“Sire? Your Grace? My Lord? Can you hear me? No response. He’s sleeping. No needed of calling. He won’t hear me for another life time or so. He’s busy, that’s the obvious thing. But to sleep for so long! He lets it pass through his fingers so elegantly that he almost with no decision knows what’s right or wrong - time, that is.”

“There is no wrong or right for him, in time for sure. All pondering is excluded. A dull job, I would say. Laziness gets it done more often than a pure want of it.”

“Why don’t YOU do it then?”

“Me?!”

“Yes, you! Or you think your ghoulish brain is not as proud as when never put to a test? Go on, let me see it.”

“Not sure if you will. With Destiny he shares his bed, that bastard of Chance and Dream. I may step only so far by their sleep and already see the unfruitful enterprise that I could embark on, I can still conceive it even now. Oh, the easy laziness in their work makes it unworthy of any ambition.”

“Hush now! You let your tongue lick far too often the floor they walk on.”

“It is I who makes it clean and so may taste the fruit of my labor.”

“Oh! But so do they with their own. Watch, as they kiss blindly in their sleep, another soul comes through those front gates, and walks these halls, led by the hands of muses, fairies, and what this tongue of mine can only call magic. Not let them stray they must.”

“If they stray, they’ll never turn from dust.”

“Hear how Conscience comes with her song, and her wings flapping over the shoulders of those already dead?”

“Here come also the muses, right beside her, whispering to the steps of those passing and passed.”

“What are they singing? Can you hear it?”

“Blooms the rose on a fallen eve,

As Ariel covers its petals with dew.

Go my child, and never do grieve,

Your life is bound to begin anew.”

“Hello? Mother? Is it you? Please don’t hang up. Please. Listen. I won’t speak for long. I’m calling from a telephone booth. I gave my last coins. I’m sorry mother. I’ve spent it all. I’m ashamed to admit on what and where and who... God! Mother... I hear your breath. I can feel it’s warmth on my ear. I hear tears coming down your cheeks. Somewhere, through concrete and over the seas, I sense that your eyes are looking at me, and I feel ashamed. Please, don’t be angry with me. I’m sorry I didn’t call you... I... I am so sorry mother. Please... please, forgive me. I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore. I don’t know who I am, I only feel that once I “was”. Oh God! Mother... The line will cut off now... Goodbye. I’m glad I spoke to you... forgive me.”

“Son...”

The line cuts off.

It came to the attention of a small shoe shine kid that the man, whose shoes he’s been cleaning, was sad. He seemed to have been looking somewhere undetermined, searching, more with his soul than with his eyes, the object of his fixation.

“Why are you sad sir? It is a beautiful day today.”

Said the shoe shine kid, smiling at his customer.

The man looked at him with a smile. Gently the wind rose from the ground and leaves yellow and red flew across the street.

“Thank you kid. Here you go. Keep the change.”

“Thank you very much sir. Have a nice day.”

The man left the boy. Looking at the reflection in his shoes, he saw the imprint of a youthfull smile. He smiled back. A soft, yellow leaf flew down on his shoulder. The man cried.