On Hold (Part II)

I think the greatest part of being on hiatus, so to speak, is that one gets the chance to savour moments you would never have been able to enjoy while working. The best moments, aside from the long walks and sheer pleasure of being able to do stuff at any time of the day, have been with old friends made new.

I've been able to meet people I've hardly been able to sit around and chat with for years; valued friendships have been re-established, with unicorns and strange poets, with ladies and laddies, with food and drink. My life is richer now.

It's like cold-drip coffee. You let the vital aromas and essences leach out slowly, concentrated to the fullest and darkest limit of alchemical enterprise. Then you imbibe the fuliginous essence, the atrament, the lightless liquid distillate and excrescence of the bean.

Don't let the moment run; let it flow like the slowest of honeys in the richest of sunlights. Diamonds may sparkle, but amber glows, and the polish of jet — of obsidian, of ebony, of night — goes on forever.