Lamentation

Only twenty-seven days after I heard the news that Mlle Vague was dying, she did, and though I was expecting it, checking every day, still, when the hard truth of it surfaced, I gasped aloud and felt pain, for Deloney and for all of us, mixed with relief for the end of hers, and that night I went to a concert (Seu Jorge Presents: The Life Aquatic, A Tribute to David Bowie), and even though I had procrastinated buying tickets for weeks, I was, oddly, front row and center, so close to Seu Jorge and his guitar, so close that I could grasp his hand at the end (and did), and he performed many songs from Ziggy Stardust, Mlle Vague’s first album—impeccable taste, you must admit—and it was a beautiful tribute to the late great Bowie but for me, a beautiful tribute to the mysterious, fetching, loved-by-even-we-who-never-met-her Mlle Vague, and I felt lucky to be in that time and space to consider, vaguely, a possible starman waiting in the sky or perhaps the Mademoiselle herself, which is a lovely, comforting thought.