Chazzy Patel's Blog

Katarzyna’s Proposal It was a mid-March morning, yet a winter chill lingered palpably, and the trees lining the streets were smothered with a thick frost. He walked through the muddied salt path, eyes fixed on his new shoes, and hands pushed into his wool coat pockets. By the Capitol building steps, the Denver skyline was hardly recognisable in the fog, with just a couple of polished tips figuring out how to discover their way through the apparently unending scope of white and emptiness. A city-wide shutdown for the Covid-19 had been announced a week ago by the Governor not far from these steps. The world was shutting down. Images of the previous month, despite everything that had happened, flittered on his brain. However, he felt to some degree disconnected, similar to an assortment of detached minutes falling off a giant clock. Strands of beautiful golden hair. Fingernails rimmed with stripping varnish. Lips that at first appeared to be sweet, however, that soured immediately, bound with the bitter tastes of lip-gloss and coffee. He didn't care. He regretfully craved that he hadn't asked her more he had wished to know, just so that, in years to come, she may take more of an unmistakable character in his memory than he was left. That, when analysed, could bring out a feeling in him - regardless of whatever it was, he wouldn't care then. In any case, from this point, she would simply be the lady in the blue jeans and grey sweater outside the cafe inside Union Station, smiling at him straight under the glint of two beautiful chandeliers. When he arrived at Katarzyna's apartment, the haze had, for the most part, lifted by the time he'd thump on the door. It was in a Victorian house turned into apartments near Capitol Hill, with yellowing paint and a chipping exterior suggested tiredness around an aged neighbourhood. Her window, as usual, shone out against the vacant lot, aglow with the warm shimmer of candles and Christmas lights. She embraced him at the door and leaned her head against his chest, her pulse exciting against his heart. Her eyes, as usual, were saturated with naive enthusiasm, faithful in its wildness, similar to the eyes of a deer gazing intentionally down the barrel of a hunter's weapon. He embraced her back, kisses her delicately on the neck. Her cheeks flushing as his hands folded over the little of her back and descended down her navel. Afterwards, they sat in front of the TV on the old sofa in her room, she slipped her fingers into his and crushed his hand until her knuckles went white. Towards noon, they go for a social-distancing stroll through the little section on the south side of City Park. The city is under a few new rules to quarantine the spread of the virus. Confine yourself to your home, don't attend any public gatherings.In public spaces, social distance yourself by standing 6 ft. apart from others and cover your face with a mask.You are not allowed to attend school or work unless you were essential personnel, provided no symptoms of the illness developed. The light was depleting from the sky under clouds as they plunked down on a bench beside the pond. He watched the lilies as Katarzyna kissed his neck. The peaks of their petals stroked against the water's surface, tinged by the quieted shades of life. They had a bright papery look to them, rendered practically translucent by the environment, which shared a dim shading that was both substantial and delicate. A honey bee circled vainly around a melting flower not far away. However, its vitality appeared to dull dramatically, and in time, it chose a blossomed bulb with its shaky wings, landing on its side. He gazed at the honey bee, wondering about its life - it epitomised a quality that was faultless in its nobility, yet intrinsically unassuming in its captivity. Regardless of whether it spoke to a yearning or an unthinkable absolute, he didn't know - yet whichever way, it grounded him. She kissed him harder, and with more earnestness, catching her hands around his neck and accidentally diving her fingernails into his skin until beads of blood rose to the surface. He saw the honey bee get itself together, shake the pollen off its worn-out little body and fly once more; soon, it would discover its nectar, appreciate it, and be euphorically renewed. It wasn't that he didn't care about Katarzyna. He did and had the time with the pandemic to find out more of his heart. There was something innocent to her dedication to her PhD. and confidence in him. How she would sit quietly for him with glasses of wine. Even after quite a while into the night, harbour no hatred or envy, jealousy of space in his mind, just a love for him, and a wanting of his children. Regardless of whether the approach of nightfall came to an end, and he was still no place to be seen; she sits quietly for him with glasses of wine. She would sit before her mirror, twists wrapped by hair rollers, painting her toenails as a miserably sentimental playlist drawled in the background. Fantasies took flight in her mind; she was a queen, dressed in a gown of gold and black silk with a flawless ostrich crest. He was her noble Knight. Their romantic tale would rise above the lonely walls around her, would transcend the messiness and the disarray of dating life, and would permit them to make their own little heaven, in which no one but they could live. She would gather her bags and abandon the way to her imprisoned apartment on the edge of life. He'd thump on the door while the sun was still up and whisk her to a house with an adorable nursery and honey hardwood floors. They would travel the world on ends with their family when permitted, drink wine under oak trees in Europe, like couples in the way lifestyle magazines did. She would have the option to hold his hand immovably yet serene, without wanting to grasp onto it for dear life and white knuckles. She was now a queen. He cared about her, yet he realised that he would want, before long, to be back outside the cafe inside Union Station, sitting opposite the woman in the blue jeans and a grey sweater, smiling at him straight under the glint of two beautiful chandeliers.

The EndingThe one-bedroom loft felt like the end of a chaotic storm after the thundering yelling and blasts of tears; the rain of pain on the sidewalk was gone as quickly arrived. That, and the apparent love we felt for one another. In any case, this time, we realised it wasn't enough. The chaos had happened, and we could, in any case, both feel it. More so, the storm wouldn't leave until one of us did. We realised it must be her. “This could be a book,” Stephanie stated, as she packed her things to leave.“How would that be?” I answered. “We're living at the point the story ends. The ending sucks.” Stephanie wrapped up her last bits of things. “I suppose this is goodbye then,” she said. I saw her that moment, appreciating and loving the woman I had devoted long stretches of my life to, and out of nowhere couldn't phantom the idea of this being the conclusion to our story. If we were genuinely living at the last bit of it, there could, in any case, be an opportunity to change what was about to transpire. I stopped her not long before she reached for the door. “Can you stay with me, only for today? This evening?” I questioned. “It won't change anything, Richard,” she responded. “I realise that. Be that as it may, are we able to dream again, only for this evening?” It was at that moment that we realised how to end it. Maybe, for one night, we could play the remnants of a relationship that we knew had passed on. For only one night, we could be the lovers once more, declare our feelings, and take the last bow to respect the love that was still there, regardless of whether it wasn't ample enough to turn the page to the start of the story. “Right now, really?” Stephanie inquired. “We should wash up for dinner,” I said. We moved to the bathroom, turned the valve on, and steam from the shower-head occupied the room and hazed up the mirror. Stephanie snuck up behind me, kissing my neck as she removed my clothes. I grabbed her, and we kept kissing as I removed hers. The water felt calming as it worked through my head and streamed down my back. I held her against me under the water and connected my temple against hers, our hands touching and fingers interlacing. There wasn't an ounce of hunger, dominance or submission. It was delicate and tender, how love ought to be. Each strange battle we had ever had appeared to wash away. Any past thoughts I had of pain or detest towards her were cleansed from my body as we remained under the water and gazed at one another with the most extreme warmth. We escaped the shower, helped each other dry, ate a light dinner, talked about the coming work week, a holiday once taken, went to bed, realising this would be the last night we would sleep alongside one another. It was then that I understood the book was almost finished. I held her firmly and against me until she fell asleep. I unobtrusively wept well into the night. In the first light of the day, Stephanie promptly got her things to leave. She opened the front door and turned around to take a look at me one final moment. “I really meant it when I said this could be a book. You ought to write it one day. You're a decent writer.” “It's a possibility,” I replied, realising that I never would. She laughed and left. He was unable to imagine a better 'The End.'

The pages lay scattered about the table; long spurned, and solidified in time. I walked closer to the desk and picked up a dust-covered page. The writing was not any neater, yet the diminished aged letters were yet still distinguishable in many places. Written in the cursive hand of the author, the blurred, coarse sheets bore the indications of a pen that would have been plunged in black ink for that particular calligraphic style. I thought about whether the writer held up after each sentence, delaying for the ink to dry out, to ponder his next thought. What did he write about? Was he a brilliant word wizard, taking to the pen when thoughts swarmed his head in a chaotic storm. Or on the other hand, would he say he was a celebrated, respected, figure of his times; a life organised to his last breath? These answers still hide from me. I found a seat and tidied away the thick layer of dust with my bare hands. What might once have been a cleaned, fine leather chair was presently a hard, weak seat. Light, I required all the more light to develop better clarities into this mystery. In the room, as well as inside my mind. The dirt clogged window moaned as I attempted to push it open, yet it was stuck tight. Similarly fastened close, my mind did not, in any case, express a groan. How could an attic, so firmly sealed, collect so much dust? How could my mind, so refreshingly perceptive, be so blank? It would have been easy to bring in some assistance and tidy up the place, yet I was worried of losing any clues, any legacy, that was apparently covered under that thick layer of dust. __________________ She turned sixteen and knew she had bloomed soon after. Her transitioning did not go unnoticed by the lady she called her Mum; soon it would be harvest season. When she turned twenty-two, she had experienced different types of abuses, incited a few abortions, and an identity change that suited her need at the time. Like a chameleon, she could wear a wicked look one minute, and a guiltless, innocent appearance the next. It helped that she was talented with an ageless beauty that swept any off their feet. The only thing she couldn't conceal was within her eyes. However, at that point who minded seeing that smallest hint of dread, scarcely insightful shade of disheartened blame, when their inspiration was never to look in her eyes. One of the earliest trusts she shed were honesty and dependability. In her realm, she couldn't bear the cost of these extravagances, not even within her own particular self. Another shortcoming she couldn't permit inside was fear. These were the benefits reasonable just by the insured ones, and she needed to fight with scroungers and predators in this world. She embraced numerous names, however, had no identity. Somewhere close to those approaching influxes of different forces, to whom she played the shore, she could never again examine who she truly was. Everything was pretending, even her uniqueness. Her education was survival-based. Some cruel expressions of the road for the raunchy, and a couple of smooth sentences for the perceiving; all idealised to the degree where she could keep the unwarranted under control, and charm the latter, with no apparent distress. Lies, not the quintessence of the individual, made a difference. What's more, she knew only of this. _________________ I got up from the chair and strolled over to other household items in the attic. Other than the chair that I had recently utilised, there was a brown bookshelf, with no books, and a little blue chest, with nothing inside. Not by any means the pen that he used. Nothing. No piece of information. Only a writers work desk with the scattered pages, and that pot of ink that had since a long time ago dried out. I got a paper from the base of the heap and endeavoured to peruse the blurred content with no achievement. Perhaps the information lay not here but rather out in some verifiable chronicles? My thoughts raced. My heart revealed to me generally, whatever the clues on the writer, were in this open loft, not even in the house itself, but here. I sat back on the old chair and shut my eyes. Learning can be increased through exertion, yet shrewdness, knowledge, is just allowed. It was the ideal opportunity for profound bonding. I was wrong, the author wasn't a man. The writer was a woman with a relatively young face that appeared conversely to her age-wrinkled hands. She wore a meditative grin; however, her eyes were disheartened by the scars of her life. I could hear the scrawl of her pen when it scratched the coarse papers, I could see the anguish all over as she relived the memories. Continuously alone in the tiny room, here and there wrathful, at times dismal, yet for the most part detached. I saw her days and her evenings, her summers and her winters. I saw her through her ages, as the years tumbled like tiles of domino. In any case, I couldn't unveil to her name, her identity. Who was this lady that moved a graceful pen, however with no air of achievement? Staying there quietly, somewhere out in dreamland, her pen swung noticeably all around. At that point writing in that smooth cursive style, until the point when the pages drifted away. Who was she, who honestly would she say she was? ____________________ It was on her twenty-fourth birthday celebration that the professor came to town. His first weeks were an insignificant interest, and only after he got himself a house in town, that the community considered him more important. He lived alone, so she remained standoffish. Sure of herself internally of his inescapable visit. It was merely an issue of time; all the wallflowers commonly came by her place. What's more, midday, he came by knocking. Not for the usual reasons that others found their way there, but just to see whether she might want to join his class. She grinned inside at his honesty and courteously directed him in. She had all the learning that she required. His company was alluring, she discovered in the days to come. Also, she requested that he take her as a student, show her something new; help her discover an identity. He quietly encouraged her to read and to write in a cursive style that the scholarly of the time utilised. For training, he smilingly solicited her to write all the different names that she had taken over the years. It startled her to understand that they could fill the pages. It was not some time before he moved on from an instructor to being a friend to her. There was a changing of roles, he was presently the shore to the attack of her waves. First and foremost, her waves were infuriated tempests, battering the shoreline. At that point, they swung to mortified surfs, and bit by bit weakened down to delicately sliding waters over the sands. Consistently, she would stroll up to his home, go to the attic, and write away every last one of her names over and over again. One day, he advised her not to utilise the ink any longer. She wrote the names over and over, not a hint of words evident on the paper. Rapidly she wrote; quietly he continued turning the pages, until the point when her hands trembled from the misery of experiencing the imperceptibility of her identities. At that point, he delicately put his hand on her pen and requesting that she stop. She looked down at the heap of clear pages for a long minute and afterwards broken down crying. A quiet howling cry, a calm moaning. He let her tormented tears stream, at that point bringing down his head, whispered in her ears, 'YOU ARE, so you will discover your identity. Starting now and into the foreseeable future, keep the pen with you, don't abandon it on this desk. You will dependably discover some ink; however, the pen is you.' He cleared out town the following day, leaving the house and the pen for her. _____________________ I figured I could open my eyes now. She wasn't letting out any more privileged secrets into who she was. The following day, I returned utterly prepared. Conveying a spotlight, a magnifying glass, and a fine tidying brush, so like the ones utilised by the archaeologists. I gently got each paper and brushed the residue away, delicately extinguishing any leftover dust with my breath. Armed with the electric lamp and the magnifying glass, I hunched down on the floor. And carefully, I started to study everything, every single one of her words. She had never wished to keep her precious secrets, truth be told, she pleaded with me to listen to her. In desensitised quietness, I continued perusing her work. Not a word sidestepped me, not an idea got away me. What's more, I understood everything, even the clear pages she had at long last written. I shut my eyes once more. I wished to see her once again. To pay respect to the woman whose identity I had found. She sat quietly at her desk, her pen caught tight in her grasp. As she rose to meet me, I could see the anguish in those exploring eyes. I guaranteed her not to stress, as I had brought her identity along. We embraced each other for quite a while until we both parted and cried. She cried in help, for having discovered her character. I cried in melancholy, since I was all the while still looking for mine.

Pipe-cleaners and Popsicle Sticks After the madness, after the vomit in hidden alleyways, after the last-minute dream job offer in Barcelona, after the underground and the wicked Cornish pasties. The double-decker ads and the tormented pub nights and the broiling delight of curry and chips at midnight. After the wet wool coat smells and the eye-gloop mornings and the spiralling heights of The Gherkin and the joys of tea, dark waves of the Thames, white bubblegum clouds and even the loo queue. Oh, the loo queue and a general population you would absolutely toss yourself on the ground in front of Buckingham Palace and die because they're only that bloody brilliant— Following three British years where the Englishes blended in my mouth, crisps this and trousers that, finally to shred over the Atlantic one more time, the waters surged and frothed like some evil cartoon foams at the mouth— After all of that: Here I was, back in Denver, Colorado, back in Fishy's old car. The one that used to be her Mum's, the one we'd driven to elementary school in the pouring spring rain with the smell of fresh squeezed juice and gel pens. She told me it sat in the garage most days collecting dust. She took it out for old friends. Rarely, since most moved away. In forty-eight little hours, personal histories twisted in on each other, a finger bent, and time put me back here safe and sound. Returned. Recovered. This time fortified with overcooked french fries and a large TV in the cramped back seat that cost an outrageous amount for anything, regardless of if you counted in dollars or pounds. I'd turned my phone to airplane mode, now that I was securely back on the ground. Its British body and American SIM, like a body and a mind. In my terrified wistfulness on my last night in London – assisted and fueled by two pints, three gins and the bittersweet separation tugging a final time on my heart – I'd posted an emotional rambling monologue to Facebook, topped with a link to a forty-minute Ted Talk video. #winning I'd deleted it in frantic embarrassment early the next morning on the train to Gatwick. Obviously, it made no difference. By the time I strolled past the duty-free shop, everybody I´d ever gone to school with had seen it and was excited to hear I was coming home with another funky hairstyle and no health insurance; when would we be able to get together, talk long over froyo, yoga or a breastfeeding sesh? (Theirs, not mine). So I’d shut off the notifications until such a time as my time-lapsed bungle brain caught up with my plane-clammy body. Meanwhile, Fishy had work to do. Furthermore, in the way of being my best friend, that implied I had work to do as well. While purple-haired Fishy made rounds downtown dropping off her ex's massive comic book collection to Craigslisters, I was to care for the expensive gadgets in the backseat. Being too much to move more than once, yet significantly more important than the vehicle itself, it was decided they would remain put in the old car, and I would go about as a sort of jetlagged human shield. On the off chance that anybody with a crowbar and a terrible thought came close, I guess I was intended to swat them off with the soggy fries or the chewed straw from the greasy meal Fishy had gotten me - to express gratitude for being the best sidekick ever. "So did he say you could take this stuff?" I asked honestly after Fishy had picked me up from my folks' home loaded from my parent's green chilli casserole and recuperating from a relaxing first rest in my childhood bed. Aside from the comic books, Fishy had enthusiastically taken a TV, stereo and chrome espresso machine off his hands. I looked back at the items attentively as she peeled down our road, drinking a milkshake the shade of Pepto Bismol with one hand and blazing a joint in the other. "Ruby Baker!! He's actually fucking his assistant Rachel something in Mexico at this very moment. On the off chance that he needed this stuff he obviously shouldn't have left me his key." I whirled my hand in the air as I reached over to change the music. "I mean you don't know that for sure, Fishy." "I know what I know," she said. "Here – drink this." Acting as though a milkshake could fix the world, she threw the milkshake into my hand and made a U-turn towards her first Craigslist drop. Presently in some downtown parking building, I was left to consider my semi-permanent life migration choice while my cheeseburger processed and Fishy enchanted some person in a flat nearby into paying a hundred more for an Iron-man comic than he should. From the front seat, I could slightly see a section of daylight past the solid concrete pillars. The car was covered with cans of Arizona Iced Tea, a few half-smoked joints, and the bottle top of windshield liquid. I thought about whether I'd woken up right at that point, in the car, straight from Gatwick. Would I know which nation I was in? Might I be able to differentiate between it from England straight away, from the brands on the trash on the greasy car floor? From the content of the yellow numbers, splash painted to checkered parking spaces in the concrete dungeon of the garage – D24, D25, D26? Perhaps I'd made a mistake in returning here. If this were the case, no mistake I had ever made friends and family so happy in recent years. And then I didn’t really have a choice, did I? What with what happened to Richard. I tallied the hours on my fingers since I was last in some smug Soho bar, dancing to gypsy jazz, and how frequently I'd peed since then. I attempted to decide if there was any shot that a puddle of gin, the extent of a pinky nail, could, in any case, be tucked inside my abdomen someplace, in some dimple of a digestive tract or something; however, it worked. A liquid leftover relic inside me. The mingling of the internal shores. Earlier, as she drove us through the city like a Mario Kart driver, Fishy continued glancing toward me directly asking "What will you do if you see him?" What's more, I knew she didn't mean Richard, for the fact that I'd just been to the hospital the previous night coming in from DIA. I knew she implied him-him. Sport-coat-bushy check-dry-lips-beating-hearts him. The late-minute-trip to Colorado Springs during that one spring him-him? What's more, I didn't generally know, so I sunk myself more profoundly into the oversized hoodie I'd found in my old closet. In the middle of a stop between 17th and Stout, next to the old Equitable Building, Fishy had watched me with worrying eyes. She could see I was in the throes of vulnerability. Tossed around in the middle of my decision like a baby dinghy out of its depths. What's more, there was nothing I could do. "It was your moment," she said. "Your moment to go." She was attempting to reassure, and laid a hand on my knee. At that point, the light changed, and she sped off like a London black cabbie. When she said it like that though, it sounded like I was already dead and resurrected here, in some kind of heaven that had cup holders and a stale Evergreen air freshener, but still smelled a bit like lip gloss. Suddenly in the parking lot, I heard this huge yell. A foghorn yell, similar to some extremely gigantic person at a football match, and I dodged down, looked back through the headrest with a beating, tired heart. But, it was just a delivery guy, directing a truck driver towards the back of a loading bay. I slowly turned backwards in the seat and leaned against the glove compartment to watch the men empty the truck. My view was blemished by the colossal TV held up in the back; while my duty as Protector of the TV was grating, at the same time, other than my phone, it was my only source of amusement. I saw that portion of daylight inch nearer on the left and thought about whether it fell through the car, and I got overheated, might I be able to sue Fishy for abandoning me here like individuals do to dogs in some cases. I could claim mal-friendship. I wouldn't. I loved her so much. The hardest lessons I'd had come through since arriving were the ones of my friend back there. Also, they tormented because the timestamps were so off. The time difference had officially broken some spell – everything now would dependably fall left merely of the rhythm it needed to be. Be that as it may, Fishy would dependably be there for me. Until I have found another career path and new friends, I knew life would be patchy at best. It would come in clusters. I envisioned the weeks and the months traversing out before me. There were heaps of ways you could think of filling them. The process of filling them. Easy. Generating a life like hot steam. Packing its cells, like on a calendar or an empty spreadsheet. Painting it like a chaotic landscape envisioned in your mind. Or maybe choosing a more complex art medium. Like dancing. Or sculptures made from old gym socks and crepe paper. The world is your Oyster card. Since London, music hasn't been the same. Furthermore, I had all the pipe-cleaners, the popsicle sticks I needed to make it. Obviously, I'd need to invest energy in keeping an eye on Richard. He was my younger brother, and I was happy to do it. I cherished him more than any CO2-gagged city formerly ruled by presumptuous Romans. Also, it is incredible to invest everyday energy with my past. Do the boring things. Do laundry and the dishes. Go to Home Depot, purchase light fixtures. Be that as it may, whatever is left of it, in the end, would be dependent upon me. The at-home-honeymoon would wear off. What's your life, Ruby? What are you replacing the old one with? I worried I'd get amped-up on artificial sentimental things. Wishy thoughts of what might make my time valuable. Like one time in London, long after a breakup, when I'd gone to some film premiere party spontaneously, wearing my red lipstick and wine glass like weapons. ¨Give me meaning!¨ I almost cried. Give me impulse- I'd unintentionally dropped a hors-d'oeuvre on the foot of a lanky but good looking, kind gentleman wearing a pair of fancy shoes and wicked beard. I made a significant thing of being forward and flirtatious and had pizazzed my way into going home with him, persuasively layering the serendipity on far too thick. By the time we arrived at his flat, my lipstick and impetuous glint had returned to normal pumpkin level. I'd called an Uber from his place before we'd even taken off our clothes. I requested that the driver dropped me at a Kebab shop and had a Shish and chips on a tube the rest of the way home. I'd felt the anti-climax sneer through the light-streaked night window. No, Denver this time would be high-quality moments of your new history only. Natural, corn-fed genuine friendships. Ground-up stuff. Regardless of whether it implied living with friends and family for a bit and watching Netflix. As the movers pulled plastic wrapped furniture from the massive truck, I attempted to design robust maps and objectives in my mind. I'd join an art collective on Santa Fe Street. I'd set a decent sleeping schedule. I'd be there for loved ones. I'd write no less than one little thing every other day. I'd keep up cherishing transatlantic exchanges with my mates and set aside money, once earned, to create an epic adventure the following year. Maybe in 6 months. The idea of distance, so recently tiny, now made me feel sick to my stomach. In the weeks paving the way to returning, Fishy had helped me through my questions over short calls. Her voice faltering over the Atlantic– "What is a fucking border? Am I right? You know. Fuck." My stomach protested around the cheeseburger. I would need to pee soon, and I considered how much longer Fishy would be. I was all the while feeling puffed with feeling from our discussion on the drive here. "How's Richard now?" she inquired. "Fishy, I don't know if I should talk about it." "You probably should talk about it. Talking is good." I gave her a look. The turn signal clicked loud in the car. "I simply mean he's your brother. What's more, he's adorable. He resembles a little … baby croissant. Even though he's grown up now. He needs your love as do the rest of us." "What's more, he has it, Fishy. There are some people you can never stop loving. It will be brilliant if we chat about something different." Fishy gestured one fearless nod, peering towards a person on foot. A long silence as we travelled down seventeenth street., dim and glass structures steadfast on each side. They’d seriously developed since I’d been away. I'd returned for Christmas to see some new sparkling blue thing shooting fifty stories high. Happy holidays; hereś another new building and 50 more cranes to celebrate. Stay warm, Mile-high! At that point Fishy, out of the blue, "I mean I sort of get it. At times when I go out, I check the door around a million times. But then again you're sitting at the movies, and you think – fuck me loud, I've left my hair straightener on, haven't I? Also, in your mind, you see your apartment up on fire and the neighbour's cat all seared to bits." "Fishy. He's really sick! It's more than that. He washed his hands until the point that they bled. They discovered him on the floor, he'd burnt all his things. He figured he could sterilise them." My voice got caught in my throat and my face folded in pain. Fishy turned onto a side road and pulled the car over gradually. She put her arm around me, and we just sat peacefully like that for a while. I knew I resembled a building being destroyed, that one slo-mo minute on delay where the blocks just explode. In the wake of ten long minutes, I wiped my eyes, blew a huge long breath out through floppy lips, and apologised. "You're like a fine wine, Ruby Baker. You just keep showing signs of beautifully maturing every damn day I known you." I grinned, purple and soaked in sweat and tears. I saw a memory of Fishy in tenth grade English class, keeping tabs with her own made up horoscopes on the backs of flyers for school dances, and then reading mine with her gum-snapping in her teeth.´You have a skill for lunch meats, Libra. Remain kind, focused, and you'll pick the right bologna.´ That was the year Fishy's Mum passed away. As breast cancer had advanced, we'd increasingly got picked up by her Mum's friend Charlie from school. Whenever there was a faraway errand or a tennis match, and my parents couldn't do it, Charlie was there.He was short, stocky, always smiling and kept his joints in a small Altoids tin in the cup holder. You could tell he was somewhat perplexed of us, with our orange eye-shadow one day, and pretentious attitudes about the varsity sports team the next. However, I'd always loved Charlie. Right when you thought he was only a stern person doing his duty and being honourable, he'd hurl some cheesy joke or story out to us in the back. We'd roll in laughter – still sufficiently youthful to revert to being little girls – and in the rearview mirror, I could see his smile travel every which way. Fishy swore Charlie was just a friend of the family. He was simply assisting. Fishy's Dad wasn't great at that kind of stuff. He wasn't great at quite a bit of anything. In any case, I knew Fishy had suspected continuously there was more. At her Mum's memorial service, Charlie had shaken like a leaf in a storm, tears trailing down the ends of his beard. Fishy's Dad was mysteriously absent that day. At last, the moving guys were done packing all the furniture into a utility lift. They pummeled down the filthy metal door at the back of the truck, and some person waved goodbye in the empty lot. I sat up to turn back around in the seat, and my shift popped open the glove compartment. A heap of papers and flyers and garbage slid out and floundered onto the floor. "Bugger." At any rate, now I had something to do. I twisted around ponderously and scooped everything up as well as can be expected, nearly thumping over whatever remained of my drink. "Fuck… " In the middle of a collapsed menu for Chinese take-out and an old real estate magazine, there was a heap of glossy photographs. Most were nighttime memories streaked with orange exposure and white rings of light. The vast majority of them were Fishy's Mum and Charlie – a smiling eyebrow taken extremely close, a lawn garden, an immovable look of love and somewhere in the range of 90s design overstaying its welcome into the mid-2000s. A heap of dried aspen leaves fell out. The birthday party of a family friend of Fishy's parents that I remember really happening, because Fishy had stayed at mine that night, eating excessive amounts of cheesy popcorn and vomiting in my dollhouse. Another photograph demonstrated Fishy's Mum and Charlie cozy on a loveseat with dark sweaters, laced hands and smiles that could break sound barriers. They were very much into their thirties yet could've been sixteen for how ripe and beautiful their love showed on old film. Did Fishy know these were here? Did she keep them deliberately? Or on the other hand, were they just lurking there, forgotten, a shiny answer to those awkward childhood questions? I heard a jingle of keys, and my heart pummeled. Fishy was coming up to the car. I crushed the entire heap of photographs and papers back into the glove compartment, pounded it close with my hands and knees as she opened the driver door. "Would you believe the nerve of these assholes who believe that there could be a more badass villain than MYSTIQUE in all of comic history?" I mumbled something in solidarity. Fishy put the key in the ignition and paused to take a look at me with doubt. "What's wrong? You look terrible." "Just jet-lagged. Probably getting dried out at this altitude." "We'll get you some Gatorade. Just seven more stops." We cut into a Seven-Eleven off of tenth and Broadway, winding through the extravagant new apartments like the network of concrete valleys onto Speer Blvd. I felt a whirl of guilt in my stomach, reacting with the chewed up fries. Time and place made distances, hauled you out of step with those you were intended to be closest to. In the event that I said something about the photos, I didn't know whether Fishy would shrug a shoulder, say she'd put them there. Or on the off chance that she'd stop the car entirely, madly driving us off towards Charlie's house, which, last I thought, was two and a half hours outside of the city into the mountains. "Going to get some petrol as you would say in Jolly Ole England, darling" Fishy said as she turned the car into a station off of Colfax Ave... Getting here, I'd sneak peaks of the South Platte River through condos hugging both sides of the river and reminisced the Thames. Fishy joltingly stopped by a pump, bounced out; I watched her fill the tank, run inside to get me two blue Gatorade and a stick of turkey jerky. Its tenderness made me need to cry once more. I felt like a wet bathroom sponge and as a distraction, I grabbed my phone and turned on my data with pure dread. Twelve messages and notifications kept running up my screen, each encouraging plans that would be both immaculate and hammering. A drink at The Historian, its cold lager tangled with street tacos. And then a BBQ invite at a house I ran around naked a number of times as a girl. Both in walking distance. It was a sickness of stretching. A blending of delight and desperation that made the restless feeling. You didn't regularly get one without the other, did you? Like Life had been designed as a sliding scale, a pulley structure. In bliss, you are always close to sadness, and in pain, you are never too far from pleasure.(But then, in other parts of life, another level perhaps, you were only allowed to pick one, one, one – like people, food, or places.) I stowed away in a Marks and Spencers off of Oxford Street, a few months prior, making a WhatsApp call to Fishy on poor public Wi-Fi. My voice split in waves up to the satellite and took off down over the Atlantic. I'd concealed my face behind some hot tea and opened to Fishy how it felt. My ideal happiness in one life, yet the pulling feeling of another. I told her I'd speak to family and friends and felt like I was running late to meet somebody. Like running late and your phone is sitting on 1%, and you can't tell them that you'll be there soon. They're left on the opposite end to think the worst of it. With no real way to clarify, or comfort them. "Fishy, I'll be home soon." And after that, a man behind me kindly cleared his throat; I was obstructing him to make the most of enjoying his Chicken Tikka sandwich and tea; so I quietly moved along in the queue. In the month paving up to leaving, I'd acted out the entire arrival in words and mental stage-plays, while brushing my teeth or riding the tube. Attempting to ghost out its emotions, brace for the effect early so it would lose its energy when the actual event came. I'd returned now, hadn't I? That separation settled, blame pardoned. The world collapsed into equal parts like a bit of A4, 8½ by 11-inch paper, the edges kissing at best. Fishy came back to the car, gave me my liquids, squeezed a loving fingertip into my warmth flushed cheek, and I left my reasoning there. We turned east, headed back towards Broadway. Fishy turned some music on, fiddling with her outdated iPod and its old, presumably flammable USB cord. A hint of summer sun turned the capital building a blinding sight, blazing passing cars and store windows with a yolk-yellow tint. A song went ahead that reminded me that I made out with a tennis player to it; a million miles back in time on this day. The past underlined the present and as we turned up back onto Broadway creeping out of a blinding skyline, it felt, authentically, similar to living in the future. At 1st Ave., Fishy sped for a yellow light and lost her nerve as it slipped to red. She pummeled the brakes, sending her new blue Slurpee down the front of her shirt. "Well look at this shit… " I assisted with loose napkins and a face towel I found in the back. I touched laughingly at her chest as she kept driving, passing parks and street corners and light-rail stations so soaked with memory that they should have been Historical Society sites. In no less path than Crawley, West Sussex wound up ordained years back, or Horsham justified silent prayers for whatever remains of my life. Yet the feeling when the seatbelt sign dinged off on the non-stop flight back, two days ago? It was a higher echelon of emotion experienced. A confusion, however a flawless release. Fishy called and rescheduled the rest of her Craiglist appointments. She didn't like putting off any buyers by turning up covered in a blue Slurpee. I personally thought it would help her with the sales. She headed towards my home not far on Ellsworth and Lincoln Avenue; singing and dancing her hands on the steering wheel. Shifting my body, I delicately pushed my knee against the glove compartment, enabling the options to choose if it were to pop open in my absence or not. In a flood of frantic joy, I needed to embrace my brother and resurrect my childhood in my mind. Ten minutes later, we pulled into my driveway. "Eat something. Something tasty your Mom made. You look like an anaemic fish and chip." I thanked her for her kind affection, turned to open the door and checked the road for passing cars. I looked across over to my home and—"It's him." Twenty-year-old-late-night -calls him-him, talking the night away in-romantic tongues-and-the-rock show-downtown him him. He was standing on my front patio, laughing with my folks, my Mom holding a photo frame we'd purchased yesterday at Ikea, my Dad holding a Winsdor Castle tea towel and smiling into the sun. Since everything with Richard, I didn't see them glow like this anymore. I popped the car door open, and they looked over. He waved; tiny satellite waves reaching me only one-hundredth of a second after they occurred. All of us, chatting and laughing, in some way, forever caught back in time. Fishy giggled, smiling as big as my Dad. "You look like crap. But trust me, he won't give a second thought about it." I battled out of the car, swung back to Fishy. "This doesn't change anything. I'll pick you up later. Eight-thirty?" I gave her a nod and closed the door, a broad, time-soaked weightless smile appeared on my face. And I walked slowly across the road.More short stories of Ruby Bakerś adventures will be available in digital and print Dec 1, 2018 in SCRIBBLES IN TRANSIT: a collection of short stories. Digital copies start at $2.99, grab yours at Amazon | B&N | Google Play | iBook this Dec 1, 2018

There was something surreal about her sitting across from me. Her captivating beauty would inspire anyone who wished to live life all over again, yet her delicate eyes passed on the inaccessible depths which influenced one to lose faith in carrying on with life itself. The acknowledgement humbled me that she would never honestly really be mine or anyone's for that matter; regardless of how intimate we grew. 'I need to know what goes on in your mind,' I at long last found the words, 'and feel what's in your heart.' She gazed toward me in profound stillness; with a genuine smile asked, 'Are you sure you are up to it?' 'Indeed… I am a bit of an adventurer. My travels are long and entertaining. Sometimes, wicked, but nothing I cant handle.' 'Well, I have been as far as the heart,' she stood up, 'however, my mind is still in very uncharted territory.' My eyes strayed down to her palms laying on the table. She had delightful slender fingers, delegated by splendidly shaped, unpainted nails. 'Wasn't it the mind that is discovered first?' I kept taking a gander at those fingers. 'That is a man's way; the warrior tackles the struggles.' 'I simply need to explore, and absorb.' I kindly requested. 'Which one would you wander into first?' She looked upward once more. 'Your mind obviously. After that, I would soak up what is in the heart.' She sat quietly for a minute, at that point her hands ascended from the table and covered my eyes. I could feel their warmth bit by bit seep in. 'I'll give you two winks, each eye, one for the brain, one for the heart. A minute longer and you may get lost...never to return.' She stopped and afterwards her hand gradually let my eyes free. I missed the captivation under her warm palms and delicate fingers. On her first wink, time stood still. The power of buffeting storms startled me. With no cover in sight, the shrieking winds flung me far into the recesses of her mind. How could a woman with such a tranquil presence, the bearer of those delicate hands, have such disturbance inside her psyche!! My own thoughts screamed. What are those approaching shadows, this flying debris jetting all around me?? I ducked as a hailstorm zoomed pass my head. I thought back and remembered it as an injury which had once caused her great pain and lingering anguish. A spark lit up the skies; she had finished university. From the shadows afar, a soft giggle resounded; she had reunited with a lover after that intense fight. I saw two conflicting strands of rationale quarrel among themselves as they blew past me. That angry mayhem in the corner was the bitter experience of experiencing her divorce. This earth-shaking battle was the death of her dearest friend. My thoughts developed as bewildered as her mind was riotous. Anyway, in the midst of this commotion, what pacified it all? What kept these savagely different pieces together? How might one make sense of these contending stimulants? 'See what I mean? That is the reason I rarely venture into my mind.' Her voice echoed from aeons before the beginning of time. In any case, time had stopped to exist. The wink was eternity itself. It was time to leave. Her second wink drove me into the openings of her heart. I braced myself for the experience. Nevertheless, this was a more profound place, without the bustle I included experienced inside the mind. A home where agony and delight delt in consoling harmony. I saw a hall where the psyche comforted the mind. I wandered into a tiny room where her heartbreak was calmed by the balm of time. In the bedroom, some of her inculcated values assembled around the rebellious impulses to lie still. I could see logic hurl its arms in irritation when her feelings quietly locked it inside a room. I found an empty seat, so similar to those empty voids in her heart, and sat down. I thought about whether I had enough time before the wink was over, and acknowledged it no longer mattered. I could have remained here for eternity. She was right in going by her heart and staying away from her mind. It was here that the solution lay. While logic, sanity, and sensibilities battled their endless fights, it was the heart that consumed everything, keeping the pieces together. She has discovered peace within herself. I felt her palm cover my eyes once more. I cherished those warm, delightful fingers as they twisted towards my temples. At the point when did I get back? Two winks were awfully too short of time! I have quite a lot more to explore, to learn and to absorb! 'Can you please give me some additional time?' I whispered with my eyes shut. 'There can't be another opportunity. You do the best in the given time.' She delicately pulled her hand away. I kept my eyes shut, afraid of losing the delicate moments. My desire to see no longer existed. My vision developed independently of the visual perception. I put my elbows on the table and gently laid my chin on my clasped hands. I could feel her over the table, the gentle grin scarcely extended her sensitive lips. I knew her eyes would take a gander at me, as a lovers' would. 'When you let me in...,'my words reverberated in that enlightened blackout, '...weren't you concerned I would find a lot of what you intended to hide?' 'You are an adventurer, a passer-by... not a conqueror.' Despite everything, I did not have a desire to open my eyes. 'Who really are you?' She smiled, 'Life, itself.'

I have a vivid photographic memory my mind has been dealt with for too long. Most would think this a precious gift, however to me, it's a curse, similar to salt rubbed into a bloody gunshot wound. Why? All things considered, I'm an enemy of many among the living. Alright, a serial killer if you will. I detest this definition. Be that as it may, I'm not a sociopath or a mentally ill person by any means. I have a heart and live in the dark presence that surrounds all of us. It's another curse that exacerbates the first; the memory thing. I recall each murder in intense detail, where I was, and how I finished their lives. Some don't see it coming, and others give death a chase. My heart beats for their underdog victory, but it never unfolds well. I end it as quickly as possible. I wonder, Did they all sense death knocking at the door? I get perhaps an average of four hours rest each night; if that. I regularly see them when I close my eyes. I remember each clear part of their brutal deaths in my vivid nightmares. Sometimes, I long for suffocating in an ocean of their carcasses; bodies of every one of those I butchered over the years. In another one, I climb up and lay on a pyramid of dead bodies; corpses I've piled up meticulously with their blood utilised for mortar. I don't know how much longer I can go on living this life. This exact instant, I'm perched in a armchair with a cup of tea and the telly on to BBCś Planet Earth; the sturdy weight of a loaded firearm in my left hand; a Glock. I am imagining placing it in my mouth, directing it to the back of my head, and gradually crushing the trigger. Bang! Furthermore, for the life of me, I can't think of a justifiable reason not to do it. It would put me out of my misery, prevent me from killing once more, and give me the 'enormous rest and peace' that I beyond any doubt could ever truly utilise. I'm so worn out. Tired from the absence of rest, tired of life, tired of remembering, tired of taking any more lives. How many have I executed? To be frank, I lost tally years back. I've murdered men, women, bloody hell, I've even done in children. Obviously, I'm not cruel. I execute them fast and discard the bodies into the cool profundities of water. It's a proficient method for disposing of them, and it's the way my better half needs it to be done. We have a ritual, you see. I killed them all for her. "Darling! There's another spider in the kitchen! Come here and kill it, will you! It would be brilliant if you could also flush it down the loo, love." That is her right now, begging me to commit another murder. I need to go now.

The music, well, it doesn't come from me. My fingers don't even touch the keys, you see. Nobody ever questions as to why I demand that I remain behind a curtain; not in front of the nightly audience, taking accolades over Mateus, and howl with the bartender, Allen. "The music's more important, Neal." I explained to Mr Cassady when I began at the old restaurant bar. "It's not about me. Never has been, never will be." He merely needed somebody to play the old brown piano on the nights a crowd wasn´t up for sing-along jazz. He couldn't care less whether they had any talent or not. The holy fool didn´t even mind the curtain. He and the manager had ´rescued´ it from the old theatre in downtown Denver. The cityś transforming the joint into more apartments. The city is booming. The hotel above now charges $6.50 a night, but its ecstasy has been lost since the early years of the Beatniks. You'd think it'd been debilitate, centring all that intensity night after night? However, the most exceedingly lousy thing I, at any point, walk away with is a deadness from spending the entire night on a piano stool. You can't complain about finger spasms when they aren't even touching the keys, you see. The most magnificent evenings are the ones when there are individuals with significant issues: broken hearts, recent loss, and human problems. I feel their energy is the most educating, and the piano feeds on it like a mosquito sucking blood, plumping up its mid-region with all that life sauce. For me, it just feels sweltering and thick – like a wet summer inside your heart. I sit behind my velvet curtain and tune in to the clink of cutlery; wine pouring from bottles; servers removing orders with courteousness fit from the likes of New York and San Francisco. I lay my hands above the piano and close my eyes. I've attempted it with them open – it's interesting, the way the keys move like imperceptible fingers are squeezing them – yet it doesn't achieve the same result. I can't channel them into that moment and emotion. There were complaints about the pianist that evening, the manager, Mr Kerouac informed me. Since that day, eyes closed with only whispers from my fingers. People leave in tears relatively every night I am behind the curtain. Sometimes joy, sometimes its entirely something new. "That piano, Neal," a regular named Carolyn once said. "It sounds like it's chasing what's in my blood while wickedly dancing with my heart." They adore it. They feel understood. Less desolate, I assume. I, also, feel the heaviness of the substantial number of issues I've never had, every one of the diseases, battles of the heart and betrayals. It resembles reading a good book: it reaches out and talks to specifically you. The paper-bound life is unified with immense love; however once it's over, you return to your life like nothing's changed. Pages will keep turning; the tune will continue evolving. That's how the music was created. On the off chance that they ever pull back the curtain, it's finished. I'll quit being their observer and they'll see me: the one who conducts the draining of their hearts, someone who can't see the music. A man who doesn't even touch the keys, you see.

I assumed she would be an older woman with thick flowing white hair and a tamed manner of a cold-hearted grandmother joining you for a cup of tea. Yet she ended up being a younger, energetic, short-haired suave woman with an intelligent wit about her. One would furthermore have assumed to find her on some remote Colorado mountaintop walking in the clouds over this clamouring downtown train station that she insisted on meeting. '...By the way, lady, how am I going to find you inside bloody Union station? Itś quite busy these days.' I had playfully questioned. 'Try not to stress about the little things,' she laughed on the phone, 'Itś my job to find people. I sort of find my nose in everything, love.' ´Cheeky!´ I had thought. Maybe it was another trick. After all, I had found her number on a marijuana dispensary bulletin board after a couple of edibles. The card simply read:“Time is the most valuable thing that one can spend.”The Historian Denver, Colorado 303-877-EMC2 In the travelling turmoil around the crowded station, in the midst of the passengers tapping away at phones, all of a sudden, she appeared in front of the giant clock above a flower shop cleverly named Bloom. Window light illuminated her for seconds and, next minute, she was sitting next to me on a leather sofa, blazing her infectious smile. Some way or another, I wanted to smile back, but I did not. 'How do I know it's really you, lady?' I questioned. 'Look around you, darling.' Her young eyes motioned around the open hall. She stood close by everybody and every living thing out there. Same outfit, same chic looks, same beaming smile everywhere. Cloning wasn't such a wild idea or a dose of acid in my tea if that last waitress felt a bit wicked. The recent innovation in hologram technology could be taken into consideration as well but no; she stood by all encompassed as if she always belonged; just invisible to the everyday-eye. I only beamed that at last, I had met the phenomenon called 'Lady Time' or as she preferred to be called ´The Historian´. Her eyes, like the indigo ocean, were pools of iridescent blue, sculpted upon her creamy face like dazzling jewels hiding depths of knowledge. Peach lips softly parted, crystal white teeth still beamed radiant. She indeed was a sight in her white summer pantsuit with a pink orchid pinned to her shoulder. The happy hour began to move quickly as the clock struck 5 pm. Its blending with the giggles of travellers was an auditory hug; however distractive over a chat with Time. The sound wended its way through the grand hall air enveloping even strangers in its tickling embrace. Only the most stoic of travellers and commuters suffocated smiles to its presence as well as hers. I gave the Terminal Bar waitress my card with a smile to close the tab of tea and curry chicken lettuce wraps. 'My apologies, but thought you'd be significantly more seasoned than your appearance.' I remarked as the waitress disappeared. 'They all do... Be that as it may, shouldn't I age nearer to the finish of time?' Her perfect shaped teeth flashed with the words and a wink. 'Well.' I pondered... ¨So the world still has a significant distance to go judging by your youth and beauty? ' I flirted finishing the tea. 'Who knows? Haven't you heard about biting the youthful dust?' Her smile still wouldn't leave her face. The conversation was diverting from my true quest. I required a more quiet spot with the moments I had with Lady Time. 'Mind, if we step outside? There is a lovely fountain out front. Children adore its installation and itś a brilliant spot to enjoy a cone.' 'As you can see, wherever is completely fine for me, love.' We sat down on a large block of concrete seating bordering the rectangular fountain exiting to the right of the station. Many children ran through the freshwater shooting on a timer that painted excitement on their faces. Even running at their youthful speeds, dodging streams; she chased them with breeze. She could be seen next to the trees, hovering with the birds, the back of hipster driven peddle-cabs, and laughing with tourists high in the mile high. I chuckled as she tuned the clock outside the station on a scaffold supported by many more of herself munching on tasty looking green chile burritos and a local brew. It would appear that privacy is only a condition of unconsciousness; one is never alone. Here she was, perched on the seat with me, indifferent in her conduct, but then so obediently charmed with her given assignment. 'When you said about passing on youthfully, would you say it was the universe or you?' 'Both.' She said unassumingly. 'What's more, this doesn't trouble you?' 'You have your choices; you have wants. Question creates the undertakings, thus complying with the order.' 'A little inhumane, huh?' I looked straight into her eyes for anything hidden. 'Legitimately... With a reasoning being, this course would transform into a rebel against the appointed. With an affinity heart, the messenger of death would be a sulking hermit.' I gave careful consideration; she shared her knowledge, however not the emotions I assumed would complete this enlightenment. Engineering independence was created quite a while back, I thought, 'So what oversees you? That is to say, what precisely are your obligations?' 'I essentially complete what is ordained by destiny. No decisions, no prudence.' she looked towards the water as children ran through accompanied by her doubles. 'That should apply to the living things, however, shouldn't something be said about objects? Buildings, cars, countries? They are represented by destiny as well?' I inquired. 'Feeling savvy huh? Actually no, not in the way that you take to it and allow your mind to give them importance. Yet, don't they all have their very own existence cycle?' She flashed her smile once more, 'Times change for them as well.' I thought of the crumbled structures I had witnessed around the world, the rusted cars and motorcycles now in junkyards, and the demolished countries of centuries past as well as our current viewed lines obeyed and feared by many. 'Brilliant!' I shouted. 'What's more for us? For what reason do we need to be subjected to your trial of times? That is to say, aren't we sufficiently insightful to practice our own particular will?' 'Brilliant, Whatś more for us?' She emulated me with her own particular humour and puppet hand dance. 'You all truly think you coincidentally are and will simply swing to the great 'unknown'? Get real, darling; there's something else entirely to the cycle of life than being a mishap of existence and kicking the bucket.' 'Are you turning Aristotle on me?' I inquired. 'No.., more like Einstein actually,' she smiled, 'Everything is relative.' 'So while we unexpectedly get hit by staggering struggles; our loved ones pass on because of circumstances not initiated by their own particular doing; notwithstanding when every single one of us experiences the fight of life, and you essentially turn the pages as if it is all a never-ending novel.' I felt profound disdain towards her. 'Aren't you overlooking the smiles that light up your face when life is created, the fulfilment of having a lover or friend who imparts their everything to you. This including their own limited time gifted to you. The delights you experience even after the rigours of excruciating disappointments, you still welcome love and joy for all around you? That is changing circumstances as well.' 'Agreed, yet while we sit latently on this exciting ride of life, you just glimmer that beautiful smile and take us for the ride?' 'You never got it, did you, love?' She smiled at me and rose to leave walking towards an approaching Lyft car, 'You stay consistent while it's 'the circumstances' that change. I am my own greatest struggle, my dear.' The statement desensitized me. Despite everything, how was she able to keep that beautiful smile beaming? As she vanished from all over the bustling transportation hub, I thought about whether Lady Time indeed was as cold-hearted as I first assumed.

He pulled a handful of cut-up maypole ribbons from hisblue wool coat pocket and selected just one. He squeezed it in the palm of his hand tight as he possibly could. It was the same purple ribbon from that last May Day together. 'I want...,' Richard sighed and closed his eyes, 'I wish today’s the day I find you again, mate.' He took the narrow strip of material to the oak tree by the water and tied it on a low hanging branch. It flapped lazily in the English breeze. From his leather bag, he retrieved a folded white handkerchief and unwrapped its delicate treasure. It held a rusty nail with a battered head but shined with a recently sharpened tip. Crouching down to half his height, he traced his fingers on the horizontal lines on the trunk of the old oak. Twenty lines for twenty years passed, the first as heavy as the day it was whittled. Richard revisited the memory of the Spring morning his mum helped him carve it.. He pushed the tip of the nail into the bark and tapped it with a massive stone he'd found by the shore, waters edge. Line number twenty one was carved right next to his forty. It was still early morning a with a few scattered clouds. A break from the grey British dullness that often lingered for weeks on end. He sat cross-legged against the oak's trunk, stealing moments with his tripoded camera, drinking hot chocolate from his flask; letting his eyes trail lazily across the green outlines of Welsh Harp - a nature conservation in Northwest London. A single osprey flew from the east and over the reservoir towards the national stadium; its white stomach and black-tipped tails, mirrored in the still morning water. 'Click, Click, Click' whispered the camera.'Look at the giant seagull, Dickie, look, look, look!' Richard held his breath as it dipped its wings, swooping back and breaking the water using its claws.'Did it catch a fish?' Blinking hard, he sighed. 'Where are you, Tommy?' The osprey was already back in flight by the time he shook off the memory, climbing to the sky, before disappearing past the forest of London homes and the North Circular on the opposite bank. All that remained was a ripple in the reflection of its majestic departure. He took the longer route to get around the main footpath and car park on the west side of the reservoir. Weathered walkers tended not to stray from the trail or their Google maps, and the noise of chatty walkers was filtered by the whistles of branches. The secret path accessible for those who know about it, although muddy most days. The beginning of the path was concealed among the heavy greenery at the base of a hill. While it may be tricky for outsiders to navigate, Richard knew this walk like the back of his hand. He dug his Wellington's into the mud and took longer strides, breathing in the smell of mulchy earth and sweet oily wildflowers. It was mid-spring and the forest was alive with a bounty of colourful blooms. Smatterings of dog violets climbed the long grass and danced to the dandelions flight. He paused to watch a small forest friend bat it's tiny orange wings after landing on the spike of the tripod hanging from his old leather bag. 'Is it a moth, Dickie?' 'I think it's a butterfly.' The opening on the northeast part of the reservoir led down to an old wooden pavilion by the water. A place where sixteen years before, he had discovered a little blue trainer in the reedbed among the swans. The shoe was still warm, possibly in the sunlight shining on its surface, or perhaps the foot of his brother, Tommy, that was nowhere to be seen. He remembered it all like it was yesterday. Taking off his hat, Richard leaned over and watched the reflection of his blue wool coat flickering in The Harp.'Count to one hundred then come and find me!' 'A hundred is awfully long, Tommy.' He bent forward and put his face into his hands. 'One, two, three...' he said out loud. 'Are you playing hide-and-seek?' Richard stood up, startled by the voice. A little boy, no more than five years old, stood beside him. His eyes were red and cheeks glistened with tears. He crouched down to the little boy's height. 'Tommy?' 'No, I'm Charlie. Who are you?' 'Oh God, sorry.' he leaned against the pavilion wall for support. 'Sorry Charlie, you gave me a small fright, mate. I am Richard. Where are your mummy and daddy?' he stood up and looked around but there wasn't anyone else in sight. Charlie began to cry. He held the sleeve of Richard's blue wool coat while his little body trembled. 'I got lost,' he sobbed. 'I lost my mummy.' 'It is fine Charlie, don't you worry... I can help you find her' 'Will I be in a lot of trouble?' 'No silly, you won't be in trouble. You are just lost.' Richard took tissues out of his leather bag and wiped Charlie's eyes. 'Now blow your nose and we'll find her.' he held the tissue to the boy's head and laughed when he blew him a trumpet. 'Now, which way did you come from?' he asked, yanking for his bag and tripod. Charlie pointed his finger west and Richard figured he could have come in from the car park by the sailing club. It was a ten-minute walk on the flat path, and easy to find Charlie's mum if she was on the lookout. 'Can I hold your hand?' Charlie asked. 'I am a bit scared.' 'Sure,¨ he extended his hand and felt the small warm fingers grip to his thumb as hard as the little one could. They passed through a grove of trees, stepping over protruding roots and patches of moss. The temperature dipped in the shade. He pauses; bundling his scarf around Charlie's neck. 'How did you manage to get lost?' 'I was following the big seagull,' Charlie said. 'Did you see it? It was massive.' 'Yeah, I did. But that big bird was an osprey. Rare to see them this far south. They look a bit like seagulls but they're bigger and shinier' 'Offspray.' Charlie giggled, 'Off. Spray.' 'Yes. Osprey.' Richard chuckled. 'Off. Spray... Off. Spray.' 'You'll eventually get it.' They emerged from a shortcut and found the pebbled trail that led to the main footpath towards the sailing club. Richard could see a set of elderly power walkers ascending a small hill in the distance. Only a van had been parked while a weathered yarning hung diagonally to the side of it. When he saw the west reservoir glistening at the far end of the horizon, he knew they were close. 'Richard. Who were you playing hide-and-seek with?' 'Oh, I had been just pretend-playing. I used to play with my brother Tommy. He was five.' 'I used to be five. I'm six and 4 months now' he beamed showing a gap where his front tooth had dropped out. 'Are you going to find him if you're taking me to my mummy?' 'I will find him.' Richard pushed his lips together. 'One day.' 'But isn't he too little to be left alone?' 'Tommy is gone, Charlie.' Richard took a deep breath before continuing. 'he has been lost for a long, long time. I come here to simply to have a look.' 'My grandad got lost. He was living in a house with friends the same age as him. And then mummy said he went to heaven but I heard her telling my auntie Emma on the phone that they lost him.' 'Oh,' Richard squeezed Charlie's hand. 'If people get lost then they could get found as well, right.' he nodded his head agreeing with himself. 'My grandad leaves me hints and clues. Like one time, mummy and I were outside walking Thatcher, that is our dog, and we found a white bottle cap with a number twenty-six inside and a horse on it...' 'Uh-huh.' 'Well, twenty-six is the number of his house, until he went into the house with his old friends, and the horse is because he liked to go to The White Horse pub for a pint after tea every night.' 'That is a brilliant clue. Perhaps you could be a detective for Scotland yard when you're older. Or better, 221B Baker Street' Richard laughed. 'Yes, that is what my mummy says.' Charlie's brown hair creeping out of his wooly appeared so similar to Tommy's on the day he vanished. 'When I'm bigger, I could help you find your brother.' He put his hands on his hips and lifted his eyebrows as if he was already on the case. 'I'd like that very much.' 'Good. Can Tommy leave you clues like grandad does?' 'I'm not sure. I think so.' he explained, 'Perhaps, I'm just too grown up to be able to see them now.' 'What rubbish? How can you be too grown up to find clues?' 'You're right, Charlie. Perhaps I just forgot how to find them. Thanks for reminding me though.' 'You are welcome. Clues are important.' Charlie smiled. ____________________________ 'Oh my God. Charlie! Where on earth have you been, darling?' Richard was standing by the doorway of the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre. He smiled warmly as Charlie's mum ran towards them scooped her boy up into her arms. 'I got lost, mummy. I'm sorry but I was following an Off Spray, it's like a massive seagull, mum and then it flew off over the water. After that, I didn't know how to get back. But, I found Richard, ' he said, pointing at him; who just nodded his head. Charlie's mother mouthed a thank you and pulled her son in for another embrace. 'You shouldn't run off by yourself. Even though you know parts of The Harp, don't wander off, my love. I've been worried sick.' 'It's okay mummy, I only got a little bit lost. I wasn't even scared.' he smiled shyly towards Richard. 'Well, thank goodness you found Mr. Richard.' 'I know. He has been playing hide-and-seek with Tommy. Not for long, once I find him. Tommy got lost, mummy. Just like grandad.' 'Oh.' She reduced to Charlie's size into the floor and rubbed his hair, instinctively looking for injuries. 'Is your son missing, Richard? do you want some help looking for him?' 'Twenty-one years ago, I am afraid, and he was my little brother.' 'I am... Richard, I am so sorry. That must've been awful for you and your family.' 'Yeah, it was. Mum passed away the following year it happened and dad never came to forgiving himself for losing him.' 'Is your father still with you?' 'Gone too. A few years ago, I’m afraid.' Richard coughed and looked out the window. 'I am really sorry.' 'It is alright, but thanks.' He felt his chest tighten. 'I come back the same time each year hoping to find something, you understand...' 'Clues!,' Charlie interrupted. 'Yeah, clues.' Richard laughed. 'I don't know how to thank you for finding this little bugger.' They looked at Charlie who stood with his tongue out clamped between his fingers. 'Hiya, I'm Margaret. Long for Daisy. One of the new caretaker at The Harp.' Richard took her hand and shook it. 'Nice to meet you, Daisy. he's a good lad your Charlie.' 'I am so glad you found him, he tends to wander. I just nipped to the loo, heś ran off.' 'Well, no harm done.' Richard smiled. 'And it was Charlie who found me, really. In fact, I believe he may even have been sent to me as a clue.' He winked at Charlie who clapped his hands in delight. 'Could I get you a cup of tea or coffee,' Daisy asked. 'Or hot chocolate? Charlie's favourite.' 'No thank you, Daisy,' He explained. 'I would like nothing more to join both of you for tea, but I've a bit of a walk and few things to tend to today.' 'Please Richard. Stay for tea! Please.' Charlie took his hand and tugged it towards the table. 'Not just now, mate' He whispered, 'I need to go looking for clues, you see.' 'Oh yeah,' he whispered back, 'I hope you find some brilliant ones!' 'Me too. Hey, maybe I could possibly come around later. I will let you make a wish on my wizard tree.' 'You have a wizard tree?' Charlie's eyes opened wide. 'Wait. What's a wizard tree? And are there wizards living there?' 'Yes, but all the wizards have been gone for a very long time. London real estate is somewhat ridiculous these days; even for wizards. Now, it's just a magical messenger tree which they use like Facebook. The wizards are following modern trends these days, right, but the trick is you can only send wish messages at certain times of the day or the wizards would never get to make the wishes happen if they spent all their time checking wish messages by the tree. Not too productive for a wizard, Charlie. But once in awhile, you might see one or two wizards sneaking around for new wishes, but they are a rare bunch. If you spot them, they disguise as power walkers, but no need bothering them, they never remember they are wizards in disguise... Now, do you have a ribbon, mate?' 'Have I got a ribbon mummy?' 'Erm, I do not think so, love.' Daisy smiled. 'Don't you worry, you can have one of mine.' Richard said. 'I'll come by here at seven after tea.' He patted Charlie on the head. 'See you later, Mr. Holmes.' _______________________________ He climbed down the reedbed below a small broken dock along The Harp. Gripping on them, he lowered himself into the water up to his Wellington's and walked into the cold waters as a swan, swanlings, and geese scattered to his presence.'Watch out for creepy crawlies and spiders.' He ducked his head as a dragonfly buzzed west. The water echoed around him like careless whispers as he hunched his shoulders to his ears. He discovered a quiet pond hide among the reeds only meters ahead. Using the end of his umbrella, he flicked pebbles one by one into the water. After each plop, his eyes scanned the floor; looking for anything. He got to his knees, cupping small stones in his palms, sifting through them with his thumbs, before throwing them to the side. 'Where are you, mate?' He dug his hands into the mud; scooping up moist clumps of it, and throwing them into the side. 'There has to be something here.' He wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Just then, he saw the face of a round piece of glistening material partially concealed in the pond between a wall of reeds and the shore. He pushed his hands into the mud and edged it out gradually, discovering a hardened conker; chilly, and smooth with blue, yellow, and green swirls painted and protected by thick clear nail varnish. A primary school child's favourite toy weapon. He washed the dirt off in the water then wrapped it around in the palm of the hands. Was it Tommy's?'Come on Dickie, play with me.' He squeezed his eyes shut, searching his mind. Tommy tugged his sleeve; his hazel eyes staring hopeful with patience. His cheeks dimpled as his expression excited. A smile that stretched over decades in Richard's memory. The crimson coat with a blue cap was as clear as the photograph in his leather bag when he got them over Christmas holidays. New blue trainers.'Count to one hundred and do not peek.' 'One, two...' Did you teach him Conkers? Did Charlie play conkers with you? 'Three, four...' He can't remember. 'Five, six, seven...' 'Bloody rubbish!' He threw the conker past the reeds into the reservoir and it barely made a splash. __________________________ The sun had started to dip over the arch of Wembley Stadium about the time Richard headed out to see Charlie and Daisy. They stood together with the small fire pit near the caretaker's shed and Richard looked over The Harp. It laid gentle, flat and still; representing the sky as a tilted loneliness; creating the illusion of endlessness in its reflection. 'It is like the sky is upside down' Charlie pointed. 'I think that it looks like the edge of forever,' Richard said, 'like you could stand up; walk right inside the belly of the world through its glass and reflection of the stadium like magic.' 'Forever-land,' Charlie said. 'Like Peter Pan.' 'That's Never-Never land.' Richard laughed. 'It's pretty though, isn't it, darling?' Daisy said and put her arm around her son's shoulder sipping her tea. Charlie nodded with delight. 'This is the best time for wizard wishes,' Richard said. 'It's when they come out to check their messages. Come. Let's see if we can get your wish to them.' They walked up the secret path in muddied Wellington's. The oak tree stood alone near the water; its broad trunk topped with a complete head of branches high and low. 'Where are the wizards?' Charlie asked as he stepped into the shadow beneath the tree. 'You can not see them when in the open. They are a shy bunch but listen.' They huddled together, listening to the reeds and branches creaking, and the leaves rustling softly. 'They whisper to one another,' Richard continued. 'Can you hear them?' 'I think I do,' Charlie put his ear to the tree's back. 'I hear them! What exactly are they saying?' 'They're awaiting your wish, darling,' Daisy explained. 'That's right, mate.' Richard smiled and fished two purple Maypole ribbons out of his pocket. He pulled down a long thin branch to Charlie's height, then held it while Daisy assisted her son with tying the first one. 'Do not let it go yet,' Richard explained as he fastened his own ribbon to the branch. 'Now make a wish.' 'You first.' 'Okay.' Richard took a deep breath. 'I wish that one day I'll discover a clue that'll help me find Tommy.' 'I wish,' Charlie squeezed his eyes tightly closed, 'my Grandad will look after him till you find your clues.' Together they let go of the ribbons and watched as they flapped freely in the English breeze like the wings of an Off Spray.

It has to be spring in Haarlem. And we know one thing for certain; there will be the smell of rain in the dirt between the cobblestones. 'When are you going to write a book about me?' You ask, rising slowly from the sofa. Your scent mixes with the wet, cut-grass lingering in through the window.I giggle at myself and you giggle too.'When am I not?' I reply. I can feel you coming closer to my desk, even though I'm trying not to pay you any attention. You place your hands on my shoulders as your toenails touch the back of my heels ever so lightly. 'What's this one about?' you ask. It's possible to read the screen over my shoulder with your cheek to mine but that will not do you any good. The page remains blank. I don't know why, but I start to type. Nothing is said by you as you walk back to the sofa. After a while, I turn to look up but you're gone. The living room's empty except for me and the lingering scent of your perfume. I write with no destination, editing as I go, finding the story and characters with each new word I type, delete, and repeat. Sometimes I can see my characters outside the corner of my eye, but they're half-formed beings, ethereal on the page and in my mind. When I turn around, they vanish. I am trying to ignore the smell of tea and toast coming from the kitchen this morning. You have been here for about ten minutes... perhaps a bit longer but not much longer. It feels like you've always been with me. When you got here, you saw me write while sitting on a pile of large red books which rest against the bedroom wall, keeping silent, not wanting to disturb me. But I knew you were there. Staying in the background is not your style. Even if you're not speaking, you're demanding attention. It is in the little things that you do, the way you play with your hair, the certainty of yourself in the mirror, the control you exert over any space; you just need to be noticed. And I notice you. 'Can you not just give me one day? One day, alone, to write,' I say as I walk into the kitchen. I am not really complaining. You are cooking in a blue dress, bare feet against the unfinished wood floor. 'It is Haarlem in the spring out there. Did you not notice?' You say to me, not looking up from the toaster. I know it's Haarlem in the spring. The smell of the rain still lingers on the street there. Haarlem does not smell like the rest of Holland; you informed me. You tell me, 'I could smell the stars at night, the very first time we dined not far from the Grote Kerk ... We didn't eat much that night, though, did we?' you add, reading my thoughts as you do. 'Are you the one who sticks this morning?' Now you look up. You smile to yourself and demand that I smile too. 'It isn't as annoying for me since it is for you.' 'How so?' 'I think you should go to Haarlem today,' you say, concentrating once again on your wants. 'You don’t know when the window will open to see it again.' 'You want me out of your life that bad?' I joke, but I'm a little hurt. ____________________________Around the streets of Haarlem lived a guy who carted tulips with his fiets tracking the dirt between the cobblestones... You are hovering over my shoulder, reading out loud whatever I have written. 'Can you find him in your thoughts?' You ask, excited as I tap away at words . He was not an old man but he had an old soul; a soul worn out of feeling too heavy-hearted over the years. Every day he would sell a bouquet or two, and the bouquet or two would please a few more hearts. But that was not the flower merchant's most important thought tugging the back of his head. Greater things occupied the space. Each moment he would pray for a glimpse of the girl he grew his flowers for... 'When are you planning to write a book about me?' I look up at your face and you're smiling. 'Tell me about him?' You ask; walking back and collapsing on the sofa. 'He enjoys the company of this one woman, right? And...' 'I know that. It is you. Naturally, he's in love with the girl. Tell me something different, something new. Tell me why he is different from the characters in your other books.' I take a minute to think. 'He is sick,' I eventually spit out. 'Is that so, darling? Tell me more.' You reply. 'Itś just a story. I really don't understand the plot. Not yet, but his clothes are too big for him, he moves too recklessly for a man of his delicate framework.' I start typing again. The doctors have given him four weeks to live, and his life had come and gone quick. But even as he sat in the rain, he kept his eyes on his flowers, and as always, on the lookout for her. ___________________________ The schedule does not open for Haarlem for the next three weeks. Too busy working, I distract myself with other tasks while I wait patiently. On the days I am out, I spend the evenings in an old kroeg listening to the locals. Most of them speak English although not frequently as languages are not necessarily needed here, and good manners were clear in any language once the music kicked on. The place is too close for many to sleep soundly nearby. On nights turning to days in the summer months, life opens to Maxim where I enjoy the bohemian lifestyle my editor begs me to nurture for my professional image. Not that it matters anyway, nobody cares there. That being why it's the only place where I'm willing to enjoy the circus show these days. On most evenings, I close the door straight home from work after a quick stop to Albert Heijn. To kill time around the flat, I read a novel from one of many piles piled up against the walls, or listen to music while scribbling down notes in old journals no one will ever see. With each new city I've seen, I've overlooked the rural north a little more. I miss the smells. 'Imagine if your flower guy is trying to develop the ideal flower for his love?' You say, moving around the room and hanging your head out the window. Again, your perfume mixes with the odour of the space; a heavy scent of the spring flowers and the canal nearby. You're controlling distances, space and time once again as you always do. 'That's why he doesn't leave. It isn't that he doesn't want to, but it is like ... like it is his life's sole intent to develop this one perfect flower for the woman he loves, and until then, he can not do anything but keep trying. Energising his love for her through his passion.' 'What does this perfect flower look like?' I ask you. 'A tulip,' you answer with a longing in your voice. 'It would be a rare blue tulip. Naturally, they are not supposed to exist.' Then you add with a wicked grin on your face just for me and attempt an awkward wink, 'When this is my story, it will be just that.' We sit and talk about nothing for the rest of the day with our legs crossed over the coffee table. You are at your playful best and I am trying not to notice that your eyes don't always smile whenever your lips do. When it starts to get cold, I shut the window as soon as it gets dim and draw the curtains; turning off the lamp while you rest. ________________________________ Haarlem train station is much more than I remember. There are far more people than I remember catching connections at this hour of the evening. 'This way,' you say, waving your arm out at me by the stairs with a “This way Stupid :P” sign you made on the train with a marker and back of a concert flyer. 'Restaurant Mr. & Mrs. is this way,' I assert, heading off in the opposite direction once we exit. 'I know that.' And you keep going anyway, not looking back, dodging fiets, crossing multiple bus lines, twirling around the misty road lamps while the wind teases your hair. 'Where are we going then?' I ask; running to catch up with you and hooking your arm. But you don't reply and instead run your finger across your lips; sealing them with a smile. The night air is damp. We do not pass many people but the ones we do cross have their heads high wearing dark suits and elegant dresses. There is a concert near the Grote Kerk this evening. Haarlem is the kind of city that looks as if the Dutch masters only had one way it could have possibly been painted it, and with that, they mentally monopolised that vision from the grave. You can observe the dazzle from the artist's eye in the street lights reflecting off the canals. Even the air smells like an aged artist's palette... and of you. You are telling me you visited Haarlem once before we met. You were younger, and can't quite remember how young precisely but it was back when your father wrapped his arm around you and took you on Sunday adventures. The entire time, you jumped between the cobblestones as if they were lily pads, dragging him along with you. Each time you landed a step, you would turn to him and giggle and he would giggle back. You told me your story a dozen times, each time like it was the first time telling it. Your father took you to find an artist that he had heard of. He lived in an apartment above a kroeg where they played music three times a day on the weekends; the concert would begin when the sun had set and continued till early in the morning. Up the stairs and through the attic shook with each musical wave, and you closed your eyes. You held your father's hands as tight as you could. He hurried you into the room, hugging your shoulders lightly as you keep your eyes tightly shut. You prepared to brace yourself in case you dropped from the heavy vibrations surrounding the space you´d entered, but instead, you ended up looking at the most beautiful thing you had ever seen; across the insides of the sloped roof, somebody had recreated vivid image of the nighttime sky on the wall. In certain places the paint was soft, whites and blacks and blues all combined together, layer upon layer on top of each other. In other places, the paint was thinner, where tiles on the roof outside had cracked along with the rainwater that had seeped through. Sometimes weeds would grow up from the floor in the corners. Here, the night didn't seem to die. The artist told you he had found it like this; the attic was a sacred spot for writers, photographers and painters years ago. This is where they gathered, where they lived when nowhere else would have them, paying for their lodging by maintaining creative peace and blazing late nights lost in music. Then he given you a brush. There was no paint on it, you told me. He'd just picked it from a glass of grey water and it dribbled down your hands leaving stars and comets down your forearm. The artist did not have to say anything; along with your father, he just giggled and you giggled back. We step out of your story and we're on the cobblestone streets; our Haarlem is similar to yours of the past. It looks like it hasn't rained since I was last here, but the smell remains distinguishable from the dirt that remains. 'Let's go find him,' you say. But I don't move. 'Come on' 'What if I can't find him?' I say. 'What if he is not there or if he won't speak to me; not the person I remember. What if -- ' In one swift motion unknown to gravity, you take my hand, you lean close to me, so close that our bodies are almost touching, so close, you lean in and pull me towards you, and away we go. In front of you is the misty night sky, just as I imagine you would opt to paint. _________________________________Around the streets of Haarlem, lived a guy who fell for a girl. With his fiets, he carried tulips from his dirt through the cobblestone streets... I let the words play in my mind; let them dance and leap between the cobblestones as we walked. I encourage the words to find their own way through the canals and our adventure; bouncing into blank pages along our blazed trail. 'This must be it,' you say. We have been walking for what barely feels a minute, but there's orange blending in with the blues of the sky; so morning can't be far away. Ahead of me, I can see flowers of all colour sprouting from a side street hidden by a stack of fiets. The very same ones that grabbed my attention when I was last visiting. It's quieter today. There is a couple of cats prowling near a boat on the canal; a few docks away, there's a concert coming to an end. 'His place is around here somewhere,' I say, letting go of your hand. 'Can I pick one? Only one? Please' You ask, but I am already walking in front of you, stepping carefully so I don't damage any of the unattended bloom. On either side of me, the alley grows thinner, windows gradually funnel us down the plush garden and back towards another canal with a small fence covered in Christmas lights. 'Is that it? Over there?' I stop at the street lamp, but you are pointing past me to a door farther down covered in vines. Tendrils of green and brown have wrapped themselves around the brickwork instead of smooth cement neighbouring it. The flowers in the garden grow denser as I get nearer to the house. I pause when in front of the door. My knee is weak from all the walking. I can feel you close behind me, so close that your cheek is almost touching mine. You put your hand on my arm. I smile to myself; in my mind, you are smiling with your eyes. And I push aside the vines and open the door. He is there in front of me; the flower merchant, upright in his chair. His fiets has been brought inside and rests by the door; ready to be wheeled out again the next day with his baskets. All around the room, there is a countless array of foliage; flowers of every colour but one. There are giant cracks in the roof and through it, we could see a few stars. It's the last remaining area of the night sky this evening, and it's looking right down at us. He's right there in front of me but he's not moving. His body is really small and looks so frail. I shut the door in the event the wind catches his presence, and he drifts away with particles of pollen. What's most surprising is that the room has no odour to it; it doesn't even smell of your perfume. 'I'm sorry,' you say kneeling next to him kissing his cheek, but I don't know if you're saying it to him or to me. However, while your eyes are on the flower merchant, mine are on what's dropped to the ground by his feet. There lies a perfect blue tulip. ________________________________ 'You told me it would be ready!' my editor sighs over the video chat. The windows are open wide this morning but I can smell only your scent lingering. 'It will be. Only... not yet.' 'Give him more time,' you shout from the sofa. 'One more week... And another thing, you're going to owe me for this, love. Big time! I hope you understand that I'll have you signing novels in the markt with half a dozen colourful scarfs around your neck in the middle of February if you muck me about.' 'Thank you,' I say, but she ended the video call before being able to thank her again for the extra days. 'You won't be done in a week,' you tell me. 'I know.' I stand up from my desk, playing with my cup of tea and toast, shutting the window, moving towards you but slightly pause, then collapse onto the sofa alongside you. 'I don't know how it ends,' I acknowledge in a whisper. 'All of it... It can't end like that. It shouldn't.' I am looking up at the ceiling. It is dark; the only light we've got is the computer screen and the lamp in the corner of the room. I am looking up at the ceiling and also, regardless of the cracks in the walls where rainwater has been dripping in from outdoors, it looks like our Haarlem sky. Even though it looks less like a wall; it is similar to our sky each new year. You throw your legs on the old wood floor and jump up on top of the sofa. Your toes move like you're playing a symphony. 'Let me read it' From anyone else, it would have been a question. Not you. I sit quietly while you read; my palms unable to keep still. When you are finished, you do not say anything... maybe not straight away. 'Well?' 'He abandoned the dying tulip behind to wait for her.' You are quoting me, repeating my words and they sound so much better coming from you. 'And there, in his eternal wait, its stem browned and leaves left wilting for time, but he sat always patiently waited for a glimpse of the girl he loved.' 'What do you think of it?' I inquire squeezing my knee. You walk over to the window and run your finger along the petals of the tulip that currently lives on the windowsill; the bulb a identical shade of blue as the dress you are wearing this morning. 'When are you going to write a book about me?' you ask. I giggle at myself and you giggle too.