The hall smelt of old curtains and cloth chairs and layers upon layers of floor wax, on which the members shuffled about whispering small talk and mouthing anticipations. Lights that once burned bright dimmed announcing the final moments. She took the stage in a flourish of silk and pearls, her quaffed hair threatening to burst forth onto bare shoulders, her painted nails brushing keys that shuddered their delight at her touch. The first notes hung ornately overhead, then dropping into the audience one by one, taunted and teased the members before building to crescendo. Transfixed as stone walls they sat as she pelted them with waves of irony and sorrow. They cried. She laughed. Tomorrow they would return and expect more.

What can one say at the end but goodby? It's the bus station at 4 a.m. and the teller wants to go home and someone in the bathroom won't come out and the floor's not as shiney as the custodian would like it and the vendor arrives to fill the machines and gum holds my shoes to the floor and first she won't look at me and then she will and now I can't look at her but I want to and the ceiling plays all the wrong music and none of the lights know what to do and buses come but no one gets off and then no buses come and then some come but they're not buses and then the driver tells me I have to get off but I haven't finished the floor and my song is next in line to play and and

Endings are beginnings with their hats on backwards. Back into them, if you like, or embrace them; for life's a moving path and you're on it. It's a choice: look forward or backward; ponder the future or dwell in the past; or live for tomorrow, in the moment, today, right now.