He looked up. Eyes open to the fluorescent light. He looked up and over to the counter that held up the little blue and white bottle. He stared and he stared and he stared.

This is too much he said to himself. This is not what it was supposed to be he thought.

A tear rolled down his cheek. Hurriedly he brushed it aside. The sting of it nearly blinding him. He could feel the dampness on his cheek. He could feel all the emotions in his head, and he could feel the twitch in his hand.

There in the space that he sat in, next to the counter with the little blue and white bottle, he stood up. How small that bottle was to him now. So fragile and so deadly. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached. Pulled back, and reached again. He felt so calm yet so excited. He reached to the bottle and grasped it.

  He knew, he knew. It thrilled him so much that he knew finally. Piano played then, in his mind. In that grand hall, he could see the notes laying softly down in his soul. He knew, there was peace in that bottle. He knew.

There, in that place, in the space that he stood, he clenched the bottle in his fist. And there, in that place, he leaned back and spilled the bottle into his mouth. Slowly, ever so slightly at first then faster, he spit them out one by one. "That is not the peace that the music has given me, " he thought, and he spit them out until they had all left his mouth.

Another tear then streaked his cheek then. It went down, unchecked to his jaw line and was finally dropped to the floor with the formation of a smile on his face. He stood there. Looking and feeling a fool. "What life have I lived," he thought. But this time the answer chimed back slowly and with power, "not nearly enough of one."

He smiled, broader and tighter. Not nearly enough, the words rang in his head. "Oh it is too much," he said with a smile, " too much indeed."