THIRTEENTH SEQUEL

They had all found various urgent tasks to perform.

Some just needed resting.

One winter day Leve summoned them.

She had made a discovery in the great garden that they had to see.

The thin layer of snow was easy to walk on.

They entered the pathway that they had built.

It was now much lighter from the snow on the ground and the trees.

They could see animal tracks all around.

Amazed they watched the bridge that Leve and Samuel had built.

It was covered with pine branches woven together to form a dense carpet.

To make it less slippery and more welcoming, said Leve.

A rope was tied from a fir tree to a birch on the other side to make a railing.

Leve waited until they were all on the other side.

She then pointed into the now bare woods before them.

They gasped and cried out and wooed.

A low grey house was now easy to see.

Strange translucent turned pillars supported a narrow porch.

They neared the house.

Now they could see and feel that the frosty pillars were built from glass.

Or something very similar.

They entered the house bending down through the small door.

There stood only a low round stone table in the one room.

In the middle of the table a kind of device of brass and copper was inserted.

Maybe a sort of compass, Samuel said.

Leve showed them some pieces of rusty iron and decaying wood.

They were decorated in various fashions.

She was sure that they were remnants of small chairs.

She told them that she intended to have one of similar size made for her.

It would be a chair to hold her now as if she still were a child.

She asked them all to contribute to its design and the carrying out.

So they agreed, sensing the significance in different degrees.

Leve told them that she had met an old acquainted from school.

Bo lived on the opposite side of the garden.

He had heard of their efforts.

Bo and some of his neighbors were now making a similar approach on their side.

One day Alice was watching for signs of snowdrops in front of the house.

She was startled by some loud swearing.

It came from the direction of the garage.

Walking towards the unusual sounds she saw Lo sitting on a bench in the sun.

She hesitated since Lo was considered a recluse.

Hearing a sob Alice walked over to the bench and sat down.

It turned out that Lo was grateful to talk about her troubles.

They had to do with that complicated book at her home.

Alice had entered that book in a small scale and could grasp her predicament.

They both agreed on the unjustness of things.

Then Alice went to get some tea and chocolate cake.

The sun was warm to them.

They heard metallic noices from behind the garage.

Alice said that it must be Samuel working on the Landrover.

Lo was by now feeling quite confident and decided to go and introduce herself.

She did so in an awkward fashion, but Samuel did not seem to mind.

When she was going back, he called after her.

He gave her a calling card and told her to contact him any time.

The card featured his portrait on one side.

She showed it to Alice, who said that he was supposed to have a devilish personality.

They finished the cake and went looking for early spring shoots together.

At last they found some.

It was exhilarating.

The weather changed and sleet started to fall.

They went inside the house.

Alice made a fire and they sat down before it in silence.

In both of them appeared amazing notions having to do with Samuel.

They looked at each other and smiled.

What a beautiful day.

said  Lo and Alice answered

Indeed it is.


The door opened and a bunch of wet friends burst inside.

 They hung up their outerwear and filled the room.

All were panting from hurrying through the foul weather.

They had been exploring the Inner Garden in all directions.

Now they told each other of their discoveries.

It was too noisy for Leve to hear what they had found out.

She recalled some disparates she had overheard about the construction of her chair.

Leve was overtaken by an urge to embrace and kiss each and every one of them.

The sun came in through the windows.

Samuel entered and walked over to Leve.

She made him a place to sit beside her.

They talked about what had been and crazy and crazier things to do.

After a while they laughed out of control and the others looked at them.

WHATEVER

Samuel exclaimed.

It will be fine.

Leve said.

Everyone smiled.

TWELFTH SEQUEL

 

Alice was hindered by the very long scarf she was wearing for the first time.

It was of an innocent white alpaca with blood red silk fringe.

After knitting on and off for years she had tied the last red thread this morning.

She was moving stuff in the wood shed together with Henry.

They were making way to reach the garden furniture.

Stepping on the fringe again, Alice took off her scarf and hung it on a beam.

They both took a chair in each hand and exited into the early spring.

Seeing Leve and Mary standing by the fire they let go of the chairs.

They ran towards Leve with tears of joy and calling her name.

You have missed me then.

Leve said when they held her tight.

They whispered her name and dried their tears.

The fire was burning fast and Mary fetched more branches from a huge heap nearby.

Leve and Henry fetched the chairs and some benches.

Alice brought blankets and baskets with apples and accessories.

Johannes and Samuel arrived.

When they were seated around the fire, Leve told some about her explorations.

Samuel had visited several of the places she described.

Subdued music was still playing.

The small wrinkled apples they were roasting were the last ones from last autumn's plentiful crop at Leve's yard.

Henry revealed that the mountain of branches were from the park.

Mary suddenly remembered and told them about the sound of water Leve had heard there.

Johannes had an idea how to avoid the cumbersome removal of all the felled tree trunks.

They could be cut in pieces and stacked to form walls on either side of the path.

After a long time of neglect, working with the park suddenly felt exciting to them again.

They agreed to meet there the next day.

Early next morning the men cut and stacked wood logs.

The women hauled out branches and stacked them next to the old ones.

In the evening the path was cleared as far as to where the trees had been felled last time.

They all gathered there and listened.

They heard the water clearly.

It was impossible to judge the distance but they were determined not to give up before they reached it.

It would be easier to proceed now that they knew how to care for the felled trees along the way.

Spring had turned into summer when one day they saw the stream behind the last trees.

Beyond the shallow stream lay a less dense area with mostly deciduous trees.

They decided to keep the whole stems of the remaining four pine trees for building a bridge later.

Eager to reach the other side they removed their shoes and waded over on the sandy bottom scattered with stones.

The water was cold and reached up to their knees.

They sat down on the brink where the sun reached down.

The difference from the dark, cold and frightfully overgrown pine forest was great.

They heard more sound and felt more smells.

Maybe even animals were living here.

First Alice and then the others lay down to rest and all slept for a while.

Gusts of wind woke them up.

The ground around them was of grasses with various flowers, some of which none of them had seen before.

They picked some of the kinds that impressed them most.

Since the sun was getting low, they gathered opposite the pine path they had created.

It was very straight and narrow.

They could just about see the arched entrance in the distance.

With their faces still warm from the sun they drank some cold water and waded back to the other side.

They put on shoes and ran in a row as best they could on the uneven path to the entrance.

 Johannes realised that they had left their tools at the other end, but he said nothing and hoped that it would not rain.

They parted, dazed from their experiences.

ELEVENTH SEQUEL 

On a warm spring day Mary reached the house of Leve.

The branches of the apple trees were still bare.

She was startled to see a flower in the window.

Henry had not been here for ages.

She walked to the backyard and knocked on the door.

There was no answer but she opened and went inside.

She noticed some new things on the part of the desk that Henry had cleared on her first visit.

And the strangeness of the flower in the kitchen window.

But Henry was nowhere to be found.

When she stepped outside a woman was getting out of the driver seat of the Jaguar E-type.

Mary understood that it was Leve.

The woman came towards her with a hand outstretched.

She said: 

I am Leve. Would you like some tea? 

Mary answered: 

Yes, please.

She explained that she used to meet Henry here sometimes.

Hesitatingly, she revealed that their purpose had been to find clues to where Leve could be.

With inconsistent results.

Leve told her that she had arrived a few days ago and that only Mary now knew that she was home.

She had indeed been in contradictory places.

While drinking tea they spoke of many things and were soon familiarized.

Leve now wanted to go and see Henry and Alice.

Mary agreed to accompany her.

Leve went to her room to change to warmer clothes.

She hummed a song that came to her mind.

As usual her aim seemed to be to dress to please herself and as many others as possible.

Leve was about to take the main road when Mary called, standing by the gate.

Amazed, Leve followed her on the cleared path.

Some pale green leave buds were seen among the dark severed branches.

They stopped when they reached the hole in the hedge.

A tattered red carpet was leading into the opening.

Mary said:

Alice must have placed it there to prevent further injuries from the broken glass.

She explained about the glass and Alice's wound.

Leve kneeled on the carpet and crept inside.

Alice followed her.

Standing up they saw a huddle of felled trees.

The wood around them was too dense to enter.

With difficulties Leve conquered the short and narrow road that the fallen trees indicated.

Standing at the furthest point she could see nothing but more trees.

Then she heard a faint noise.

She exclaimed:

I hear purling water!

She climbed back and they crept out to continue the walk.

Leve expressed her admiration for the new toolshed.

Nearing the house they smelled smoke and heard music.

TENTH SEQUEL

A few months later Mary was printing the image that she had found in a link.

She waited for the printer to execute the job on slow settings.

She wondered what specific rags had been shredded for the making of the paper that she had chosen for this printing.

She had removed the sheet from an old inherited block of Whatman handmade paper.

Until now she had deemed it too precious for whatever use and always kept it for the future.

Mary remembered the day some months ago when she was knocking on the door of the house of Alice and Henry.

No one opened.

Turning to leave she met a woman coming up the driveway with a suitcase in each hand.

She said that she was Henry's sister Kristin.

They shook hands.

An unfamiliar woman was walking determinedly towards them from the direction of the garage.

She hugged them both close to her and said:

So you are Kristin and you are Mary.

She just stood there smiling at them for some time and then tears started falling from her eyes.

They each took one of her hands and stroke it soothingly.

She called out loudly:

DANIEL KOM HIT.

She said to them:

I am the tenant of the den above the garage.

I live far away and only come here sporadically.

You could say that I come here to sow words.

I'm called Lo.

Alice came running to them from the garden path.

She said:

What is it?

Lo spoke her name, withdrew her hands and hugged Alice.

They all stood looking at each other.

Lo said:

 I must go home.

There is a taxi waiting for me.

Looking at Alice's hand she said:

 Attend to that wound. 

It's bleeding through the plaster.

She turned around and walked away.

When she was out of sight they could hear her call again:

DANIEL KOM HIT.

The other day Mary received a link to aportraitofdaniel from the foreigner called Lo.

When the image was printed, Mary cut away some excess paper so as to leave a well proportioned frame around it.

Then she fastened the image on the wall above her desk with four architect's drawing pins.

NINTH SEQUEL

By the evening they had cleared the path leading to Leve's house and were talking about what they should do next.

They both wanted to try to reach further inside the garden instead of continuing to clear the surrounding path.

But neither of them had a clue how to go about it.

Eli and Kari came to visit.

Seeing the high wall of shrubbery along the path Kari suggested that they use a ladder to see what's behind.

Henry went to fetch their highest ladder while the others walked slowly towards Leve's house.

Suddenly Eli stopped and knelt down.

She showed them a slightly less density in the shrubs.

It took some time for the others to discern the minuscule difference.

Henry came carrying the ladder.

He had even more difficulties to see the deviation.

When he finally saw it, he realized what it might mean.

At this point there could have been an opening into the interior.

They tried to stabilize the wavering ladder as Kari undaunted climbed to the top.

She could not see much and judged what she saw to be just an overgrown mess.

There were a few huge dead trees in the distance.

 Different birds were flying around and some large birds were sitting in the dead trees.

She climbed down.

It sounded like something from a horror movie and not at all what they had hoped for.

Alice and Henry felt discouraged and they all went home.

Henry watched some paintings:

Alice chose to look at this:

She suddenly remembered that Leve had borrowed a notebook which she had found in their attic.

She thought that it could concern the origins of the area.

She decided to go and look for it at Leve's house the next day.

In the morning Alice and Henry discovered that they both had been thinking about the same thing.

They wanted to prune the old apple tree by the front door.

They watched a tutorial.

It was instructive in some ways, but their tree was large and their purpose was not to maximize the crop.

One branch even held a swing.

They found a few books on gardening in the attic.





A testament from 1814, left by Johann Ludwig Christ, offered some additional advice.

But they realized that the crucial decisions had to be made by themselves.

Feeling courageous they walked around the apple tree several times at various distances.

  They could see nothing wrong with it.

Only a few remnants of branches that at some time had been cut too far from the stem.

According to the expertise they could begin to rot.

They chose to make new cuts close to the trunk and covered the wounds with earth mixed with tar.

Henry received a phone call.

Alice sat down on the swing and lit a cigarette.

The call was from Kristin.

She would come this evening.

Henry thought of the song in her mail.

He liked this video with its cool variety of musicians:

Someone had pointed out that Henry's own inscrutable movements resembled those of Bryan Ferry.

Alice was by now swinging precariously high on the swing which they had constructed from a beach find.





They speculated if it was made to hang outside a ship when painting or boarding it.

Henry suggested that they go and find a way to open what might have been an original entrance to the park.

Alice didn't want to leave the swing just yet, but told him to go ahead.

She would join him soon.

She hummed a song she had learned from some children next door:

She hurried to catch up with Henry.

He was filling the chainsaw with fuel and oil outside the toolshed.

He said that if they used more careful tools it would take ages.

She agreed.

She took out the large cotton sheet for transporting the cuttings to the bonfire.

They reached the place with less density, which they had marked with a glove.

Henry started cutting into the hedge.

Alice told him to try to create an arch of human size.

Soon he had to rest because of the strain.

She knelt down inside the small cavity to see if she could perceive any change.

She screamed.

Her hand was cut by a slightly curved piece of thin glass.

She removed it from her palm and started bleeding.

She went back to the shed to put on a plaster.

Henry cleaned the glass carefully and revealed its green colour.

He bent down cautiously and after some search found several similar shards in different colours.


The archarranger now inserts Overview, a cryptic and rudimentary journal.

EIGHT SEQUEL

For some time Mary was having trouble with her eyes.

She thought that she had seen too much.

She was now wearing sunglasses all the time and closed her eyes whenever she could.

A few days ago Mary had thanked her professor of advanced communications.

  She told her that she would not come to any more lectures.

This evening she was on her way home.

She had just informed the teacher of picturepoetry that she would not attend his classes again.

On the other side of the street she saw a woman that resembled someone in a music video she used to watch.

The woman was walking in the opposite direction.

Mary stopped and bought her favourite chewing gum.

At home she composed a text to a recent drawing.


 
Open up this flaming gate,
for true love might be your fate.
Then return whenever you can
and give some to your fellow man.

She took off her Admiral's or Counter Admiral's jacket (she could never decide which it was).

The jacket made her feel braver and see herself as commanding a personal convoy.




A song came to her mind:

Most things seemed beyond her grasp.

But on occasion she would try to reach some of them.

She drew the curtains and went to bed.

 
A gang of fears torment my mind,

real fears of an invading kind.
I will dig myself a secret cavity
to hide in with utmost gravity
for otherwise I can not but fly
and not come back until I die.

Now the Herschel cryocover had been commanded to open so that the system can see.

 The lid had been closed to prevent contamination for a month after the satellite was launched.

After a sleep with a demanding dream appearing over and over she woke up in the morning with a start.





This African bear in the night
might well give you a fright
but in the morning and with a bow
he could sing for all I know.


Hearing explosions above she withdrew the curtains.

She called Henry.

When he told her that they were making some progress with the park she asked if she could come and see.

He gave her the directions.

On her way out she passed the desk where she used to sort things out.

Her hand accidentally brushed against something of the remaining unsortables.

She turned around and reached down to pick it up.

When she realized that it was the handkerchief from her confirmation she smiled and decided to leave it where it had fallen.





Maybe someone would be glad to find it and keep it, or give it back to her.

She bought a bag of roasted chestnuts.

When she neared the toolshed her eyes were hurting again.

She laid her coat on the ground to rest upon.

Sometimes she heard sawing and the voices of Henry and Alice in the distance – a soothing sound.

Much later she heard someone coming and sat up.

She saw a woman walking towards her.

She introduced herself as Elsa, Alice’s great aunt.

Mary offered her a part of the coat and Elsa gratefully sat next to her.

She had heard about the plans for the park and wanted to see what was being done.

When she was a child everyone knew stories about the interior of the garden.

Even then it was overgrown and impenetrable.

The stories were of varied credibility.

Mary gave the chestnuts to Elsa and asked her to tell Alice and Henry that she would come back another day.

They parted.

Soon afterwards Mary met a man named Johannes and a boy named Samuel.

They were there to try to fix Henry's Land Rover, but now wanted to see how the garden project was proceeding.

Samuel had heard that there had been a tennis court inside it.

As Mary walked home through the city she kept looking down.

She felt that she would fall headlessly if she tripped over the slightest obstacle.

A rug of many grounds
for prayers of various sounds.
But they might all unite
in their ceaseless fight
for the band of humankind
and each inscrutable mind.

At home she relaxed with embroidery and soon entered a suitable trance.

Her thoughts reached back and lingered on the tennis court that Samuel told her about.





When you play with a heart
you might not know how to start,
neither how to proceed
but you’ve got what you need.

SEVENTH SEQUEL

The toolshed was nearly finished.

Only the door hinges remained.

Henry chose to cut them in elaborate shapes from sturdy leather.

The door was a window salvaged from a church that had been in a state of renovation for ages.

He attached the hinges with brass dome-headed screws and suddenly the plain shed looked precious to him.

He sat down on the ground and with his back against the door made a call to his sister Kristin.

He told her about the tentative search for their sister Leve and the plan to restore the central park.

He explained that he probably would not be able to work with the boat for a long time.

Kristin was delighted with the news.

She wanted to come and help with their endeavours as soon as she had finished her most urgent tasks.

The boat could wait.

As always she would sleep in the playhouse during her stay with them.

Henry told her that the princes and princesses next door had wondered when they would see her again.

He opened the door and carried the garden tools inside.

He walked back to the house, where Alice had started to prepare dinner.

He proposed a picnic by the new toolshed, which she thought was a great idea.

Sitting on a blanket of a subtle tartan plaid (of an origin unknown to them) they leaned against the shed.

They were warmed by the last sun.

Alice was relieved to hear that Kristin was coming.

They would need help in their latest undertakings which seemed overpowering and futile at times.

What if Leve wanted to be left alone, for instance?

She had disappeared many times before without leaving any notice, though this must be her longest absence ever.

And they both had misgivings whether anyone would use the park, if it could ever be restored or renovated.

They agreed that at least the youngest royalties in the neighbourhood surely would enjoy access to the garden.

They could always ask their advice if in doubt how to proceed.

Alice told Henry that Eli had invited her to a concert later that evening.

She would soon have to get ready to go.

Eli had visited her earlier at the café dressed in a wonderful Sami traditional dress with unusually sombre colours.

When Alice asked her about the history of the dress she was told an enormous amount of interesting facts and fictions.

She now remembers only a fraction.

Eli had offered to take care of the café for some days, and Henry and Alice agreed to work with the garden during this time.

They returned to the house and Henry climbed the steep stairs to the attic.

  He chose two pictures from a stack and leaned them against the wall in front of a couch.

He sat down and studied them, searching for a way to begin writing.

After some time he laid down to rest.

He awoke from a dream with a riddle and its answer, both which he instantly forgot.

He suddenly became aware of the small torn photo of Leve.

Years ago he had rescued it from her wastebasket and pinned it to the wall.

He began writing:

I took this portrait of me one day,
though I’m not sure what it has to say.
It’s rather intriguing in some ways,
but I can’t see myself in that face.

When I hear my recorded voice
I cringe at the very foreign noise
that’s naturally mine but still not;
my being is an uncomfortable lot.

What I mostly recognize as being me
are lines and images that come to be
a grid through which I’m able to reveal
another me that feels much more real.

Then he looked with anticipation at the blue painting:





White whales are now abundant around you
and there should be no reason to feel blue.
Just tell us about it, so you won’t be alone
and please don’t turn yourself into stone.

You say you’ve told us innumerable times
without the sound of soothing chimes.
You say it’s time to anchor and go ashore.
Should we not search further anymore?

Alice and Eli attended the concert.

Outside they met Johannes, who asked Alice if the Series II Landrover still was used as a flowerpot bench.

She admitted that though the flowerpots were removed nothing had been done to repair it.

He said that he was looking for a spare time challenge like that and offered to see if there was anything to be done.

She told him to come whenever he wanted and that if he needed some tools he could maybe find something in their garage.

He said that he would bring his own tools.

He complimented Eli for her dress and they bid each other farewell.

On her way home Alice recited a verse:

Like riding a mechanical four by four
and getting to see so much more;
encountering hardships and serious bumps
and not being hindered by enormous dumps,
advancing slowly and becoming very dented,
still reaching the feeling of being so contented.

A sports car on a smooth and attended road
gives satisfaction in a different mode,
captures and thrills by the speed of it all,
one can simply enjoy and really have a ball.

And a regular and ordinary car I need
that keeps a more standard speed
to stay on track with others – at least try,
and fix the basic stuff for me and my.

If I have a driver, there’s no way I can know;
I can only guess at where my wheels will go.
For I’m just a passenger who does my best to see
glimpses through windows of what the world can be.


She returned just in time to catch the apple sequence in U2's It's A Beautiful Day video that Henry was watching.

They saw one more music video before going to sleep.

They were stunned.

SIXTH SEQUEL

Kristin had a part time job as an idea exchanger at a plastics factory.

Presently she was developing a new design for their world bestselling series of totally transparent water containers.

She wanted to find the best shape of a fleur-de-lis, which would be moulded into the sides of five litre cans.

The flower was to be framed in an intricate and emblematic way in order to prolong interest.

In collaboration with a redblackwhitesmith she also made various plaques.

  They were to be mounted on the wall behind kitchen and bathroom faucets.

They all were decorated in order to celebrate water.

In addition she was one of those commissioned to envision a crest of humanity.

A crest for anyone to incorporate in shields and logotypes.

It was a beautiful day and she thought of retracing her forest path in a nearby international park.

Last year she had marked her way by tying red Great Wall silk ribbons around suitable trees.

She hoped that a visible pathway would evolve through usage.

When she arrived she discovered, to her delight, that the ribbons during the winter had aged into crimson nuances.







Along the path she created a game of hindrances.

She picked up a poster that had fallen by the wayside.


 
Be even cooler!
Let Hillary & Barack be the ruler;
together hand in hand
and lead us to the promised land.
Oops, I forgot about John McCain;
he should join and we shall all gain.

Now Obama did win
and wisely let the others in.
Trying to see everyone's view
must be the way to start anew.
This can be the right ground
to reach decisions that are sound.

Gloves and mittens fill the bag
that has an overwhelming tag:
For every cold hand
in every single land


Usually Kristin found circus posters.

She sometimes took them home, where she ironed out creases and taped tears.

She returned to her apartment.

  She changed into a nightgown and her black apron with the dwarfs and the harmonica.





She cooked two corn cobs and sat down to watch TV.

Then she went to sleep.

She awoke in the darkness of the night with an idea for the crest.

In the morning she made the idea into a sketch to start from.





Some time later it was Valentine's day.

She had already received an anonymous valentine.





An offering of
somewhat late or early valentines,
for drawing the necessary lines
between all you’s and me’s.
Take some, please!


She suspected that it was a gift from her reclusive next-door neighbour, Mr. Konstantin.

It was rumoured that he worked as an investigator of sorts.

For many years Kristin believed that she was secretly being monitored.

  For a benign purpose.

It was done either by some knowledgeable and resourceful persons or by other unknown forces.

They seemed to be waiting for her.

This feeling made her much more aware of behaviours and conversations.

She guessed that this was the reason for having this strange impression.

She remembered a song:

She looked at the wall.

Thousands of ancestors in me
are trying to raise me to see
what’s best for all descendants.

I’m now one of the attendants.

Some voices I hear more clearly;
the ones that talk to me dearly,
the ones who assist in every test
and never abandon this quest.

My heritage I should manage well.
Does it mean I must try to tell...


Her brother had painted the picture a long time ago.

Only recently did he write the text to go with it.

Kristin remembered that they had not yet decided about the boat.





She would try to reach him soon.

FIFTH SEQUEL

It was a perfect day for spreading the ashes from the stoves, which had accumulated during two years.

The coming rain would wash much of them down into the earth.

Henry had received a mail from his sister Kristin.

In it she asked if they should start with their joint boat restoration project.

He was already feeling overwhelmed by all the things he wanted to do.

He would call Kristin in the evening to suggest that she could ask Johannes for help.

Johannes was Alice's friend, who besides fencing also enjoyed working with wooden boats and certain cars.

Attached to Kristin's mail was a filmed statement, mysterious even coming from her.

Henry noticed that she had changed the bottom line of Mr Dylan's song from there are no kings... to we are all kings...

He liked that.

There was a sparrow king outside.






Henry chose the long road surrounding the neighborhood to reach Leve's house.

He started the heaters and then went outside to pick some fallen apples.

Then he turned on Leve's computer and saw that the desktop was filled with all sorts of items.

He opened one titled Show me Mary.

Mary entered.

She looked different from last time.

He thought that she seemed exasperated.

She had brought Catherine Wheels, which she arranged on a Nobel plate that Henry placed on the table.





He showed her the desktop crammed with items.

He opened one called Alice.

He told Mary that his wife might join them later.

Alice was Leve's close friend and wanted to help in their search.

They decided to try a different approach for a while.

She asked Henry if he knew any of Leve's favourite scents.

He recalled that Leve liked the smell of blood oranges, just recently lit stearin candles and the oxygen after rain.

Mary followed him to the bathroom, where he showed her the perfume bottles.





Leve had inherited Mitsouko from her great grandmother, Joy from her grandmother and Femme from her mother.

They each took an apple and a few wheels and sat out in the sun on a wooden bench of a hemlock green colour.

Alice arrived and sat down beside them.

She had forgotten her sunglasses and asked Mary if she wanted to come with her inside and see Leve's shoe collection.

The door to the right led to a walk-in closet.

Its floor was covered by a coarse persian carpet with foreign symbols.

They studied each pair of shoes carefully.









Shapes, lines, materials and craftsmanship together with intangibles determined the verdicts.

 Alice found sunglasses to borrow.





They went back outside and talked about the feelings of being in different kinds of shoes.

They both had Indian moccasins.

One of them had sewn a pair of seal Eskimo muclucs and the other had found vintage Japanese geta on internet.

Henry remembered something important.

Yesterday he had found a poem for a painting.

First I see the man and then I see the moon.

Will that change anytime soon?

Will the man turn and get his coat
or begin to slowly turn the boat?
There are many containers afloat,
each carrying a very special note.

Has he just found one?


And this morning he found an oil pastel painting he made a long time ago.

One of his first.





It was very dusty but he could see the title B612 written in large thin script.

He knows nothing about it now.

He vaguely remembers seeing a moon eclipse but he thinks that the title refers to a star, maybe the almost central one.

He has not been able to find anything celestial with that name on any search engine.


It all baffles him.

Mary reminds him: 

The name is from The Little Prince.

They all embraced and went home to rest.

The night before Mary had chosen this T-shirt.