and i must pour forth a river of words
or i shall suffocate.
or i shall suffocate.
T
here is a certain peace in the way he works. Maret is drawn into it, by the tight knot of his brow when he leans down over his work, to the way the lamplight casts a reflection of the clock onto his cheek like the window to another world. His is the kind of focus that is all-consuming, the kind that’s so deep you lose yourself in it — and Maret wonders where he goes when he does. It seems too personal a thing to ask a stranger, but the little shop seems far more familiar, and more intimate, than a patchwork building on the corner had any right to be. It’s easy to feel at home.
Maret drinks it in now in senses and images — all rich colors half-hidden in shadow, wood shavings on the floor, fretwork and filigree, light filtering down from the broken roof to lay gently against tired sculptures and ornate furnishings. There’s a soft glow about the odds and ends that makes her wonder how many hands they’ve passed through, how many different lives they’ve watched from the corner of a mantelpiece, how many roles they’ve played besides just clock or statue or dictionary.
Even the broken water clock he works on — set into pieces on the table, pieces he carefully pressed back together one by one with bits of mortar filling the cracks — seems less like an ornament and more like a living creature placed under a spell. Like at any moment it might hop up and declare its work done here, and tumble off down the street on its way to some other appointment.
Maret listens quietly, letting her eyes follow the direction of his words as he describes the different pieces of it. And it strikes her then the softness of his voice, the way it falls around the object as if in quiet reverence.
She’s about to comment on the water clock — a statement that surely would seem underwhelming, because how could she possibly capture the essence of an ordinary yet extraordinary thing in small talk? — when he slips back into the shopkeep-role and asks her what he can help her find. And it serves as a reminder, that she is a patron (a guest) and he has, undoubtedly, more important things to tend to. She smiles politely, and takes a small step back.
“I’m not sure I was looking for anything in particular,” she says, as means of an apology. “I was only — looking.”
But what she does not say and leaves her eyes to say for her, as she lingers by the corner of a table and watches her breath blow a layer of dust from the spine of a book, is what would you suggest I find?
{ @Dune "speaks" notes: a terrible, terribly late reply }
