Upside Down Kris

Billowing Blue Beauty I am walking home with large strides for my short legs. The pavement supports my rubber soles rather rigidly. A Snickers' wrapper shivers as I pass by while someone's tissue wads to the ground, keeping a low profile. I lift my head and pause for a moment at a large store window. All that's left inside is a sturdy wooden desk to the right and a row of hangers in a wood paneled open closet to the left. The woman who used to own the shop would sit at that desk day after day waiting for someone to enter. Rarely did I see anyone other than herself in the shop: the price of the clothes was prohibitive as much as the expression she wore every day... Oh! There is a gust of wind that makes me squeeze my jacket around my neck. As I observe my movement in the glass in front of me I glimpse a billowing behind me. I turn around. There is an elegant man walking on the other side of the street. His gray hair is cleanly cut around his ears, making his moka skin stand ...

2 O'Clock  A tooting–no, fluting–invited my ear into the night. Focusing my sense of sound on the the evocation, I became sure that it wasn't a flute. It had none of that tinny sweetness that I associated with a flute. No, it was fuller, broader...the notes were rounder than the sometimes shrillness of a metal flute. I say it was a recorder, a recorder passing under my window to charm me out like in the story of the pan piper and his rats following the sound to and into the river. The sea is so near that he wouldn't have to lead me far... The night piper was playing a familiar tune, one usually accompanied by a drummer. And although my brain was a mass of melma (mush from half consciousness), I searched and searched my memory banks...I beckoned it to come ashore and give my mind the name it needed. The song was percussive and had a modern feel, yet I knew it came from a more complex, classical piece. The melody became stronger until it swelled beneath my window. Then, the s...