There is Heidi

There are some skinny children running across the play grounds. The weeds growing through the concrete are green like the wheat fields beyond. As the children run across the grounds, the green wheats turn golden. It is the turn of a year and the beginning of another.

When the children are gone, there is a sound like wind. There is the smell of sweet roast meat. The smell is pink. Then, there is the smell of smoke from a smothered fire.

There is a man calling out to a Heidi.

There is a pair of phantom eyes. The eyes the sunlight shines through and dissolves. In the hall, there is the throne. It is a throne of gold. A heavy man sits. He has a beard. The rest of his face is in his open palms. He is troubled. He calls for Heidi. Heidi. He bellows. The name echoes through the hall. There is little of anything else.

Where is this place? Who is this man?

When she finally appears, the scene is bright. Water reflects lights. She has phantom eyes too. Eyes that see but cannot be seen. Ghost eyes. Believe. From nowhere, a cherub, with naughtiness or sin in his demeanor, giggles and hurries away.

He tells his wife or priest that he cannot forget a pair of eyes he saw in his dream. It must mean something. It did not belong to an animal. He troubled over it. He mulled over it. It is not like anything he knows. He must try to recall the eyes again. Otherwise they will fade away like all visions of dreams. This torments him, for when he recalls the eyes, they haunt him. He is unrested. He does not want to forget them. It takes a toil on him.

Heidi is quiet. He dares not to hit her. He merely cringes or frowns. Heidi whispers to him. It cannot be heard. What does she know? He will go to the temple. The gods may listen.

In the temple, there were only concrete and emeralds. He presents the vision to a goddess in the wall. Her eyes are made of dissimilar windows, and the irises are the windows outlined by curtains. It was certain. That these are far from the eyes in his dreams.

Had he just experienced an apparition from another god? He doesn't know. The gods must forgive him. He did not wish for the dream to come to him. Or at least so he must insist.

He kneels pathetically. And wails. He wanted to be polite at first. But uncontrollably he weeps and wails. Like he just lost his son. Like how he will weep and wail uncontrollably when he eventually loses his son to the war with the rivers. In the temple, there are resounding echoes of his cries.

Where is Heidi? She did not come with him. Yes. The temple is dark again. He is alone with his past. And his future. He forbade her from coming. She is pleased to be alone. But he misses her.

He lies defeated on the floor on all fours at first. When he is out of breath, he curls up to lie on his side like a child who lost a fight.

You, the observer, must remember, that the piano had not yet been derived. Accompaniment is better, but there is only silence and the noise from his movements. There is the ticking of a clock but that is all. All that is in front of you is a big bearded man, defeated in a hall of a temple of his gods, by the resounding echoes of his own cries for the impending death of his son he had not yet come to bear.

Just when he regained enough, he was immediately flooded by fear of humiliation should someone else been in the temple to hear his cries and vulnerability. After which, he was immediately embarrassed by his guilt for fearing for his reputation at such a sorrowful moment. He looked up into the eyes of his god. For mercy and relief. He cannot imagine how. He is tired now.

He pleads with the goddess and looked up into the windows with desperation. The curtains fly and flutter. It does not matter what is the colour now. The man sees through the dark abyss-like irises of the eyes. Through the gaps of the fluttering curtains he sees eternal grey horizontal bars of asylum cells. Upon closer look, the bars are made of lines of words. They are silver against a sea of darkness. He feels fear. He searches beyond the rows of letters behind of which he saw you looking down at him with pity and estrangement and whatever it is that you feel. You see his phantom eyes now as they are brimmed with fear. They are meeting yours directly. He cannot break away from your gaze.

And the curtains flutter back shut. And you close your eyes to imagine or recall the phantom eyes of the man in the temple. And you open your eyes. And there is nothing left of what you saw except in your mind you wonder who is Heidi.

(sneak)