Feels like something’s lost.
A devoid of inspiration in this room.
He even chokes on the cigarette held between his fingers,
Its smoke blocks his sight as they click on the keyboard.
He pushes himself back on the swivel chair and stands up.

Face to its facial disc, he jumps back when an owl appears behind the window.
Several of his long hair falls, shining amber in the night light.
It stares at him with a steady intention, so he stares back.
A whit-out somehow held by its bill, but this does not convince him.
The writer pulls the curtain with such fierceness that it blows his sketch of a naked figure to the floor.

But he does not notice, apparently, for he starts to pace the room.
Back and forth, back and forth, each time adjusting an item by its nature.
Left a bit, right by forty-five degrees. Turn the rattan charger over on the desk.
One large Ravensburger is covered with the paper chain again.
He flips his calendar of dice back one year and a half and counts the red among the black.

The trace of wall cracks behind seems to devour the time,
Running wild along all the maps, under the lands, and across the sea.
Parallel to a train route in the mountain range, it stops at a long, narrow sea inlet with three sides of cliffs.
The writer fixes his eyes on the point for a very, very long time, as if waiting for someone to throw a boulder and make a splash,
Or expecting some goats to appear on the slopes and jump between golden groves.

Nothing happens, so he turns to an ancient map with a turbulent ocean and a land of dark past.
Countless castles stand along the coast and ceaseless surging waves, white against black.
Two lovers walked past the altar and the door with shackles and chains, and would never come back.
Eventually, the time has come, thinks the writer.
Right hand held out, the writer stamps the butt on the crema paper, one after another.

Ocean on fire, free of despair, the writer sits down and time passes.
The ending of his paradise slowly fills the void, and so do the flames.

—————————————

The building was an inferno by the time the fire service arrived.
When the last person was rescued, nobody understood him.
He said he saw flowers in the sand, carried away by ocean waves.

River on Baltic Sea Website

• 藍芽之復尋
• 樹檸檬
• Robson
• Only and Nothing
• Bora and Shui