Is it time?

His slightly crooked teeth held his bottom lip captive while he gnawed impatiently at the flesh. He wondered if the hint of blood he suddenly tasted on his lips was a sign that he was biting too hard. Not that he really cared.

This wait was killing him.

The blue eyes that he saw his world out of darted around the room, picking up on every movement that was made.

How much longer?

His stomach suddenly became a wide meadow that was home to twenty-thousand butterflies. Butterflies that were trapped...trapped inside of that meadow and could not escape no matter how hard they fluttered their little wings.

It wasn't that he was nervous. No way.

He was just anticipating. Anticipating that same exact feeling that he waited for each night. The feeling of exhiliaration that catapaulted throughout his body like lightening bolts for hours on end.

The lights were starting to dim now.

Was it almost time?

His foot began to tap uncontrollably, almost like he was in the middle of having a violent seizure. His legs itched to start walking so he could get to his destination. The guitar that was slung around his shoulder slammed against his torso as he bounced his leg impatiently.

A slight groan escaped his mouth. This was ridiculous. He couldn't wait any longer.

He felt a hand pat him comfortingly on the back, telling him to be patient. The person who owned that hand understood his need just as much as he did but feeling the pat only made him more anxious. He only had to wait a little longer.

His ears picked up the commotion happening just outside of where he was standing. The commotion that was where he wanted so badly to be.

His heart was pounding so intensely against his chest, he thought it might just explode out of him. But he wouldn't care.

His watch beeped. But he didn't hear it.

In fact, he couldn't hear much of anything. No, the entire room and everyone in it slowly started to fade away. All the talking, all the noise....

Was gone.

It was just him...him and the anxious cheers that he failed to hear with his ears, but heard it pound in his chest. It surrounded and encompassed his body from a distance, making his leg bounce even fifty times faster.

Is it time? Let it be time already, let me go... Please, let me go...

The same hand that had given him a patient pat a few minutes ago was now shaking his arm wildly, trying to bring him back down to reality.

He jumped, his eyes still dead focused on his place of peace. The light of reality started to fill in the darkness he saw again and his hearing was fully restored.

"Are you ready?"

Was he ready? Was he READY?

A crooked grin spread across his face. It spread and spread and spread until it reached his glowing blue eyes.

His foot calmed to a slower pace and his stomach released some of the butterflies from their prison.

This was it. No more waiting. He was so anxious he couldn't stand it. Someday he ought to work on learning to be patient, because this was ridiculous.

Everything began to move in slow motion: the people around him whose arms were flailing all over the place, his friends who had somehow already beaten him to "his spot", and the people below him who cheered for his arrival.

One step up on to that stage that he considered a home, one glance at the sea of bodies that had come to see him, and one breath into that microphone...and he felt it...

Without question, this was where he belonged.

Dedicated to Jason Wade. 12/14/01*