What did the day bring forth but an accumulation of strangeness. You read into the dark, the words barely visible in the last of the living light. You carry the book with you like a talisman. Settle on the green bench under the tree. Not much is understood but the white of the page becomes bright, clear, as the sun goes down. A gentle breeze, with something of winter, North, in it reminds you of former times, some other life you once lived..

The day spent. Few words, almost invisible, like an old man who looks back on his life, askance at the world he no longer belongs to. 

The birds in the tree above are restless but not distraught. The hour is upon them. A frenetic remembrance of home. High above them the pigeons settle on the ledges of the brick building which is otherworldly in this light. Everything is free to finds their true nature, their own version of North. Humans, even if still, are lost, bewildered.

Herr Lukas looks for the stray cats, carries two metal plates of bones and a syringe for them. 

You can’t make out the last words in the evening. Organic material falls on the open book, leaving a faint green smudge. A small red ant scrambles quickly over the cold text. Luckily it climbs my warm hand and I avoid any more smudges- which in this case would have been a single death. 

The lights come on. Orange light falls on the page and now there are shadows too next to the black ink. The light flickers or the breeze picks up a degree so that the rustling of the leaves above is mirrored on the page. My own ‘I’ is no less stable. I haven’t been reading anyway, just observing and thinking about my own life as I look into this silent mirror I’ve placed on my lap. Some of the pages are just holding together. You fear that sections might randomly come loose and then you’d have to read it closed.