, and it was gray.

"Watch," said Egan. He took a few steps behind me, and toward the open end of the cone, and he became color. Variety shone from him. I gasped in awe. He took a few opposing steps, and rerturned to where he had stood, and became gray.

I looked down at my arm, at its dull grayness, and swung it in a wide arc until it pointed off behind. As it moved toward the open vastness, it gained color, and when it pointed opposite the point, it glared brilliance. I could not look at it and shielded my eyes, or tried to, because my other arm was just as bright. There was nothing to do but about-face.

As I turned, I caught a flash of something. A beam of light, shining into my mind. Egan noticed my notice, and smiled.

"You see it?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "it's coming from the point. Let me have a look."

Egan shook his head. "No, I don't think that's wise," he said.

"Nonsense," I said, and brushed him aside to reach the point of the infinite cone. I got as close as I could, and squatted down to be eye to eye with the beam of light. I closed one eye, and opened wide the other, and peered through the hole.

...

I stood facing the mirror, and Margie peered back at me.

"You're getting old," she giggled, and pointed at my head. It was true, I was getting old. I'd sprouted some gray in the last two years. Three hairs on the head that I could see, and two in the beard. Keeping track of my gray was my vain pastime. I'd made many promises to myself over the years, and kept few of them. One was that should I gray, I'd shave myself bald rather than suffer the indignity of age at a young age. Like so many of my other promises, this one I did not keep.

And good that I did not. With the gray hairs had come some small feathers of wisdom, enough to understand my gray in better context. When I told myself I'd never grow old, and that I'd hide my shame if I did, I lacked so much of what I have now.

"Mostly," said Margie, "you lacked me."

"That's true," I said, and it was. I didn't fear age back then, not age itself. I feared unaccomplished mortality, a death without impact. The termination of a life, pointless. Gray would bring me one step closer to all that, and I wanted no such inescapable reminders of my failures in life.

But I was young.

"That was two whole years ago!" laughed Margie.

"Yes," I said, smiling back at her. "Quite a long time."

"But you figured it out since then?" she asked.

"Oh yes," I said, "and a lot more besides."

"Really?" said Margie, unconvinced. "Then what's all that?" She pointed behind me. I turned to look and saw that I still stood upon the infinite cone of thread, brightly coloring off into the measureless distance, ever expanding, ever in motion.

I turned back to look into the mirror at Margie, and saw that she had turned to gray, drained of all her colors. "That's easy," I said. "That's life."

"Yours?" she asked.

"Mine," I said. "All of them. Not just my one, but all of them. Infinities upon infinities of lifetimes, lived differently. Different choices made, different steps taken, different paths engaged."

"It sure is bright," she said.

"It sure is," I said. All those opportunities, all those choices, leading so many different ways around the sides, but moving forward, all leading to one place. So much I could see behind me, so many choices, so many ways to be, so much movement and dance, but before me, only one thing.

Only Margie.

"Do you know where you are?" asked Margie.

"Oh yes," I said.

Margie opened her eyes wide.

...

I turned away from hole at the point and looked back at Egan.

"What did you see?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "I can't see anything beyond."

"So there's nothing beyond this point?" he asked.

"Oh no," I said, smiling. "There's more beyond this point than there is behind you, more colors and brightness and movement and fire than all the infinite threads that converge here."

"How do you know?" asked Egan. "What of all this gray?"

"The gray," I said, "allows us to look back and see the brightness. Were it not for the gray, we'd miss out on what lay behind."

Egan nodded.

"And were it not for the gray," I said, "we could not imagine what brightness lies beyond the point."

"Ah," said Egan. "So you do not, after all, know what lies beyond? You only imagine?"

I smiled. "My friend," I said, "I have earned all this gray with a realization: there need be no difference between what we imagine and what is real."

Egan laughed and asked, "so you know where you are?"

"50 days," I said.