A quarter-to-12 at the Mirage on Valentine’s Day, we sit in the all-night
Brooklyn diner and play old songs on the Compact Disc, nostalgic songs
of our youth.

We listen to “Chances Are,” “It’s Not for Me to Say,” “Misty,” and other
songs sung by Johnny Mathis, followed by “My Funny Valentine,”
“Fly Me to the Moon,” and “All The Way” sung by Frank Sinatra.

An old-fashioned couple, we hold hands across the gold table in our
ostrich-leathered booth. The red rose we received when we entered the
Mirage lies diagonally across the table.

For a few moments, perhaps, we dream of Yesterday and the surreal
passage of time, rushing forth almost at the speed of light. It’s much
like a dream, this phantasmagoric sequence of events labeled Life.

My beloved, whom I gaze at with awe and tenderness, trust and passion
and unparalleled love, remembers magical nights by Niagara Falls, when
she watched the fierce beautiful waters, illuminated by dazzling lights,
cascade down in strips of pastel colors.

“Niagara Falls is one of the wonders of the world,” she whispers. “I suppose
it’s like Time itself, a mysterious Force galloping across the universe like an
unbridled mustang.”

“We can’t stop it!” I cry out.
“Who wants to, my dear? Don’t you recall?”

Her dark brown eyes, soft and hypnotic, capture and swallow me and I whirl
and swirl in the wild universe of our love. And I remember how Time brought
us together, blessing us with the gift of love.

And I reflect: Time is cruel; it is gentle and beautiful too. Time is a beast that
devours human flesh and dreams; it is also a guardian angel that feeds our flesh
and soul.

Time is a unicorn rushing across the dreamscape of our imagination and a mirage
in the vast desert of human existence.

Yes, I remember how Time anointed us with drops of divinity. But is it real?
Are we?

Inside the Mirage, we enter a timeless dimension of pure love and vanish.