The Shadow-Sticks The troubles of the world ooze into their sleep. Their dreams of comfort darken with despair, draining them raw, leaving them brittle. It is time to rejuvenate, so the world can hope again. At the blackest of night they rise, stick-like figures with pen-scratched heads stutter-step down from their homes in the mountains….
She returns home one night with four sunflowers clutched in her arms like a quartet of freshly baked French baguettes, trailing dirt from their upwrenched roots. “Look,” she says, “what I found for the garden.” She tells me she saw them towering over one of the roadside vegetable patches that pepper the countryside around us….
A harp made of bones, they say, will only ever play a single song. Haunting, my listeners called my melody, and beautiful. My fingers glided over the sinuous strings and my voice, the harp’s voice, unveiled the story that made me a celebrated music-maker, that earned me my name: A brother betrayed, his life later…
The moment I return from the future, all I want is to talk to you, but so much gets in the way. First the debrief, with endless hours about what I saw, the analysis of the recordings, and the tedious review of my field notes. When the success of my mission leaks, it gets worse….
