Recalled Radiance (featured in FIELDING. (2021 print, written around 2018)
- Justin H. Briggs
- Oct 1
- 4 min read
Intrigue radiates from every pore of this town in the summer. The streets are awash in the ether of excitement, unbridled and passionate, yearning for the next, and the next, and the next moment. The urges to run and play, to dance and sing, to drink and be merry, fill every second.
Any notion is fair game, and any idea is worth exploration. Grab hold of these times, these eager feats, these full actions. No hesitations, no misgivings, no lingering doubts. Abound yourself in the magic of life, for we shall live forever in every day.
And along the town, about the outskirts, may run a course of magic incarnate, at least it used to carry forth as such. Recollection may give you guidance in these fond remembrances, for even if you were not there you may understand the energy, the pulsations, the vibrations of wonder.
Give heed to the hours you can recall of mystery and intrigue, for in these hours you were truly alive in the grand expressions of existence. You call back to the past hoping surely for this wonder in the future and your calls will be answered by the lingering luster of life.
Perhaps, one late afternoon, a Sunday possibly but really any warm day, as the sun is beginning to set, you are free about the place.
Do you find yourself traveling forth with the pace of a maniac and the joy of a child? Is every second a reassurance that you are where you need to be and doing what you must be doing? Is every stranger a friend?
Are you glancing about the closest place to heaven you may ever see? Are you assured in your purpose, even if you know not what that purpose may be? And on and on you go into the evening as the setting sun satiates your fluttering heart?
What if you are out and about in your backyard and perhaps you just finished a meal. Something you made for yourself. There was a steak, or some left over chicken, or a couple of pork chops. So of course you fired up the grill. A home cooked meal on a summer’s day. You are never more satisfied, more satiated, more fulfilled.
But the evening has just begun. And your friend rides into the yard on a bicycle proposing adventure simply in his appearance before you. Yeah, you know you have a bike you can ride as well. But where are we going to go?
As the coals are cooling and the food is beginning to digest, you throw your leg over the seat and you and your friend head off down the alley and into the world aglow but dimming. No set destination obviously, you two just need to be on the move. Go somewhere.
Go anywhere. Not running away, running to. Running to this next second and that, careening around this corner, across this empty lot, around this or that neighborhood. You and your friend and the community dance about, each one to themselves and themselves to everyone.
Through neighborhood after neighborhood, with friends, acquaintances, and strangers about the path, you two proceed with no clear destination necessary. In the failing light you find something inside yourself, or you two are at least chasing something down to quench the swelling from within.
Anywhere you look there is a sight glorious to behold; in the green leaves and dusting cottonwoods, in the smoke up the block from some leftover firework, in the very eyes of your peddling colleague. Everything is perfection and perfection is everything.
The darkness is taking hold now and the streetlights begin to awaken in the dusk. Who has time to look at a clock? This night has further and further pressing matters to which to attend.
You two burn through a red light at speed, but the cross traffic is bothered not to slow down and of course laugh at your audacity and envy your mode of transportation.
Your friend and you find yourselves heading south further down through town to the trail. Approaching, in the settling night you two are now alone at the end of the world.
Without hesitation the treads transcend the heat of the asphalt road for the gravel of the trail you did not know you were proceeding toward. As the meager caravan crosses into the privacy of the path, day crosses to night.
And then you see them; first a couple, then a dozen, then the very existence of life itself awash across your vision. You know you are not hallucinating, but do you really know? Can you accept that the darkness of the path is awash in a star blanket of lightning bugs too many to count.
At speed still, and silent save for the chains and tires of the bikes, your colleague and yourself peddle on through a scene too brilliant to vocalize. If even a shy whisper were to slip from your lips, perhaps the perfection would be discovered to be a dream.
You cannot speak ecstasy, you must feel it. And at speed you fly through the night lit bright and full by the very nature of summer itself.
