The last night of the Imaginarium, as we walked across the crowded central quad, among people waiting in long lines for Elephant Ears and Ostrich Burgers, kids playing volleyball, families grabbing space on the grass to listen to music playing in the overflowing Gallery tent, I tried to explain to somebody what the place would look like exactly twenty-four hours later. After a four days' established routine of people and noise, a rut, almost, the fifth day is a rude awakening, a brick wall. The tourists vanish, the grounds and sounds go back to the locals — crickets and birds, a lonely slap of fishtail in the water.

I tried to paint that picture, but, at that moment, it was hard to visualize clearly: instead of tents crowded squatter-town-like, Cornerstone Farm would be empty brown fields, an ocean of trampled grass, speckled with islands of garbage piles. The vendors would be gone by noon, along with the rented stages and sound gear, tables and chairs. In another day, most of the big tents — the Exhibition Tent, Encore stages, the Gallery — would be down. Today, you had to shout to make yourself heard by someone standing two feet away; tmorrow, voices would carry over the empty hills and startle you because they seemed so out of place, like horselaughs in a library, violations of an almost holy quiet.

Sure enough, twenty-four hours later, after our last night in the Imaginarium, after saying good-bye to so many friends, I walked across the empty quad between the empty Gallery tent and where the vendors used to be: the Omega Man. It was sunset, and found my feet taking me — after four days, this was a difficult routine to break — to the Imaginarium Tent. The tent was silent and dark, the chairs, tables and lights already gone, tent flaps hanging haphazardly and blowing in the wind. Somebody had come and taken away the popcorn machine. And all those people, our little Imaginarium community, who'd come every night and so their faces were still clear as yesterday in my mind, had gone their separate ways home.

"What movie are you showing tonight in the 'Maginarium, Daddy?" my six-year-old had asked me that very morning — and I had to give her the baad news. WE had been rummaging trhough the empty tents looking for cool stuff left behind. What we found was a roll of cash register tape, a long nail, wax from a candle, some colored pipe cleaners, a glow-in-the-dark eyeball from the Imaginarium Store — the typical contents of Tom Sawyer's pockets, to be sure.

And here I sat, right at movie time, on the grass in the middle of the tent, leaning my back against the center pole, reading Dandelion Wine. As I looked out the open side of the tent to watch the sun set over the lake, I listened to the crickets. The tent next door was just as empty and dark; the last four nights, newly-made friends ran playing chattery games — children of the grown-ups listening to the pre-movie lecture. I played baby-sitter, shushing the kids every few minutes so their moms and dads wouldn't feel obligated to get up and shush them, until the lecture ended and the movie began. Then I'd give my girl and a friend a couple big bags of fresh popcorn and they'd go lay down in the dewy grass up in front of the screen to watch Mr. Deeds Goes to Town or It's A Wonderful Life.

When we'd cleaned up after our crazy summertime "Christmas Party" two nights ago, I knew I couldn't leave so much as a silver bell lying on the ground for the seminars the next morning or the magic of that unlikely night would have been dispelled. ("Did it really happen? Or was it just a dream?") There's nothing more depressing than morning-after Christmas decorations, crushed into the grass.

Tonight, sitting in this empty tent, I wonder if the Imaginarium really happened. Did we really have all those people crowding the seminars during the day, breathing the rarefied and life-affirming air of worthies such like Frank Capra, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and pondering even the spiritual ramifications of Star Trek? Did we really sell all those books, watch and discuss all those movies, see the light bulb go on over so many heads as people suddenly realized God was a lot bigger and nearer than anyone had imagined? Or was it just an amazing dream?

I thought of Adrien, the kid from Canada, who'd helped us every night set up chairs and get our sound system in order. At the Christmas party, we'd given away a huge pile of donated raffle prizes — movie posters, models. Adrien sat in the front row — ten feel from the Christmas tree! — and didn't win a thing? The look on his face: from visions of sugarplums to Grinch-stolen glum. During the movie, I conspired with Dave. We knew we had one unwrapped Star Trek model left. Right on the heels of George Bailey's teary homecoming, while there was still not a dry eye in the Imaginarium tent, I snuck up to Adrien. "Can you come with me?" He looked concerned. "Is there something wrong?" I took him to the pile of boxes in the corner and withdrew the model and pushed it into his belly. "Thanks for helping us every night," I said. He looked like he was going to burst into tears. "I really, really, really appreciate this," he stammered. And as he walked away, I realized that could would remember this moment — this Capraesque image of grace — for the rest of his life, whenever he sees that old film (and if he's like most of us, that'll probably be a lot.)

Today, this morning, "the morning after," the serious business of pulling down the booth in the Exhibition tent and loading the truck, as everybody else was pulling down and loading, seemed especially wearisome for those of us who were weary to begin with. Making the Imaginarium work was just that, hard work, with plenty of behind-the-scenes jockeying for territory and bloodying our knuckles trying to defend something not everybody seemed to understand. I finished the fest wondering if it was worth the headache. Sitting alone in the empty Imaginarium tent, listening to the crickets and the lonely flap of canvas, though, I would give anything to be able to show a movie tonight. To shush the kids running around in the tent next door. To spend another evening with our new friends.

Here, indeed, was the most fitting imaginable conclusion to the Imaginarium experience — a ripening nostalgia. In another form, it was the same sense of longing that had drawn us together into this tent. But I also recalled the many things C.S. Lewis said about such stabs of longing. One of these was the warning against mistaking that which happens to trigger that longing for its true Source. I thought then, and have often since, of the ridiculous painter in The Great Divorce who would rather paint the Object of his longing than possess it. God save us from speaking in the tongues of angels, but having not Love. So it was my fifth straight night, then, in the Imaginarium tent, which was the most meaningful for me. I caught and stoppered my own bit of Dandelion Wine to savor for later. But I was also careful to bid a goodbye to a painting that, pretty as it was, could never satisfy the longing it provoked. And so I walked into the cricket-chirping night, newly determined to possess the Object of my heart's truest longing.