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fyn gula
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and so he found this book laying open, pages down, on a lonely road where the grass had grown between the wheel ruts. the sun was on his face, the scent of clematis barely recognizable. he picked it up, a small thrill, for he could tell it was an extensive piece of work, even as it laid there. he wasn't sure, of course, if it had dropped accidently from a lorry, or if a distant traveler had simply left it for someone such as him to discover. and so he picked it up with the reverence reserved for saints, for this is how he dealt with obvious treasure. even as he bent down, a dancer executing a move he had practiced so many times, he sensed something familiar. but the proximity wasn't anything to guess at, for this book, as he cradled it newborn in his palms was his. they were his words, drawings, images, songs, poems, and fotos. not another artist's representation.
this was the book of his life that he wrote and created, yet never knew he had done, let alone, lost.
he closed it like one shuts the coffin of the dearly departed and he never wanted to open it though he knew he must, even if its contents would be bones and dust. for it was only now that he was alive, the moments as they passed were as dead as the crinkled, insect chewed leaves that rolled across his feet. drunken acrobats fired from a bankrupt circus.
he took the book into the woods and sat under the one birch tree in a forest of silver maple. and when he opened it, for much curiousity burned in him, he wept bitterly. because, you see, only a part of it was filled, the rest was sadly empty, for these were the pages he was not there.
absent from his own life.
he held it in his lap and watched as a man came walking up the road. he was whistling a tune that held sharps and flats in perfect resonance. the stranger stopped when he saw our man sitting against the tree.
"that book you have on your lap?" he said, and it seemed to be a question, although he was simply making an observation. his voice was lyrical, like the whistled tune coming out in words.
"yes?" someone such as me, said. and he knew at once who the stranger was. he stood and gave the book to him for it was his own soul and he knew he would pick up where he left off.
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020225
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