Makalani: February 2021

I’m not much of a talker. No, say that differently: I almost never talk. But that’s fine – fine by me, fine by my friends. I don’t need many friends, you see. And the one’s that understand me, well, they’re my closest. My mom used to tell me that the best way to figure out if someone is really your friend is to look them in the eye – don’t say anything – and just ask, with the look, “Are you my friend?” If they understand you, then they are.

I have a friend. His name is Julian, and we do everything together. He understands me, so deeply that I really don’t have to talk, which is fine by me. This doesn’t mean we never talk, just that talk – like giving your little brother a high-five and telling him he’s awesome – is nice, but not necessary. We understand each other. Better than anyone else in the world.

This is the story of two days me and Julian spent together, in the forest, behind his family’s farm. We were doing this thing that Julian called ‘camping’. Oddly enough, it turned out to be more of an extreme survival test than a camping trip. Have you ever read those stories where two great friends save each other’s lives? This is one of them.

Yes, we took our back-packs and our sleeping bags – though, personally, I prefer just a thick pad and blanket – and Julian’s Mom packed us a big, hearty lunch. Beef stew. Boy, did it smell good. Too good, probably.

Down the trail the two of us tromped, carefree and happy to be out of the house.

“Where’ll we go first?” Julian said at lunch-time. He had spread the crinkly, stained old map on a big, flat rock and was perusing it thoughtfully. I walked up and looked over his shoulder. He glanced up at me.

“Uhuh, yep, I know,” he said in reply to the “You said you had a plan,” look on my face. Glancing back down, he walked a hand along one of the winding trails, “I planned the options. Look here: either, we can go to Wall-eye Lake and fish all day – then camp somewhere on Bensen’s Shore. Or there’s this mess of oaks and alders near Five-Stone Pass that Rob saw some raccoons in, night-before-last. We could camp on the plateau after some coon-hunting – get a nice view of the stars. After that, there’s a loop of Jimmy-Joe River with a nice spot for a camp. Ya know, the place we built that raft last year with Michael and Brielle?”

“No rafts,” my look said firmly. Julian only smirked – probably recalling my wild panic from last year – and nodded, “O-K,” he said, and continued, “Last spot would be Old Gibson’s place right next to the Fisherton Mine. Dad said it’s been abandoned since before Grandpa was a squirt. I was thinking we could do some exploring,” ever so slowly his fingers strolled up the trail, past Old Gibson’s and up the mountain. They then stopped, surreptitiously, some two inches below a scrawling name and the figure of bear’s paw, “Or,” he said, offhandedly, “There is the old trail up to Grizzly Peak. Shorter than the rest, probably faster too – and we could camp out at Old Gibson’s just the same.”

A short sigh and I walked around the stone, coming to a stand-still right across from Julian. He didn’t look up – probably because he could sense the “Your Dad said not to go there,” expression on my face. After a long, awkward pause, I indicated my vote towards the south-western-most cluster of trees on the map. Julian glanced up, the grinace on his face plain to see.

“Coon-hunting it is then,” he said and began to roll up the map. I could tell he was disappointed – probably thinking how “Gavus is such a spoil-sport” – but what Dad says goes, and I know how dangerous Grizzly Peak can be.

Julian stowed the map away. He was just about to stand when I jumped up on the rock and, with a grin, shoved him back. Julian sprawled to the ground. When he looked up at me, the surprised expression on his face was priceless. It quickly changed to a grin.

“So that’s how it is?” he said, rising slowly to his knees, “I let you shove me once and you gotta shove me twice?” I didn’t give him time to say anymore, but with a playful growl, tackled him down again.

“It is ON!” he shouted, and we wrestled. We wrestled so long and hard that it must have been around 2:30 in the afternoon before we broke up. Both of us were hot, sweaty and panting for our lives. Julian stumbled to his feet.

“Last one to the Lake washes dishes tonight!” he shouted and took off down the trail. Yep, he was back to being Julian again.

And we raced – it was fun – though I let him beat me. He knew it, and was grateful. After a long swim we had another wrestling-match in the water. Then we set up camp.

“Stars sure are pretty,” Julian breathed. On the bank of the Lake we sat, side-by-side with the fire behind us warming our backs. I sprawled out on my belly and heaved a yawn.

“Guess that means I get first watch tonight?” Julian asked with a half-laugh.

I closed my eyes in agreement. Stars are all right, I suppose, but I was more interested in contemplating tomorrow’s breakfast: leftover beef stew. Maybe that’s why I’m such a realist. Julian will go all dove-eyed over a sky of sparkling lights, while my mind is usually right next to my stomach. Where’s the next meal coming from? Is the food good? How much will there be? Do we have to save leftovers? Yeah, I’m a food person. It’s a wonder I stay so thin.

[here the manuscript ends]

“Here I am,” the little voice whispered, followed at once by a laugh which rippled like watery bells into the surrounding light-scape. A mist of shimmering pastels cloaked the warm stillness, whispering blue, pink and yellow tendrils of feathery brilliance throughout a conscious void.

“Down here,” the voice said again. At once I felt a small, warm hand take hold of mine and looking down, my eyes lighted on her face. Small and round like a child’s it was, with a brilliant smile and bright, sparkling brown eyes. Again she pealed with laughter and this stillness rippled in its wake.

“Who are you?” I breathed, confusion and wonder deepening the golden highlights of the gathering mist. She smiled even brighter – O, wondrous smile! - and tugging my hand, danced back a few fairy-light steps.

“I'll show you,” she said, her eyes glowing under their curling golden lashes with the laughter of a thousand birthdays and the glory of a thousand dawns, “Follow me.” and she was gone, running from me into the swirling mist.

“Wait!” I called, reaching out a hand and struggling to lift my leaden legs. At her departure the surrounding brilliance dimmed, grayed and stilled into a cold, grey nothingness. Suddenly the warm air became thin and tore at my throat with talons of icy steel.

“Come back!” I gasped, falling to my knees in the mist. Space seemed to crush its gray fist around me, stilling my blood and turning my bones to stone.

“Find me,” I heard her voice call into my stillness, lifting the dead air to ring with its life-giving note, “Come find me!” she laughed and I watched, eyes wide in wonder, as the rays of her voice beamed into the grayness, slaying cold nothingness with warm and living light. It coursed vigor into my leaden limbs and thawed the deadness in my bones. Under the power of its intense ray I staggered to my feet. But as soon as it had come the golden light vanished and slowly the grayness began seeping back once more.

“No,” I murmured, eyes fixed on the direction she had gone, “I'm coming. Wait for me.” and I set out at a stumbling run.

Not miles, but eons of mist rolled by and the further I went the more alive I grew. Once, as I ran, ahead of me there loomed a tall, dark mountain. I tried to go around it but as soon as my feet turned to the side an icy bolt struck my heart and, instinctively, I jerked back. Perhaps this was the way I would find her – the way she would remind me how to remember: by following the warmth which ran like a river about, before and behind me. Setting my eyes above and ahead I stepped forward and began the long ascent.

Mist rolled all about me, cloaking the mountain-side and hiding my every step from view. I knew not if, at any moment, I might plunge over the side of some precipice – or lose myself in the hungry jaws of a mountain cave. Still I climbed and the air about me grew brighter with each step. I was not afraid, nor did any notes of apprehension ring in my mind. I must climb up! And so I did, without thought for what lay behind me and nothing but a vague, far-off hope for what lay ahead.

At last, I crested the rise and standing on a mist-cloaked plateau, gazed about me into the golden distance. A few steps forward and I stood in the center of the mountain-top. There was nothing. Nothing but a sheer golden curtain of oscillating mist. Yet the landscape about me, though it was empty, did not feel so. Indeed, I felt pressed about by the magnitude of something enormous and invisible. As if a hand had reached down from highest Heaven to envelope me in its grasp. I felt safe, warm and secure. A faint sigh of contentment issued from my parted lips and, at the same moment, I heard a voice behind me gently speak.

“I knew you would come.” It said.

I turned and beheld the child from before. But she was not a child anymore. Sweet simplicity of youth had blossomed into the glorious and indescribable majesty of age. She was not aged in form. Yet in her dark, liquid eyes, I perceived the light of deep understanding.

“How?” I asked, confused at her first words. She only cocked her head a little to one side, as if to ask whether or not I were making a joke. I replied nothing, and so confirmed my sincerity with silence.

“I knew,” she said, after a short pause, “Because you always come.”

This explanation, though given in a tone which said ‘it makes perfect sense, dear’ only served to perplex me further.

“So,” I said, my tone dubious, and my words uttered with slow uncertainty, “We have met before?”

And I do not know if it was at my question or at my expression of profound confusion, but she laughed, and in her laugh, the golden stillness seemed to grow deeper and brighter.

“Yes!” she said, as if in congratulation. Like a student before his teacher I embraced the implication with a sense of pride and relief.

“Yes,” she said again, taking my hand in hers once more and smiling up at me through those gloriously bright eyes. I felt myself drawn to her. “We have met - many times! - though you never remember,” a far-off, joyously sad look came into her eyes and she gazed beyond me. Or rather she gazed behind me, into a past I could not remember. At last she came back and smiling, whispered, “Would you like me to show you?”

I opened my mouth to say ‘Yes’ but no sound came out. A shadow of doubt fell across the bright sun of her presence and in that shadow, I hesitated. But why was I hesitating? I did not know and struggled to understand where the object was that had cast this shadow of doubt. As if in answer to my unvoiced question a voice murmured deep within my mind “None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.”

“What is it?” she said, stepping closer, so close that I could smell the indescribably golden scent of her hair. It clouded my thoughts so that the voice did not come clearly to my mind as it spoke again, saying: “Why are you . . . my soul . . . in turmoil? Hope in . . . I again praise . . . my salv . . . my G-“

“You do not trust me,” her voice intercepted the thought. Blinking once I cleared the clouds from my mind and looked into her down-cast face with surprise.

“No,” I whispered, this time taking her hands in mine, “Do not be sad, I do trust you!” for the expression of hurt and sorrow in her once beaming eyes had smitten me to the heart. At my words a faint smile lit her face again. She glanced up at me shyly under her dark brows.

“Then may I show you?” she asked, hopefully.

“Show me what?” I asked.

“How we met. How you know me.” She said, smiling brighter and brighter every second.

This time, I did not hesitate.

“Yes,” I breathed, and the last thing I remember noticing was how deep was the blackness in her eyes. It sucked me in, turning the warm air cold and stealing my breath as I was crushed through the gates of the present and into the past.

[here the manuscript ends]

The glittering stars were mirrored in the maiden's sea gray eyes as she stood, gazing silently into the midnight sky. Although the celestial candles flamed steadily, unflickering and unchanging of their forms, in the maidens eyes they shimmered as the reflection of the stars shimmered that same night on the vast reaches of the Center Sea. Then slowly, very slowly the trembling star waters were gathered together and forming themselves into a single drop spilled out of the eye, rolled down the pale young face and dripped off of it with a whispering sigh, as the sigh of a wind from the sea that finds itself lost, never to be found again.

Few can hear the sorrow of a falling tear, and fewer still of those who can understand what it is, or what it whispers in its single sigh before it breaks with a last sorrowing breath. But those who can hear and who do understand, must also care. Yes, care so much of what is and feel so much the sorrow of what was, never to be again, that they likewise care to answer the last sigh, or lament the last breath, small though that may be.

Of such manner and mind was the maiden, who at hearing the tear's sad sigh, stretched out her hand and caught it before it broke on the ground below. She then lifted it close to her face and, with a sad smile, whispered,

“I am sorry, I will not do it again.”

The tear glistened for the last time, in the light of the stars, as it dripped from the maiden's lowered hand. Again she heard it sigh but the words of the sigh were changed bringing more tears to her eyes. Unbidden and yet all true, for a tear of true sorrow does not lie, the tear whispered as it fell,

“Ah, but Elinna. You will.”

And with a last sigh the tear broke over the stone, on which Elinna stood.

Elinna lowered her gaze and looked quietly at the little wet spot on the stone where the tear had broken. For a moment she could think of nothing but the tear's last words. Finally, she shook her head, and lifting her eyes once more to the South-east. Why did those little whispers affect her so? Sometimes Elinna less than appreciated her gift to hear the thoughts of things that could not speak in tongues of voice. And yet was it not simply that they had not much to say that kept them from speaking to others so freely? Or was it that they deemed Elinna, so deprived of sweet sounds and good council as she was, to need these good things, and thus they wished to share some of theirs with her?

These thoughts and others on the nature of the voices often occupied Elinna's mind during the moonlit and starlit hours when things of the day were seemingly too far away to be even thought of.

As Elinna's eyes wandered slowly over the South-eastern expanses of the high dark sky, her gaze halted on the moon wherefrom she heard, as she saw, another thought. The silver sliver of the waning crescent shone with a pale, gentle light as it quietly called to her:

“I die yet to be born anew.”

Elinna smiled as she read the thought in the moon's shrinking face. But she wondered why the moon deemed this such a joyful thing, for the first half of the thought did not appear very pleasant.

“And yet, beautiful moon,” Elinna whispered, “first thou must die. But maybe dying is not fearful a thing for thou who hast done so, so very often, and wilt do so many times more before the world hath found its end.”

“In the end, it may be just this,” Elinna sighed, “that to die more than once, many times even, doth turn death into a great joy, for though thou diest, in thy death thou knowest that thou shalt be born anew.”

Thus spoke she who knew more of sorrow than a thousand deaths could bring. A dark cloud crept towards the moon. Like the creeping of a cat that is about to pounce on its prey, it slunk nearer and nearer, then just as it looked like it would pounce the cloud turned into ink and stretching out its snaking tendrils, wrapped them around the fading moon.

The moon seemed not to notice as it was being swallowed by the darkness; but then it had been swallowed so many times there is little wonder that it thought more on Elinna than its own plight.

“Ah, pitiable mortal child! If I couldst I wouldst call thee up to me, so oft' hast thou been a quiet companion for me in the passing hours of night. But no, thy lot as one who shall die but once may be a blessing beyond compare, if thou livest thy one life all for Him, and if in death thou, through the hope of the life that cometh after death and judgment, hold that peace. Then assuredly thy one life may be greater than a thousand of mine. Remember, and dwell on that day, but dwell e’en more so on Him.”

And with these last words the moon disappeared, leaving Elinna alone in the night.

She answered, though she knew the moon would not hear,

“I have thought, I have remembered, and I shall do so again.”

“Good afternoon,” the crisp, young voice said over her shoulder. Starting violently, Mrs. Prattle dropped the small pile of letters, her spectacles, and small pink handkerchief. She coughed and leaned forward against the mailbox, gasping as if unable to draw breath. The young voice spoke again:

“Oh dear, I didn’t mean to startle you!”

Out of her excellent peripheral-vision Mrs. Prattle watched as a tall male form knelt and quickly gathered up the fallen items. Gingerly his long fingers handled her spectacles and kerchief.

“No harm, no harm,” she gasped, turning around to get a full view of him, but still leaning heavily on his mailbox, “I’ll be all right, just soon as I sit down. This old heart isn’t what it used to be. Just walking down this way to get my spectacles has me all wore out,” she glanced mournfully at her house one door down.

“Your spectacles?” the young man asked, standing. He returned them to her, wrapped neatly in the little pink kerchief.

“Yes! Oh, my poor brains are all a-tizzy, and it’s that silly mailman’s fault! Luther or Louis or something like that. Not that I didn’t put my spectacles there in the first place, but he should have been paying closer attention. Mailmen are supposed to pick up only letters, so why doesn’t he do just that?” she complained and blithered and exclaimed, while all that time the young man continued to look at her very sympathetically, though with confusion.

“I am certain he had his reasons,” he offered, “It’s not every day that-”

“Well, of course he did,” Mrs. Prattle laughed, taking his arm, “And as my spectacles ended up in your mailbox, I think it only fair to give you the whole story. But not in this sun. How my heart flutters. I really must sit down soon or I’ll have a stroke! And goodness knows what Mr. Prattle would do without me were I to go off a-sudden like that. Now, mind, I’m sure he would make up a lovely funerary-poem and pick me some flowers – daffodils are what I like – but what he’d do with himself after he got home from all that I’m sure I don’t know!”

And so she went on and on, guiding the young man up his driveway, porch-steps and over the threshold of his front-door. If she must sit down, then she must sit down, and no one could gainsay Mrs. Prattle once she had decided her next stop would be their living-room.

As for Mr. Prattle, he watched from the front parlor window and shook his old grey head with a wry smile. He was an austere, quiet man with a bright sense of humor which, because of his wife, had become permanently ironic. More than twenty years ago he had served as an urban-design architect, and Chesterton neighborhood had been his final, crowning work before he retired to read and write poetry. This fact is probably a great deal of what gave Mrs. Prattle such confidence in treading wherever she wished within the neighborhood’s confines: after all, her husband built it, so he practically owned it all, didn’t he? Hers was a convenient mindset, and Mr. Prattle made no attempt to change it. If her meddlesome ways kept the neighbors on their toes and caused more than a few short-lived and harmless scandals, that was all right. It gave Mr. Prattle something to laugh about, and the neighbors were all good-natured folks, though none so naïve as the young man next-door.

“Ah, she’ll have fun with him, poor boy. He’ll soon find himself with more family secrets and mysterious relatives than he ever knew,” he chuckled softly, “She’ll tell him he really must call that old college sweet-heart he broke up with. She’ll find out which girls have eyed him and which ones he’s eyed since he came. In the end, he’ll give her his phone-number, then wonder why he ever did that when she’s gone,” again he laughed, “Poor boy, but she’ll have fun.”

Little did Mr. Prattle know how right he was.

“And so I sealed the letter – not the one for my sister, the one for Ms. Anna Smith from Arkansas – and took my spectacles off, leaving them on the mail-pile. I know, it was very silly, but the taste of those seals! The envelopes today aren’t nothing like they were when I was your age. Someone got it into the post-office peoples’ heads that if they flavor their seals with sugar, people will like them more! I mean the envelopes, not the post-office people, ‘cause no one ever likes them anyway. But whoever heard such nonsense? And- oh, thank you dearie, you’re too kind,” a long, quiet slurp interrupted Ms. Prattle streaming narrative, succeeded by an even longer sigh, “Ahhh, you make good tea, young man. Is it chamomile?”

“Ah, no it’s Earl Gray Crème,” Christopher Ashton replied, then seeing Mrs. Prattle’s disgruntled frown, he amended, “But I made chamomile yesterday, which you doubtless detect the essence of.” He didn’t mention that he had used a different tea-ball.

She smiled to herself, shaking her head with a superior sigh, “Young man, it is no wonder you don’t wash your dishes very thoroughly, as you are a bachelor, but a body must take care of himself more carefully! Think, if I had not noticed the essness of chamomile in this cup, you might have drunk it days from now and got sick! No, you should hire a maid,” she glanced around the exquisitely neat living-room with a shrewd eye, “That’ll keep you from harms way. Make sure she’s pretty.”

Mr. Ashton nodded meekly, “I am in your debt, Mrs. Prattle. Do you have any suggestions?”

Tilting her head back and to the side in what she considered a very sage manner, Mrs. Prattle took her time to think through which of the neighborhood girls would be most suitable for a position at Mr. Ashton’s.

“Lisa Gordon,” she finally pronounced, “She’s a good girl, very smart, though not too book-washed,” Mrs. Prattle snorted, “Not like her sister. That Lila Gordon would read through a house burning down, and rescue her library before the bedding and clothes!” Indignation bristled through the air around the catty old lady, and in such a thick fog that she did not notice the faint, far-off smile which passed over Christopher Ashton’s face.

“That is a most unfortunate complex,” he commented softly.

“Indeed it is!” Mrs. Prattle exclaimed, sitting up straight as her eyes widened, “Why, she’s so wrapped-up in her little book world, I’ve seen as many as four lovely young men from the neighborhood walk up to her, stand there looking so pathetically charming, and then stumble away without having said a thing. And she never notice them! Four! Shameful,” she huffed, slumping back down and pouting into her cup like a child, “Even worse, she brings her dusty old books into my house no less than twice a month – often more! – and talks with my Harold about poetry and Shakespeare, and goodness knows what, for hours on end. He never used to do that sort of stuff before settling here, and I’ve an idea I know why,” she cast a dour glance out the front window and across the road.

Observing her look, Mr. Ashton leaned forward: “It must be very trying for you, but, pardon my interjecting a question: where did you say this Gordon family lives? And did I hear ‘Lisa’ and ‘Lila’?”

“Oh, yes, they’re just across the road from you,” Mrs. Prattle replied, waving a hand, “And all that family’s names are full of ‘l’s. First names with ‘l’ for the girls and middle names with ‘l’ for the boys. The parents are Laurie and James Gordon, then their kids: Jeremiah Logan, Lila Annalee, Lisa – or Elizabeth – Joy, Benjamin Luther, Lara Cadence and Toby Lionel. I did once ask Laurie why she and her husband are so obsessed with ‘l’ and you know what she told me?”

Of course, Mr. Ashton couldn’t know, so she told him.

“She said it’s ‘because the letter ‘l’ begins so many great words like ‘love’, ‘liberty’, ‘loyalty’, and ‘life’.’ at which I said ‘Why not just call them those?’ then she gave me this strange smile, and said ‘We like names with more hidden meanings’ – she and her husband are very strange, but they’re good, kind folks. He teaches God-science, I can’t remember the word . . .”

“Theology?” Mr. Ashton offered.

“Yes, that’s it! So he teaches theelegy at the Gibraltar Seminary, and she homeschools their kids. Imagine! Homeschooling six children? Now, when I was their age I would never have done anything so crazy as that. But anyhow – and so that family loves to talk about scholarly things, which my husband likes, and I think it’s quite silly. I have nothing against Mr. Gordon liking those sorts of things – it’s his job after all! – but filling his kids’ heads with all that termolegy so they can’t talk plain and simple like honest folks is really a shame,” she shook her head with a sigh, “Such a shame,” and took another long sip from her room-temperature cup of tea.

It took a good four hours, from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon, for Mrs. Prattle to tell Mr. Ashton half the things in the Chesterton neighborhood which were ‘really such a shame’. After this, she also took it upon her ‘poor, unheeded self’ to reveal to him all the things in his own life which were ‘really such shame’ and then inform him on how he ought to make them ‘that much better’. She did indeed insist that he call that old college sweetheart of his whom he had broken up with (not that he ever named a sweetheart, but Mrs. Prattle assumed that every young man has one), and get her to visit, and then marry her, and have kids of their own, and send those kids over to her and Mr. Prattle’s place when they were older to help her in her garden. Of course, she would spare them for school and working in their own garden, not to mention chores like mowing the lawn – would he let his kids mow her lawn when Mr. Prattle grew too old to manage it? He and his would always be at her service. Oh, that’s lovely – but Mr. Ashton and his wife – Could she call him Mr. Topher? It would remind her of her old Uncle Topher so dearly, even if he had been a rascally drunk who at last got himself sick of pneumonia and died of starvation because he wouldn’t take anything that didn’t have spirits in it, but still, could she call him Mr. Topher? Certainly. Oh, he really was a dear . . .

And on. As she talked, Mrs. Prattle decided that she liked this new young man, and that he had excellent manners, was very thoughtful, not to mention so genteelly soft-spoken, but he was perhaps too kindly in his views and could at least have been a little upset at Mr. Swalinsky for spraying grass-clippings all over his beautiful lawn. But what did Mr. Swalinsky matter anyhow? It was enough satisfaction for Mrs. Prattle to have an attentive listener who knew nothing, so she could tell him everything – and some.

Only as the little golden anniversary clock struck four and a quarter did Mrs. Prattle pause for longer than a breath or slurp. With a self-scolding exclamation she declared that she really must be off, as Mr. Prattle would be wanting his afternoon chai soon (Mr. Prattle never drank tea of any sort), and that if she didn’t get back and make it for him, he would be all at a loss, and then she would be at a loss how to make it up to him, then the whole neighborhood – and ‘really, the world!’ – must be at a loss how to recover without five extra doses of hot chai and whipped-cream per person.

Rushing out the door, down the drive-way, and all the way back to her house, Mrs. Prattle never did stop talking as Mr. Ashton stood under his porch-roof, nodding at every new statement she made, and smiling agreeably until she at last disappeared through her own door with a final:

“Lovely talk, Mr. Ashtopher, and thank you for the delicious earl-omile tea, and perhaps later you shall tell me the story behind that beautiful anniversary-clock?”

Again he nodded, the door shut, and the very sky seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

The smile on Ashton’s face did not change as he stepped back into his house, and yet the meaning of it was wholly different. His grey-blue eyes, before so warm and mild, now glittered with a keen, sharp light, so piercing that it seemed like pain. His smile was a grimace, and as he glanced up to heaven, the whites of his eyes were tinged with red.

Walking contemplatively back into the living room, he stood for a moment surveying the dimpled easy-chair where Mrs. Prattle had been sitting. Then a convulsive shudder shook through him and he collapsed onto the couch. He sat, leant forward with his head buried in his hands, and shoulders shaking as strained gasps broke through his fingers at spasmodic intervals. Anyone who did not know him would have thought he was crying, but when Christopher B. Ashton cried, he never hid his face.

At last the hands fell away, the head flew back, and a long, silent chuckle again shuddered through Ashton’s frame. A low moan, and he reached up to wipe away the tears which were streaming down his face.

The doorbell rang. Instantly, Ashton stopped laughing. Leaping over the couch, he snatched up his phone, sprinted silently upstairs, then came thundering back down, wiping his eyes and murmuring hardly intelligible apologies and promises into the phone.

As expected, Mrs. Prattle’s face appeared through the door window. Ashton’s eyes widened, he whispered into the phone, then opened the door.

“So sorry to come again, Ashtopher, but I couldn’t wait till morning, or even this evening. You’ve no idea how troublesome it is to walk around in the dark, and with my eyesight! But never mind that. I must endure what I must endure. The fact is, I left my spectacles here – I know, perfectly silly, but you were talking so much it quite drove the thought from my mind!” Mrs. Prattle steamed ahead, then stopped sharply. Bending forward she scrutinized Ashton’s face closely, “Why, Ashtopher, you’re crying! Whatever happened . . .” her eyes fell on the phone and narrowed.

“Yes, ma’am – my friend from college . . . well, you see I thought about what you said, and . . . well, I’m so glad and-” Ashton spluttered between teary gasps, before trailing away with a helplessly bewildered and happy look.

“Oh, Oh!” Mrs. Prattle gasped, adjusting to a shout-whisper, “Well tell her I said hi, and don’t you mind me! I’ll just-” she moved to stepped through the doorway.

“Ah, beg pardon,” Ashton interjected, blinking owlishly as he pointed at the top of her head. There, suspended in her curly gray hair, as on a cloud, were a pair of silver-blue spectacles. Mrs. Prattle’s eyes rolled up so far they seemed to be going back into her head; she gasped, and with a chortle, untangled the spectacles before settling them firmly on her nose.

“Why, thank you Ashtopher,” she shout-whispered, “But never mind that! You just talk to your sweetie, and tell me all about it next time, all right?” and she was gone, diagonally across the road to tell her friend Evelyn all about the new young man next door, and his sweet-heart, of course. Mr. Prattle would just have to do without his imaginary chai tea today.

A long, exhausted sigh winded the silence as Ashton wandered, once more, into his living room and eased himself onto the couch. Sitting there, he shook his head, smiling thinly and trembling with his silent laughter. Again the chuckle mounted, but taking a few deep breaths, Ashton forced his mood to relax. One last shudder of hilarity and he sighed with relief.

Quickly tapping his phone screen, Ashton saved the 6 1/2-hour recording.

“When life’s so hilarious, it’s actually painful,” he titled it, but after a second frowned.

“We are not saying you can’t have fun during a mission, but you must always take the mission seriously.”

Glancing into the past, Ashton nodded. Deftly his fingers deleted the title, replacing it with: “First contact and general briefing of Chesterton neighborhood, with numerous exaggerations and little context.”

Step 2: place call.

“Hey, Will? Yeah,” he said into the phone and standing slowly, stepped over to the window, “I have a contact. Adjacent. Mmhmm. I’ll brief you tonight. Yes, I’m forwarding it now. All right, see you then.”

The phone resumed its place in his pocket. This warm, hand-sized gadget: his electric link to another world. Gazing absently out the window and across the road, Christopher B. Ashton watched as a young woman with a book wandered out onto the lawn, and sitting under a tree, began to read.

Again the phone came out, and Ashton snapped a photo.

Title: “Lila Gordon, first sighting.”

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