NARRATOR:

For some of us it’s a monologue.  For others its an audition, others perhaps an intermission.  Maybe a scripted drama, unscripted reality show, first grade recital, broadway musical, indie flick, silent film, romantic comedy.  We memorize our lines, cake on our makeup, layer on costumes for this thing we call life.  A room full of actors, a room full of spotlights.  Everyone too busy with their own boring routine to ever pay attention to someone else.  Even those that manage to gain an audience wither into wrinkles under the glare of too many stage lights.  Regardless whose watching, regardless the length or the costars or the critical acclaim, each of us has our own time under the lights.  We dance, we play, we rant, we rave.

Then it’s over.  Whether it comes as a twist ending that leaves our audience gasping or a predictable joyous standing ovation, it arrives.  It stands stage left, behind the curtains, just out of sight of the applauding audience.  It lets us collect our roses, our goodbyes, our selves.  There’s no cane yanking us off stage.  There’s no trap door that opens the ground beneath you, unless, of course, your life is an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical.  When we’ve drawn it out as long as we can, it nods.  A spectator might witness it as a passive congratulatory recognition.

It’s not. [sic].  It’s a signal.  It’s time – final bow, final breath.  We lives this life, with all of its drama, so the last thing we hear before we die is “curtains”.