Epilogue: December 31th, 1999
On the last day of the second millennium a man walked into a bar in a small northern California town.
He was twenty eight years old, dressed casually. He looked relaxed as he worked his way through the crowd, as if he belonged, as if he knew the place. But he was a stranger here, and he didn't think that there was anybody in the place who knew him.
This wasn't the only bar in town, but it was the most popular one, not that that was saying much. About eighty people were crammed into the little space, drinks in their hands as they laughed and smiled and beckoned the oncoming century. There were still Christmas decorations up, tinsel and holly and pine boughs strung up along the bar and over the windows. A dancing Santa doll gyrated on the back counter, its glass eyes staring blankly out.
At the end of the bar there was a small raised stage illuminated by a single hanging light.
A man sat on a stool in the pool of light. He was shabbily dressed, his hair untamed and wild and his beard thick and course. He held a battered guitar balanced over his knee. He had just finished playing his second to last song of the night, a cover of a Bob Dylan tune, performed rather well. The Times, They Are A Changin'.
He looked out at the distracted audience of revelers, young kids mostly, in their twenties and early thirties. A couple older people too, bar regulars who would have been there regardless of what night of the year it was.
He cleared his throat softly and glanced up at the clock. 11:51.
"Well," he said, his voice subdued. "Guess I got time for one more song before I go. Then I'll leave you all to the new year, alright?"
The chattering talk was politely subdued, but hardly silenced.
"You know, I turned fifty a little while ago. It's a funny feeling. When you've been around this long, you start to feel like you've seen pretty much all the world has to offer. Sometimes though..." he trailed off, seeming to stare into space for a moment, stroking his chin and lost in thought. He shook his head a little, and seemed to come back to himself. "Sometimes a thing happens that reminds you that life is still full of surprises. Anything can happen to anyone. You might get a promotion you didn't expect, make a new friend, find something you thought was lost... might fall in love. You never know. Just have to be ready for it to happen. Anyway, I suppose that's it for my words of New Year's wisdom. Let me play this last song, then I guess I'll see you all on the other side."
He gave the guitar a tentative strum, as if suddenly off-balance.
"This one, uh... it's not a cover. This is a song I wrote with... someone I once knew. A long time ago. Anyway, here goes."
The stranger in the audience made his way to the bar and he sat down. He ordered a drink and he turned in his stool to watch the man performing on the little stage. He took a sip and he leaned one elbow on the bar. And he watched.
The man began to play. He played skillfully, fingers dancing over the strings. And when he started to sing, his voice was sweeter than anyone in the audience had expected. It was clear and sad.
"He's gone, he's gone, he's gone far away. The boy I knew stepped out the door. Just watched him go, didn't know what to say."
The stranger at the bar turned away. He lifted his drink to his lips, but didn't drink yet. He started to mouth along with the words, as if involuntarily, as if compelled. He sang very softly, so quietly that nobody in the place could have possibly heard him.
"I stared at the wall and I sank to the floor. And I prayed to the gods, and I begged him to stay, but he's gone, he's gone, he's gone far away. A lonely boy without a home, and he's never coming back..."
The clock on the wall counted down a little closer towards that final moment. Inching along towards the end of an age.
And the man on the stage played his song.
"A lonely boy without a home. He left me there and he went far away... but one day, I'll follow him..."
The last words of the song faded out across the bar, fragile and frail, hopeless.
The man set his guitar aside. A light smattering of applause rippled through the crowd and faded. Their attention had only been half on him; excitement for the countdown was starting to build. 11:56. Only moments to go now.
The man walked across the bar, accepting a few handshakes from members of the audience. He drifted through the place, chatting idly with a few people, but mostly keeping to himself. He stepped up to the bar, two seats down from the stranger.
The stranger spoke without turning to look at the musician. "Can I buy you a drink?"
The musician looked surprised. He turned and he looked at the stranger, a long considering look. Finally he nodded, and he folded his hands together and placed them up on the bar. "Thanks."
"Sure thing." The stranger lifted a hand to get the bar tender's attention. "Drink for my friend?"
11:58.
The musician looked up at the television playing silently in the corner. Times Square, everyone out and gathered together to watch the final moments of the year together.
The stranger took a long drink, and wiped his mouth on a folded napkin. "What do you suppose they were thinking a thousand years ago?" he asked. "In the year nine hundred and ninety-nine, what do you think was on people's minds?"
The musician seemed to think on that for a while. He shrugged, finally. "They were afraid, probably. Scared of what was going to happen. Everybody expecting the end of the world, or most of them, anyway. Lot like today, I guess. No difference, really."
"You don't think people change?"
He took a drink. "Are you talking about the species now, or the individual?"
"Either."
"I don't know. More and more I'm dubious about the species," the musician said. "We've got the same problems we've always had, just dressed up in different clothing. As for individuals... I don't know. I think... things about a person can change, sometimes. Given the right circumstances. I mean, what is life but a series of mistakes, really? You fix the ones you can, and try your best to live with the ones that you can't. But the core of a person is almost always the same. The way they are. The people they love. That never changes."
The stranger took a drink, then he set his glass down. He turned and he faced the musician. And the musician turned to face him. The crowd in the bar started to chant, counting down together in a single raised voice. Ten! Nine!
"You really think that?" the stranger asked. "That love doesn't change?" Somehow they were no longer two seats apart anymore. The stranger didn't remember moving, and he hadn't noticed the musician moving either, but the space between them had vanished.
Eight! Seven!
The musician nodded. "I really think that." He was shifting a little towards the stranger.
Six! Five!
"I think I do too," the stranger said. The musician's hand had fallen into his hand somehow.
Four! Three!
The musician stared into the stranger's piercing ice blue eyes, and the stranger stared back.
Two!
"This is it," the musician said, as the last seconds of the twentieth century flashed up on the screen behind him.
One!
"Yeah," said the stranger as he leaned against the musician. They seemed drawn together, as if by the gravitational force of a planet about to begin another rotation around the old red sun. The stranger's lips parted, and he felt the warmth of the other man radiating across the vanishing distance which would no longer be separating them by the time the second hand of the clock completed its rotation. "I guess it is."