Dear Dave,

A song swallows me. It runs over my body like white milk. But a century passes by before it is absorbed into my skin and another before I can even begin to feel it in my bones. I wait. And then I wait some more. In my search for a melody that I can not sing, I have to be content in finding a word that reveals what I hide. And whisper it to myself so you cannot hear. With closed eyelids and open eyes.

Words, as you know, are my last refuge. Their liquidity is like a balm to errant thoughts that gape open in my mind. I find comfort in their solidity. You write with straight upward lines that don't move even as they run across the fraying page. I saw when you weren't looking, and I memorised the strokes. Like I memorised blue eyes, pale skin, uneven touch.

Sometimes my memory fails me. The picture loses resolution. An infinite field becomes a desert. The blades of grass replaced by grains of sand. I look around for water. It is a scorching day. But you stand still amidst a solar eclipse. The dust rises and then my eyes forsake me like my memory did. I fall asleep thirsty among the dunes.

When I awaken I hope I will have drunk some water in my dreams. It has been the shortest of nights and the longest of nights. I lie alone as the dawn breaks, listening to birds gulp mouthfuls of clouds as they fly from unknown beginnings to unknown destinations. I know not where I am but I can feel wet grass squashed under my body as mosquitoes drink my blood with renewed vigour. My eyes are closed but I have not slept. Forgive me father for I have sinned. Forgive me for I have lived.

There is a town by a sea, with a mountain that overshadows the waves. When you walk in that town, you can sometimes hear a watchful spirit calling from the window. It screams through walls of glass. It speaks to you of known dangers and unknown emotins. When Pandora opens her box, the ills of the world know no boundaries. It is up to us to separate the happiness from the sadness, the seeming eternity of darkness from the promise of light. When we do not claim the joys that are written into our destiny, fate itself forsakes us. The spirit howls louder when the moon is pregnant. I close my ears and whisper the words of my song again and again. Will my whispers drown his pain?

In the midst of nightfall is there a living flame? In the searing depth of heat is there an oasis of shade? In the palest of skins is there longing for colour? In the narrowest of streets is there space for a tree? In the chaos of life is there some promise of coherence?

The flowers at my feet, which I took so much care not to trample, still smell fragrant if I press them to my cheek. But I want them to live so I make tender patterns around them with my feet, creating invisible ornaments that meander and swirl like dervishes. Those buds that wilted before their time, emit a heady, pungent odour. Some of these I have attempted to save in my books, amongst leaves teeming with countless secrets. One day I may try to break the silence of the pages and replant my faded flowers under a new sun. When the time comes, and when you knock at my door. My field will be my vase.

There is a window in a town beyond a town. Where a flower blooms in cerise glory. Every morning it would tell me silent stories. About angels and demons and fears and hopes. Birds would carry these stories to me and lay them in the small of my hand. I was not allowed into that garden because I came from far away. The garden belonged to those who had long found shade under its tree. But my window let me breathe in its ambrosial perfume, and showed me glimpses of its petals, whispering through the slats of a bamboo blind. That flower opens in my dreams. It sways gently in the breeze. And it sings the song I will one day sing.

If you listen carefully, you might hear it.

Regards,
Fifi