A white butterfly floated into the prison and my heart beat faster. She left, and my heart fluttered after her.

~~~

Five states of mind. None of them true. Quintessentially, you draw circles around an absence. Your heart, officially dead wood. On which a butterfly perchance came to rest.

~~~

Behind the black was the red; and behind the red the white. But behind the white there was only a heart.

~~~

The way of the future is the way to the past. If time flows then, as the Romans knew, it flows backwards towards you.

Sun and time fade; the winter light, weak and fragile, coldly reflected on the library's high windows. Books and soil become closely packed. The winter's mind conserving, not straying or wavering. All I remember is like a loose thread.When the Roding slows, and stones lie still in its dark waters, my heart is lost.

She smiled at the questions, as if to say, 'And if I answered you, would you know me then?'. A fraction of her known, as if glimpsed from afar.'She did not care for films, newspaper reportages, the radio. She wanted personal knowledge.'She was always on the inside; he always on the outside.But if you open this door, she said, make sure you don't bring in the cold with you.