candle girl
15 Wednesday May 2024
Posted Books, Fairy tales, Fiction, Short story, Stories from underground, Universe, Writing
in15 Wednesday May 2024
Posted Books, Fairy tales, Fiction, Short story, Stories from underground, Universe, Writing
in25 Thursday Apr 2024
Tags
afterlife, family, fantasy, science, short stories, short story, smile, smiles
My uncle has lived an extraordinary life. He is 90 years old now and says that when he dies he will die with a smile on his face, which I take to mean he is pleased with the life he has led, and when it reaches its natural end, there will be no raging “against the dying of the light.” He talks about his future death-bed smile so often, however, that like anything someone repeats over and over again, I’ve grown a bit tired of it, though this may be unkind of me to say. But something else genuinely bothers me about this claim of his: I simply can’t relate.
My uncle was a geologist or, more precisely, a mining engineer for most of his life, which required that he travel across the world (for the entire world is full of things to mine, obviously). As a young man, he had wanted to be an archeologist, but he quickly realized archeology wasn’t lucrative and working for corporations that mine the earth for profit would be. And during the heyday of such things, mining corporations made a mint (I know, bad pun) and so did he, for such companies (even greedy ones) during the fifties and sixties had generous pension plans, profit sharing, and the like. Of course, in later years, when profits started to wind down and employee benefits were scaled back in these and other corporations, the company owners he worked for tried to claw back the money they had promised the professional staff upon retirement. Fortunately, the staff sued and the wise judge ruled in the employees’ favor. As a result, my uncle became a millionaire overnight.
For most of my life, I wasn’t in touch with my Uncle Sal. It was only a few years ago that he contacted me, just prior to his wife passing away. They had no children. He is my father’s younger brother, the youngest in their branch of the family. The rest have passed on to wherever we all pass on to. My uncle, being a geologist, doesn’t believe in an afterlife. He says that if you have studied geology or any other science extensively, you will eventually come to that understanding yourself. At best, we will dissolve into the landscape or seascape, or, as the saying goes, push up daisies. Anyway, such are his beliefs. And such is how we came to reconnect.
Getting to know a new old relative is strange. He resembles my dear departed father in some ways, such as in mid-range tone of voice, easy-going temper, and watchful, intelligent eyes, but in most ways he is far different from anyone on my side. We are poor; he is rich. We struggle with paying rent (me), addiction (my brother), and planning ahead (most of us); he golfs and watches over his holdings. We live in the bowels of Los Angeles, in run-down apartments and (in one case) on the street; he lives encircled by the forested beauty of Eugene, Oregon, in a lovely home, bought with cash, located in a lovely neighborhood. So when he says he will die with a smile on his face, his accomplishments and his present circumstances help to explain why, but they don’t explain everything. And exactly what kind of smile is he talking about?
So when an interesting new museum opened up near my home recently, I seized upon the opportunity to visit. This was one of those serendipitous coincidences that usually don’t occur in my life, but here was a museum nearby that might provide some answers.
My uncle happened to be visiting me the weekend of the museum’s opening. I made a suggestion over lunch at a little café a few blocks from my apartment. I said, “Uncle Sal. Let’s go see what this place is all about.” He had just finished telling me about the dinosaur discoveries he had made in a Moroccan mine (a story he had told me before, though it was so fascinating it was worth hearing on repeat). I explained that the museum probably wouldn’t have relics quite like his own discoveries, but it might have unusual relics of its own to make the visit worthwhile.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said, affably.
I had read about the museum a few days before. The space and its collection were described as “eclectic” and “innovative,” unlike anything ever attempted. And as we entered the former bank building of rust-colored red brick, I understood why. We found ourselves in a lobby blazing with wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor projected images of the most psychedelic color combinations you can imagine: egg-yolk yellow was the predominant color, mixed with fire-engine red, sapphire blue, moss green, drenched purple, and all of it swirling around us like a Van Gogh painting of a starry, starry night on another planet. For several moments, we stood stock still, my uncle leaning on his cane to maintain his balance, me clutching his arm to maintain mine. The place definitely took a moment for us to get our bearings. Given the discombobulation we felt, it was hard to see how many people were inside, but it didn’t seem like many. At least, when someone who I took to be a guide approached us and offered to lead us into the next room (this was only the lobby, apparently), we didn’t seem to have any competition. This someone was a young man with shoulder-length blond hair and an altogether surfer vibe who seemed to fit with the theme of crashing waves of color, despite being dressed in a tailored black suit. He had a bored expression on his face, which made me think he had led one too many startled visitors into another room. At any rate, as soon as he had led my uncle and me through two tall double doors out of the lobby, he turned from us with the same lack of interest and headed back through the doors.
Now we were in a room that was the complete opposite of the other. It was white, blindingly so, and resembled a gallery found in a typical museum. Also typical were the glass display cases, waist high, also white, that filled the room, about eight long horizontal rows of them. On the back wall, in fat, bold, off-white letters, was the gallery’s name: A Roomful of Smiles.
There were at least six other visitors in the room, scattered about, gazing into various cases, lingering here, moving on there. From where my uncle and I stood, near the entrance where the guide had left us, the cases showed little variation in what they contained. All displayed plaster-like casts of some sort, all white and all of the same size, more or less, each bathed in a soft warm light provided by small individual lamps. We walked up to the nearest case to look more closely.
This case contained five casts of the lower portion of a face. At first glance, the casts seemed identical. Upon closer inspection, however, we saw that each displayed a distinct smile. A small plaque in soft yellow beneath each cast provided an explanation written in a graceful handwritten light blue script. My uncle smiled at the sight. I wasn’t sure, but I figured he now guessed what my secret plan or intention had been all along.
“No, none of these are what I meant,” he said, as he surveyed the case.
In my mind, this case contained what I considered gentle smiles. The plaques read: Kind Smile, Friendly Smile, Accepting Smile, Understanding Smile, and Mona Lisa Smile. My uncle just shook his head and continued on to the next case.
This case had a truly eclectic mix of examples. Here were Crazed Smile, Lackluster Smile, Beatific Smile, Frozen Smile, and Ironic Smile. My uncle paused at the last one. He said, “This one is close, but not exactly the kind of smile I think I’ll have.”
“Why ironic,” I asked.
“Well, for one thing, my family was very poor, my mother couldn’t even read, and yet I dreamed big, I excelled in school, went to Columbia University, became a globetrotting mining engineer, married a beautiful redhead, and became a millionaire. Everything just seemed to happen without a hitch.”
I didn’t think this was irony, exactly, but I kept that thought to myself. I was just glad that he seemed as interested as I in finding the smile that would match the one he envisioned.
We continued down the row, and down the next one and the next. So many smiles, so many opportunities for my uncle to view the varied examples and perhaps happen upon the one he supposed might form gently on his face as he left this plane of existence.
We were nearing the end of the exhibit, making our way down the very last row, when my uncle stopped short before one of the smiling casts. He stared down at the glowing smile, beaming under its little lamp, for several moments, longer than at any other smile. I read the plaque: Brave Smile. My uncle himself was looking down at this smile with a frown. Why a frown, I thought. I waited for him to explain.
But he never did. He just looked over at me and nodded, grinning briefly, as if touched by the humor of it all, then nodded again, as if to say, this is the one.
Then he moved on to the last of the cases, never saying a word, never launching into an old memory, only moving through the rest of the exhibit until we arrived at the end.
Finally, he said, “Well, that was interesting. Let’s go.”
And so we left, again passing through the phantasmagorical assault of the lobby, and exiting through the museum doors to the harsh brightness of a Los Angeles afternoon.
As I drove us back to my apartment, he was again quiet. He stared out at the street ahead, at all the traffic in front of us, at the lackluster low-rent storefronts, some boarded up, but he made no comment. At last, when I parked my car in front of the apartment, he said, “Well, that was interesting, but I don’t think that exhibit will ever be adequate. Geologists know the uniqueness of creation, the uniqueness of mankind. Some of those smiles came close, but not one will ever come close enough. My smile will be completely my own. And yours will be, too.”
“But Uncle Sal,” I said, “I don’t think I’ll be smiling when I leave this place. Unless it’s a smile of gratitude to be done with it all.”
“Well, I hope that won’t be so,” he replied. “If there’s one thing we both learned today is that we should all smile more. Look how many smiles that museum displayed. Pick your favorite one. Practice it every day. Make it your own. Who knows, maybe that smile will be your saving grace, now and forever (even if I don’t believe in a hereafter). Maybe by choosing a smile, your life will fall into place.”
And so, upon my new old uncle’s advice, I have tried to smile more. To arrive at the smile that fits best and make it my own. So that when I leave this crazy world, my final smile will be a true reflection, a happy reflection, of how I chose to live.
(Rest in Happiness, Uncle Sal!)
26 Monday Jun 2023
Tags
creative writing, cults, humor, memory, short story, story, typewriter, writing
I was waiting all week for that magical typewriter. This was back in the 70s, before computers and all that, so to be a professional writer you needed a typewriter. Right? Anyway, I was promised a typewriter that would make my writing effortless and polished (something that ChatGPT is purported to do now, I suppose). So after a week of waiting, I had to break down and ask Clara what had happened. She was the one who had arranged the meeting between me and her super-secretive-all-knowing-guru.
When I met him, we talked about a lot of things: my school plans, his vegetarian diet, my native American ancestry on my mother’s side. At one point, he asked me what I wanted to be. I told him I wanted to be a writer. I was all of 16 and had big dreams of being someone along the lines of Bob Dylan or William Blake. A girl can dream. Anyway, he asked me to recite something I had written. We were sitting at Canter’s Deli, I remember, having a breakfast of bagels and scrambled eggs. (We both scraped off the excessive butter on the bagels.) I thought of something I had written that morning. I can’t remember everything about that poem, but I remember the final line: If I cannot love you, I can at least wish you well.
I don’t remember now why I had written this, if it was in connection with someone or something, but I do remember reeling it off easily enough for him. Other than seeming deep in thought, he didn’t react much to the poem. He just said he would send me a typewriter to help me write. A magical typewriter. He would leave it at the door to my apartment. Look for it, he said.
The following week, I was eager to get that typewriter. And each time I left my apartment or returned and found nothing, I grew increasingly disappointed not to find it, so that was why I asked Clara about it. And you know what she said, the faithful follower she was? Oh, she said, don’t you realize he has given it to you already? It was never a physical thing. Right, I thought. Shame on me for not gathering this all along. He did say, over breakfast, that he had seen me before in a vision, and he knew that I carried what he called an alien seed, due to my ancestry.
And yet during the breakfast and more so afterward, I felt wary. He was an intense man, small and swarthy, with dazzling black eyes that looked fixedly at me most of the time. All in all, he exuded utter seriousness of purpose, even when he showed his white straight teeth in a smile. He wasn’t overtly selling me the cult lifestyle, but I sensed an agenda anyway. So when we parted after that breakfast, I was okay if I never met with him again.
Now knowing the sad endings of many of his followers (one perished in the desert, waiting for his resurrection), I feel lucky that I never received a magical typewriter from him. I’m also glad my poem turned out to be, in some ways, fitting.
25 Saturday Jun 2022
Posted Uncategorized
inTags
ballet, creative writing, dance, dancer, dancers, fiction, flash fiction, memory, short story
she was once a famous dancer. in her brief time on the scene, she had only to rise onto pointe in second position, looking away in a show of disdain, and her steely resolve forbade you from looking at anyone or anything else. (such a moment was captured in a photo by edward weston hanging on the studio’s entryway wall.)
i knew her much later when she was white-haired and dragged a useless leg up a long staircase and across a dance floor to reach a throne of sorts from which she taught young children to dance but where she really dissuaded most from even trying.
in many ways she had become a parody: the cynical broken-down wretch who never got the acclaim she believed she so rightly deserved, and it had made her angry and vindictive, even to young children (like me). she had her favorites of course, the ones with beautiful quick feet, lovely elongated limbs, and a certain ineffable allure, but she ridiculed the rest of us who were lacking in such attributes.
it was customary to accept her verbal blows in silence, but one day an older girl, in her teens, new to the studio, snapped. she stomped up in a real fit of rage, and said, you think you’re special don’t you? well, listen, lady, you’re nothing special at all. that was the first time i saw her go quiet. no booming bitter laugh shook the room. no stinging retaliatory remarks spilled one after the other from her. there was silence. complete silence. but the girl’s words had hit their mark for an expression i’d never seen on her before flit across her face: an expression of deep hurt.
it’s been years since i knew her. years since she passed away. years since her name dropped off the lists of dance greats, but i for one still think of her now and then. i remember how she would sometimes demonstrate for us the way a movement should be done (all the while rooted in her seat against the mirror). she would sweep her delicate arms to the side, buoyed with an emotion that seemed to lift her off the chair, or she would raise her arms to form a rounded frame above her head, reminiscent of the likes of pavlova or nijinsky, artistically pleasing and spiritual at once. in those moments, her gruffness would dissolve, as if by magic, to be replaced by the gentleness of the young dancer within.
at such times, i realized the dance had never left her. it had remained inside as breath itself. and even though i was never one of her favorites, this understanding, this revelation, is something i cherish to this day.
06 Sunday Feb 2022
Tags
2016 election, essay, humor, job hunting, politics, short story
This true story was written soon after the 2016 election. I’ve never posted it here before, but since it’s my 9th anniversary keeping this blog, I thought I’d “celebrate” by posting it now because I’d forgotten about it and seeing it again made me laugh. I hope you find it somewhat funny too.
***
This is not the last thing but it’s the one thing that hit a nerve and told me that the underpinnings of a civil society had shifted. Right after the 2016 election, I applied for a job as a personal assistant to an executive of some sort and a few days later I got a phone call for a phone interview. The first thing the person interviewing me said was, “I see you’ve gone to UC Berkeley. You weren’t one of those radicals marching in the streets, were you?” Now, I wasn’t sure how to answer this question. First of all, I had graduated way after the protests I figured he was referring to. Second of all, I was proud to have attended UC Berkeley, especially since it took a fair amount of effort to be accepted, to graduate, and to pay for (I worked while attending). So, in answer to his question, I simply said, “Well, that took place long before I attended.” This man, who seemed elderly, judging from his gruff voice, then replied, “I just returned from the inauguration. It was wonderful.” Now, for the next few minutes, he took to bragging, and why he was bragging to me I had no idea. He went on and on about the inauguration, as if trying to continue basking in the awe and glory of it. All the while I was trying to think how to end this call politely (silly me). Anyway, I soon got my opportunity when he mentioned that the job also entailed taking care of group travel for hunting expeditions to Africa. Now, I’m thinking, “Is this some kind of joke or maybe a crude test of my political leanings?” Whatever it was, the last thing in the world I would ever wish to do is play a part in such a loathsome activity as that. I ended the call with “I’m really not the right person for this job.” Actually, I should say he ended the call for as soon as I said that, he hung up on me. Anyway, that was my own personal rude awakening, and it marked a turning point for me, because since that time other people, including some family members, have taken to blithely voicing biases and opinions that astound or just plain frighten me. And I keep wondering, what happened to critical thinking? What happened to civil discourse? What happened to us? I am no political pundit. I’m just a fiction writer. So the other question that comes to me time and again is this: Where are they hiding all the pods?
15 Monday Jun 2020
Posted Knowledge, Mythology, Stories from underground, Work, Writing
inThe last librarian sat behind the information desk and wondered aloud, “Now what?” with no idea where to begin. She wasn’t frightened, though, or even very angry. Mostly, she was just tired of waiting.
All her professional decisions in the past had been matters of momentary importance. Where’s this? What’s that? The why and the how of reference questions. It had been a job based on happenstance, with little romance. Yet now that no one came to the desk to ask for her informed opinion, she felt jilted – like someone left standing (or, in her case, sitting) alone at the altar.
For a while she watched a white moth flitting about down the history aisle. In the light sifting through the high windows it danced its hypnotic dance past shelf after shelf, eventually landing somewhere near the end of the aisle. Seeing this as a sign, the last librarian wandered over to the area where she thought the moth had alighted. The moth was nowhere to be found, but taking a guess as to which book it may have last settled on, she chose a thick volume from the top shelf. It happened to be a book about Mesopotamia. She opened it to a page at random: a photograph of a clay tablet with dense cuneiform writing. The caption read: “Sacred tablets like the one seen in this photo were kept in a special room, with each tablet bearing a classification symbol along its edge, much like the catalog numbers librarians now place on book spines.”
She closed the book, closed her eyes, and visualized a wide room within a temple. From every direction light streamed in through high, narrow windows. In the center of the room stood a slim, erect man (or was it a woman?) delicately running an index finger over a stack of tablets, leaving a long smooth trail in the dust which lay upon the surface.
When the last librarian in the world opened her eyes again, she was jolted by surprise to see where she was standing: not in a Mesopotamian temple but in the same dim aisle of the same dim library she had worked in for years. And the looming shelves all around, filled to capacity with books barely touched, let alone read, sent a shiver not unlike terror through her limbs. At one time she had looked upon this space as a kind of temple, awed by the thoughts and ideas these books contained. All that intellectual striving! All that roving curiosity! But now as her eyes fell upon the faded, brittle spines, some of whose titles and call numbers she could barely make out, she had a visceral understanding of something she had long known. These books, however cherished, were simply vessels. And like all vessels throughout time, they were destined to be replaced by something less cumbersome.
As were their keepers.
At this thought, the last librarian couldn’t help but smile. Finally, she knew exactly where to begin. It was now her time to walk away but not without leaving a personal statement. Her statement, however, would be different from her predecessor’s. It would be an homage of sorts, an homage, one might say, in reverse. It would hearken back to the dawn of time, when knowledge was new, when only light and darkness reigned and the forces of creation and destruction battled for supremacy. And when she closed the old building that night – a building so cathedral-like in its majesty – at the end of a long, sinuous aisle, she would be wielding the torch.
27 Wednesday Mar 2019
Posted Dreams, Fiction, flash fiction, Love, Stories from underground, Uncategorized, Writing
inTags
creative writing, dream, fantasy, fiction, freud, freudian, humor, love, queen mob's teahouse, short stories, short story, subconscious
A short story of mine, titled The Machine: A Dream in One Act, is now live on Queen Mob’s Teahouse. (This story has never appeared on my WordPress blog.) If you have a chance, please take a look and let me know what you think.
It’s a little different from my usual stories as it is based on a dream I had one night. So, blame the strangeness of it on my subconscious–and perhaps also on the fact that I once worked at a psychoanalytic institute…
05 Saturday Dec 2015
Posted Fairy tales, microfiction, Writing
inAlong this street, you’ll see whatever you wish to see, like centuries-old adobes with attics containing family skeletons (literally) or betwixt and between the occasional McMansion with basement upon basement delving deeper and deeper into the earth where dragons make their lairs, not the fire-breathing kind for these have lost their ability to belch out flames but lime-green docile creatures with vestigial wings who will more than likely curl up at your feet, or if you continue on this road following the bridge spanning the moat you will behold a castle in the cul-de-sac where a second cousin to Rapunzel now lives who, if you are fortunate enough, will let her long tresses unfurl through the battlement openings, though you may be disappointed to see that her golden curls never quite reach the ground.
02 Tuesday Jul 2013
Posted Aging, Fruits and vegetables, Short story, Stories from underground, Writing
inTags
The first incident: I went to the post office this morning to mail a birthday card to a friend and check my p.o. box. I had my faithful dog Zuli with me – faithful to me, a terrorizing chihuahua to others. When an old man approached as I was about to open my p.o. box, I reflexively tugged at Zuli’s leash to make sure she didn’t try to take a bite out of him. Strangely, though, she made no attempt to leave my side and just gave the man a calm, disinterested glance. The man said, “That’s a cute little guy. Is it a he or a she?”
“She,” I said. The man was clutching an untidy stack of mail in one hand, with one envelope at the top already torn open. Something about him, the easy-going way he spoke, the simple, rumpled clothes he wore, the overall no-nonsense vibe he projected, reminded me of my father, who died over 15 years ago. Anyway, I decided to converse with this man a little longer than I might have conversed with any other stranger at 8 in the morning when all I really wanted to do was get a letter in the mail early and continue on my way to Starbucks for a double espresso.
“You know, I have an interview today,” he said. “In Carson City, Nevada. I just checked my mail, and now I’m driving to the Mojave desert and then on to Carson City.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good luck on your interview.”
“You know why I’m leaving California?” he went on. “Let me show you why.”
He raised his small stack of envelopes so that I could see the one on top, the one already opened. It was nearly in shreds, as if torn open with a certain amount of eagerness, but its red, white and blue emblem announced the sender easy enough. NRA, it declared.
“California is at war with us, you know. We won’t be able to keep our guns much longer. Nevada’s not like that. I’m moving all my guns over there. I’ve lived in California for over 30 years. It’s time for a divorce.”
Zuli was still calm as can be, but I was getting a bit antsy. The post office was empty except for the dog, me, and this gun-toting-minded old man, who in contrast with his kind, rather distant blue eyes, kept on talking and talking and talking about guns.
So even though he still reminded me of my father, I eventually opened my box, grabbed my mail and started walking toward an exit with Zuli ambling alongside. I turned my head back once, and the man was still standing where I’d left him and still carrying on about guns. I felt that I needed to say something in return – he looked so alone and defenseless in the cold, glassy light of the place – so I called out all that I could think to say, “Good luck to you.”
The second incident: In the evening, I went to the local supermarket to buy some salad fixings. I like vegetables, but I’ve never been particularly partial to fruit. But after buying a bag of lettuce, a cucumber, and a red bell pepper, I found myself lingering over some pears, thinking I really ought to eat more fruit. And since there are only a few fruits that I can stomach – pears being one of them – I started to pick through the heap of pears, hoping to find one that looked possible for me to force down. That’s when another old man approached me. Now, I have nothing against old men, and I know I really ought to depict individuals with a little more finesse, but for the sake of giving you a general impression, here was another old man coming my way to tell me something.
This one didn’t look like my father at all. He was very tall, with thick white hair and an air of wisdom about him. As I was gently checking the pears for ripeness, he loomed over me and said, “The best ones are the yellow ones. They are ripe off the tree like that. Here, you won’t be disappointed.” And he grabbed a yellow pear and insisted I take it from his hand. Well, anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a bit of a germaphobe, so I pretended not to notice he meant for me to grab the pear from his big disease-infested hand.
“Well,” I said, “I’m not sure if I need one that’s real ripe. I might not be eating it right away.” His hand with the pear remained hovering for a bit, then he set the pear back down. So as not to be too rude and since he seemed pleasant enough, I ventured to say, “You know, I’ve never been much of a fruit eater, but sometimes I like pears.”
A look of mild surprise registered behind his large black rimmed glasses. “You don’t like fruit?” he said. “How can you not like fruit? It’s one of God’s gifts to us. God made the beautiful flowers. They are all around, everywhere you look, and fruit is from these flowers. God gave us this fruit to enjoy. First, he gave us babies to enjoy. Then he gave us fruit.”
I was thinking: Fruit? Babies? I only came here to buy vegetables! And even though a part of me admired his waxing poetic about the bearing of fruit while standing in the middle of the produce aisle, his comments left me feeling a bit off kilter for all sorts of personal reasons.
So what connects these two incidents? Who knows! But one day I’ll have to take hold of the threads and weave them into a tale just to make sense of it all.
06 Saturday Apr 2013
Posted Dogs, flash fiction, Short story
inTags
In the mall, as the sunlight streams through the skylights and draws crosshatches on the shoppers below, a teenage girl passes through one particularly strong beam that has traveled barely undiminished from its origin. This beam casts her lovely face in such a way that it becomes an aesthetic moment for an old man sitting alone at a table nearby. He was once a graphic designer for a magazine, but has been retired now for over 20 years. What he really wanted to be in his youth was a painter, a painter of light, and so when he sees this girl he remembers his early ambitions and stares at her with a longing that even a casual observer might find unseemly. The girl, vaguely Asian, has large dark eyes that shine like moonstones in the light coming down through the glass panels of the roof. The man thinks, this girl does not know that she may never be as beautiful as she is now at this very moment. He also thinks that other people may be thinking the same thing, for others in the mall, eating lunch or passing by, give the girl a glance—more than a glance in some cases—more like a questioning look of awe.
The girl, however, doesn’t notice any of this. She continues walking through the food court, beyond the sunbeam, into the normal manufactured light. She walks slightly pigeon-toed, like a child, and occasionally bites her bottom lip. She is thinking of an algebra problem she got wrong in class, she is picturing a boy who always sits next to her, she is feeling the heart-wrenching loss of her dog who was run over two days before. She misses the dog more than her own grandmother, who died of lung cancer last December, a realization that made her feel ashamed. This is what she was thinking about when she passed through the shaft of light. Even though she adored her grandmother, she knows it is her dog she will miss forever. His death is more cruel than she can fathom. He was run over by someone who never stopped, never even slowed down, according to her older sister, who had accidentally left their front gate open. The driver just sailed away in his dark blue Mercedes sedan as if nothing had happened. Her sudden understanding about the existence of such callousness in the world is what made the girl’s eyes gleam in the light that had traveled down to reach her. And the old man who caught sight of her at that very moment, who continues to watch her slim figure as she navigates her way through the crowded mall, is himself the cause of this girl’s painful beauty, for he was the one who two days earlier ran over something solid in the road. It was he who decided it wasn’t important enough to stop and take a look.