Customs.
You never come back.
I say good-by when I see you going in the doors,
The hopeless open doors that call and wait
And take you then for—how many cents a day?
How many cents for the sleepy eyes and fingers?

I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists,
In the dark, in the silence, day by day,
And all the blood of you drop by drop,
And you are old before you are young.
You never come back.
- Carl Sandburg

Customs: the long line to the out door on the last best hope for peace. I said no lengthy farewells. I said no farewells at all. I spoke with Sinclair, and he is a good man, a great man, and I am better knowing him and better going off to serve him. I packed my belongings, weapons and speeches, though these days my weapons are speeches, and my speeches are weapons and I hope that among the Anla'shok I learn to wield both a little better. And I thought about Humans.

When I came to this place, five years ago now, but a lifetime ago, a whole G'Kar ago, really, I didn't know them. Now I read their poetry in the native tongue. I like this Carl Sandburg; I quoted him to Mollari once, another lifetime ago but the same G'Kar. When Sinclair left I asked the computer to download some more for me, for the flight. I say good-by and you never come back.

The Humans are remarkable creatures, all flesh and fragile, feasting on a tradition of rebellion. You consult their history and every great change was brought about out of discord and every great leader was a renegade or a lunatic or a poet. And yet from their divisiveness, out of their stubborn need for individuality they unite us and even the Minbari who are older than us all were wise enough to listen when the Humans spoke.

I wait on line with my bag and my identcard, nameless among a hundred aliens headed for the open doors that call and wait. Perhaps for the last time. Perhaps not, because this place has a strange power and I believe I will be forever called back here, as long as this staiton remains spinning in space. The Humans built this place and in a way the Humans built us all, taught us rebellion and solidarity, taught us youth and maturity, war and poetry. I wait on line in my travelling coat. I cannot stop myself from thinking of Mollari.

I think, I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists and they will call on you for blood. I think, your world will consume you, will eat you alive, and I can't stop it, and I can't save you, and I do not wish to. I think, you are old before you are young, but so am I.

What happened, Mollari, is for five years you and I learned from the Humans. Who are young before they are old, and are impulsive to a fault, and precious for that. And each of us so mired in our tradition could not see what they were teaching until it was too late. And so we repent, each in his own way, for what we are not good enough to do.

The crowd thins; the security officers on duty at this gate are both Human. When they take my card I thank them in their own language.

I think, everything I am I owe to this place, as well as everything good I shall ever become. I found meaning here, I found Mollari, and hate, and love. I found ambition and selflessness, I found Humanity and truth.

I shoulder my bag, start across the floor for my gate, where White Star 16 is waiting to take me away from the only home I have. You never come back quite the same. You never come back.