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                       But Who Was Chopin?

 

One

 

If I were to tell you that I have been to the ends of the universe and returned, would you believe me?

 

My name is Ae Cha-Min, daughter of Mei Cha-Min, King of all the Koreas, and I have made such a journey. Oh, such a comment! you say. And the daughter of a king. Hah! That in itself is outrageous, you must be thinking, for there are two Koreas, and neither has a king. And the universe is unfathomably large.

 

But both are true, I swear by my ancestors. You see, I was taught well (though not in the modern notion), and further, I was counseled never, ever to lie. And so, I do not.

 

Please let me tell you of my centuries-long journey. I will start at the beginning.

 

Over three hundred years have passed since my soul first entered this existence we call humanity. Why was mine chosen to be instilled into royalty? I don’t know. Can anyone know the mind of God? But I was born royal, and that led in time to my death. But let me not mention the details of that just yet…

 

I was six when I was betrothed to the heir to the Qin dynasty by my father, a good and honorable man. This was done in order to further cement the uneasy, often-wavering relationship between my kingdom and the lords of the powerful land of the ancient Chinese rulers. Of course I never met the man I was to marry—the boy at the time, three years older than me.

 

Gossip in the halls of the Gyeongbokang Palace whispered that he was a vicious boy, but I don’t know if this was true, or simply one of the tales constructed by maids and concubines who loathed the Qin, that ruling dynasty which demanded our subservience and yearly tribute of rice. True or otherwise, the years slipped uneventfully by, and little was said further on the subject of the marriage to take place in my 15th year.

 

I spent cool spring months in the study of Confucius, in the study of the stars that forecast our fortunes…and in the study of music. Sweltering summers I walked beneath the gracious Tan trees bordering the Hangang River, dismissing study, but never the sacred songs of our heavenly land.

 

In my 13th year I found myself walking along the banks of the Hangang one afternoon, humming the notes of a lovely Hu-asan melody. The weary sun was behind me, seeking rest in the great sea that buffered us somewhat from the Qin. The air was fragrant with the smell of hyacinth and lotus, and it was now merely warm. I felt a small pebble strike my back. Not with force, as though hurled from a Qin sling, but mischievously. A second after it struck me I heard laughter, and I turned.

 

There it was. The ragged cloth covering a leg following its owner into the bushes ten feet behind me. The impertinence!

 

“Come out!” I demanded. “Who are you that you would defile the body of the princess of Qin? I will have your head.”

 

Another burst of giggling from the bush’s interior, and then the evil little beggar stepped back out onto the path. His hair was long, but kept surprisingly well, falling in black rivers onto his strong young shoulders. I thought as I stood gazing on him that his face was well proportioned—for a beggar born in a cave, or a hovel deep in the bowels of the city at least. He smiled, which pointed upward, as smiles must always do, upward to eyes the color of the sky at midnight. He seemed not to fear my threat, possibly because he was ignorant and had no idea who I was. That is what I thought.

 

“Come forward,” I said to him.

 

He obeyed. When he reached me he stopped, and his smile grew larger yet. At least he understood me, even if he did not value his life.

 

“Kneel,” I commanded him. But he did not. Instead he reached forward, grabbed my shoulders, and began twirling me like a top.

 

“Close your eyes,” he said with a laugh. His voice was sonorous, like the notes from the song I’d been humming. Not at all deep, but neither screechy like a child’s stretching in agony in its journey from pubescence to manhood.

 

“Do you see the stars? Can you hear the music I’ve written for you? Do you know that I am to become the next king of our land, and you shall be my Queen?”

 

I planted my feet and stopped.

 

“How dare you!” I was dizzy, although not entirely from the spinning. His eyes were clear and penetrating as he waited for me to continue, and my anger ebbed as I became trapped in them.

“Have you no idea who I am?” I asked.

 

“None. Only that I have never heard such beautiful singing, nor gazed upon such beauty. Tell me, then, who are you? And answer swiftly and honestly lest I decide to have your head!”

 

“I told you, beggar.”

 

“I don’t believe you, beggar’s bride.”

 

His impertinence had no end! I raised my left hand and put my thumb behind the finger encircled by my ring.

 

“Look at this, foolish boy. Do you recognize the stone, the face, the script?”

 

He took hold of my fingers with a calloused hand and drew the ring finger closer to his face.

 

“It would fetch a king’s price in the market. Feed myself and my family for at least a year.”

 

He dropped my hand, but not before he kissed it quickly, softly.

 

“May I have it?”

 

“You are worse than stupid! This ring was given to me by King Mei Cha-Min...my father! Have you not heard of him at least? Begone. Leave me. If ever I see you again I’ll take your head myself, you insolent little pig escaped from your sty! Go!”

 

He bowed low in obeisance, his hands folded at his stomach, and then he rose. The gleam in his eyes was like twin stars hurling themselves down from the heavens. Quite unexpectedly, quite without fear for his endangered life, he stepped forward, grasped my cheeks with his hands, and then kissed me!

And then he left, giggling and bowing, fool that he was.

 

“What is your name?” I called out when he’d reached the bend in the road.

 

He turned.

 

“Yung-Jae. And there is no need to have my head, princess. You have already taken my heart. I intend to marry you. What purpose would there be for you to marry a headless swine?”

 

I could not hold back my own laughter. Never, ever, ever had any boy at the palace addressed me in such a manner. Never had lips touched my cheek, other than those of my dear father and mother.

 

Never could I have imagined believing such an audacious thing.

 

                                          *

 

Three weeks passed until I saw the pitiful, lovely little beggar again. Again after receiving the gentle tap of a pebble on my back. It was not uncommon in those days to hear the tales of gods descending from heaven, taking human or animal form, and seeking the hand of a princess. Such did Hwan-ung, son of Hwan-in, God of all. This thought captured my youthful imagination. Who could say whether Yung-Jae was god or mortal? The son of a god, or that I’d been chosen to accept his hand and free our land of the Qin at his side?

 

He seemed to care little that I was of royal blood. We walked along the peaceful path each afternoon, and I laughed at his witty tales, and the oft-repeated vow that we would marry.

 

A year passed, and then another. How often I made excuses to abandon my studies and courtly duties, then slip out of the palace in order to meet Yung-Jae. How often, more frequent with every meeting, did he kiss me, and I did not resist his lips.

 

But palaces are places of intrigue, and furtive as I was, I did not notice another set of eyes watching my beggar prince and me that year. In two month’s time I was destined by decree to marry Sin Mun-hee, and I am certain the eyes watching us belonged to one of his spies. To whom he reported I do not know, but it was not to my honorable father. Had his ears heard the news I would have been dragged before his throne to explain myself, and Yung-Jae’s neck would certainly have met the sword. This did not happen. What did was perhaps more unfortunate.

 

Yung-Jae and I met that day when the locusts sang and the river was rushing, but sparkling. Hundreds of dark green leaves sprinkled themselves on our pathway. He had composed a song, he told me. A song that would be sung by every living creature until the end of time. By then I loved his voice more deeply than the vow he’d made so long ago. His rags were gold and silver in my eyes. His heart beat in perfect balance with mine, and our souls were one. But Sin Mun-hee was on his way to claim me, and so I began to cry.

 

“What is it, Ae Cha-Min? You don’t want to hear what my heart has written for you?” he asked me with great sadness clouding his face.

 

“You must leave my beloved Yung-Jae. Our time together has run its course. Our dream…we must awaken. Our destinies are written in the blood of our people. I will wed Sin Mun-hee, monster that he might be, and Korea will be spared greater bloodshed because of it. Please leave, now, before it’s too late.”

 

He did not speak. His face grew dark like a winter storm bearing down on Autumn’s fields of brown and red and gold. At that moment my heart fell to the earth, out of my very chest, and I began to weep more. Jung-Jae wheeled in front of me and took hold of my arms. He was trembling.

 

“You…” he began, but unlike me he still inhabited the childhood dream. I’d threatened long ago that I would cut off his head, but that day I did worse, I ripped out his heart.

 

“No, my lord. We must turn and leave, never to meet again. I cannot dishonor my father’s pledge.” I pulled myself free from him and took a step backward. As Yung-Jae stood with my dagger in his heart, I pulled the royal ring from my finger and thrust it at him.

 

“Take this. Let it signify the love I have for you. Let it become a balm when the pain becomes unbearable. Until the stars swallow our land and all the lands beyond, let it sing to you and remind you that we will meet again, but not in this life.” At that I gave him the ring, and then turned and ran back along our path, alone and shattered.

 

I ran. It seemed forever. Over a low rise where he first kissed my lips, around a bend where the river narrowed. I couldn’t see for the tears. I tripped in the very spot where the path came closest to the water on my left, and I tumbled into the water.

 

Screaming children from the lowest caste of society swim like fish in the Hangang all summer long. They learn early on the whereabouts of currents, and the pleasures of its cool waters, but at this spot not even the bravest among them would dare to dive in. Swimming is the pastime of the lowly, never for one of royal blood. My gown was layered. That did not help my plight. Even had I known how to thrash my arms forward and backward like the children did, the weight of my clothing would have pulled me under anyway. And then there was the merciless current that further pulled me downward and then threw me outward, deep beneath the surface of the water.

 

I remember looking up, my arms spread wide, and I recall the folds of my gown turning in and out on themselves. In and out, in and out, over and over. Far above me the surface of the water had a crystalline shimmer to it. I knew I was going to die, and I was somehow unafraid.

 

I thought of Yung-Jae’s song as the darkness of death began to cover me, and I was sad beyond measure that I’d never, ever hear it.

 

                                                        *

 

My journey seemed eternal; planets, stars, and galaxies racing by, until like an arrow shot into the sky loses momentum, turns, and plummets back to the earth. At the apogee—had I been flying upward? Sideways? Backward? I cannot say. But at the outward end I saw nothing but blackness, except for a tiny dot of light. Whether I came to it, or it to me…who knows?  I felt no further sensation of movement. But there I was suddenly, inside some place, or thing.

 

All living things return to Hwan-in when they break the bonds of mortality. Into his heart, for that is where the source of love and life originate. If only for an instant we reside there, at total peace, until the next step in our never ending lives begins. So there is where I hesitated and rested and listened to music I have no power to describe. Perhaps I fell asleep, if sleep is possible in death.

 

And then I was off, a ray of light with no distractions. Off to begin again in another place and time. A blank sheet of paper, but with fibers holding fast to tiny threads of memories of a girl named Ae Cha-Min…and a boy named Yung-Jae.

 

The clouds of rebirth have covered most of that journey in and out of death, but it’s all there, written in the fibers of my soul, if not my consciousness.

 

                                                        *

 

Yung-Jae died twice. The first was when I left him and ran unwittingly to my death. The second was when he was arrested and dragged into the palace court and hastily tried.

 

He swore his innocence, but that was pointless. As my father sat wailing silently, holding back the ocean of tears in feigned dignity, the spy named Yak Dom related a tale not only of murder—committed brutally by Yung-Hae he said—but of a consummated love affair between myself and the beggar prince. It was after I informed my lover that our relationship must end that the murder was committed, my royal ring stolen from a lifeless finger, and my body thrown into the Hangang River. As proof, Yak Dom yanked Jung-Hae’s bound hands upward, exposing the evidence that sealed his fate. He met the sword within the hour, and his soul raced toward the center of heaven encircled by a trillion galaxies.

 

I don’t know where I was at that instant. Perhaps a hundred million light years ahead of him. Perhaps by his side. Time and the fabric of space die in that dimension of passing from one body to another. But we missed one another in our journeys. At least for a time.

 

                                                 

 

TWO

 

 

San Francisco  January 2, 2013

 

It was cold, raining, with fog rolling off the bay in a shroud. I had taken the rail from the Mission station, downtown to begin classes for the new semester at the Korea Cultural Center.

 

My name is Anne Wa. I am twenty-two, and until two weeks ago my life was just one bad note after another.

 

 I walked down Geary Street with my backpack and umbrella, and stopped at the Starbucks three doors away from the Cultural Center entrance, expecting to grab a quick cup of coffee, and then be on my way again.

 

We had no money, Father and I, but because I had shown an interest in music early on in my life, he managed to get me enrolled in music classes at the center when I was six years-old. I think my musical education was more his desire to one day see me standing onstage, rather than my desire to master any instrument. I would much rather have been outside playing, but no. “Listen, daughter,” he would say, “Did you know that Rachmaninov’s fingers could stretch two entire octaves?” Untrue, I learned much later. Only an octave and a half. But this pronouncement by Father pointed to his observation, and the dismal fact, that my fingers were destined to grow. By the time I had matured, they would be “…the length of fine and delicate Jasmine branches,” he said. “Just think of it! Now, once again, practice.”

 

I dreaded the image. I was a small girl, thin, even gangly. I prayed that my fingers simply stopped to let the rest of me catch up. But they did not. Father was right. I was destined to be a musician, if for no other reason than one day my fingers would dangle down to my knees. The problem was, I had no talent.

 

“Just a tall House. Leave room for cream, please,” I told the barista.

 

“I’ll pay for that,” a voice said from behind me as the man on the other side of the counter scribbled on the side of the cup.

 

I turned.

 

He was tall, impeccably dressed in a gray blazer, light pink tee, and—well, I didn’t get the chance at first to see what color trousers he was wearing because my eyes landed and stuck on the beautiful features of his face. Dark Asian eyes smiled down at me. Perfect tawny skin. High, prominent cheekbones. Someone off the cover of GQ.

 

“Thank you, but I can manage,” I said.

 

He was too pretty, probably too aware of it, and I sensed in which direction the conversation—if it ensued—would go should I accept his seemingly innocent offer.

 

I paid for my drink, waited the few seconds as the cashier filled my cup, and then grabbed the coffee and left. Such had been my life, I suppose. Filled with missed opportunities. For all I knew the guy’s purpose back in the coffee shop was simply to buy my drink, offer me a “Good morning,” and then let me be on my way. What, Dear God, is my problem? Why has my perception always been so wigged out? I wondered.

 

I was suspicious of talent—mostly because I felt I was not. I was suspicious of handsomeness. I was suspicious of wealth. I was doubly suspicious of those last two things in one person, and the guy, I suspected, was blessed and dressed in both.

 

Moments later I entered the Center, and the strangest feeling overwhelmed me as I stomped my feet and shook the water from my hair, considering my latest scrape with happiness. It was as though through the shedding of water I had shed my skin. A lightness struck that contradicted the sullen atmosphere outside; that mirrored in a way the drop-dead gorgeousness of the guy in the Starbucks. A warmth in my heart that raised me like a modern day Lazarus.

 

I wanted to play. I wanted the fingers I had always loathed and tucked into fists to extend themselves for the first time in my life, to wed the right hand to the left and let them soar across the black and white keys of the Center’s Steinway in a concerto of such beauty that heaven itself would weep. One that I would write, and one that I knew was inside me, waiting to take wings.

 

Did I stand there dazed for several moments? It seems I did because Ms. Hyu called out to me softly from her seat behind the reception desk.

 

“Are you okay, Anne?”

 

I was. Embarrassed, yes, but a door had opened and I’d drawn up something new from deep inside, determined to enter a higher universe.

 

“Yeah, I’m good, Sammi. Is anyone in the hall this morning?” I asked.

 

Sammi. Hyu Sam-We with her melodic, adolescent voice and short black hair, pulled her reading glasses downward and gazed over the rims momentarily before answering. “No one scheduled until noon, Anne. Are you a little under…”

 

I simply smiled at her and crossed the tiled floor to the far end of the hall without answering, having cut her question short.

 

                      하나님의숨결

 

 

Clearly marked above the double doors, and clearly correct in the beautiful language of my countrymen.

 

                      Breath of God

 

Yoonjung Han, one of Korea’s brightest new stars, performed onstage two years ago. I sat mesmerized by her performance that year, yet defeated. Not this time. I do not know what spirits rule this world, whether they are those of my ancestors or those of an omniscient god, but I was captivated by one thought as I stared up at the placard above the doors: There is a river encircling my planet, set to flow by some beneficent mind, and in it is the genius of South Korean Han, Russian Rachmaninoff, and Pole Chopin. I was free to step in, but with the warning that the waters can run swift and deep when I searched their eyes and fingers for my notes. And so would the union be formed.

 

The auditorium was vast, at least for a city performance center. I stood inside the entry for a moment surveying the curl of seats stepping down terrace by terrace. Beyond the orchestra pit stood the stage, empty now except for the Steinway in the center. Bright spotlights shown down on it. I made my way hastily down the main aisle steps, across the orchestra pit to the stairs at the right, and then up onto the stage.

 

I sat down and surveyed the lacquer-finished keys, then dove into the water. Rach’s 2nd Piano Concerto—as though I was technically advanced enough to do it any kind of justice. I went quickly to the adagio, the least difficult, and began. 

. My fingers were one with the keyboard, and I closed my eyes, concentrating on technique. I was many measures in, lost in my own and the masterpiece’s internal passions. Again, as at Starbucks, a voice interrupted my thoughts. I missed a C sharp, and my foot slipped off the sustain peddle. I stopped abruptly.

 

“What in GOD’S NAME are you playing?” he asked. An elegant man. A gentleman by appearance, dressed in a Lord and Taylor suit. By appearance, not manner I must add. He stood ten feet behind me with a look of arrogance and dismissal written on his face, waiting, I assumed, for my answer.

 

“It’s Rachmaninov’s…” I began.

 

“I know what it is, or what it is supposed to be. You’ve butchered it. How long have you been playing, or trying to?” he asked. He didn’t wait for my reply. “You shouldn’t even attempt a piece of this magnitude. Get up.”

 

My euphoric feeling vanished just like that. Stunned and cowed by the vitriolic words he’d spit at me, I obeyed. My fingers began to shake as I rose meekly, and my heart sank back to my feet where it should always have been.

 

He sat down, looked up at me scornfully for a brief second, and then brought his fingers to the keys.

 

“Sostenuto. Do you know what that means?”

 

“Yes,” I answered. “Sustained.”

 

“No, you don’t know. Slowly! With passion—but slowly.  You do sustain. You hold those notes, but not while playing at breakneck speed! You play as though you’ve never seen the score. Watch and listen. You might learn something.” He motioned haughtily for me to get up.

 

No introduction. Nothing at all kind. Whoever this man was, he continued to belittle me as though he had written the piece himself. I had to admit, though, his technique; his interpretation was remarkable, if not overflowing with arrogance.

 

“There! At the third bar. Did you hear the note? How it MUST linger. You raced right by it.” He stopped and looked up at me from his seat. “Slowly…sustain the notes so that they melt into the chords. Sit down. Try it again,” he demanded.

 

I took a step back toward the piano, but then stopped.

 

“I don’t want to. If you don’t mind, I’d like…”

 

“Then you are not a musician.”

 

At that, he rose quickly, making some further dismissive comment under breath. He turned on his heel, and then walked away.

 

“I know this movement,” I shouted after him when the shock ebbed. “I was NOT playing it too fast! I know what Sost…”

 

Without looking back he raised his hand into the air, and cut me off. “You know nothing.”

 

And then he disappeared into the wing. I stood statue-like. Dead in spirit when only moments ago I had been soaring through a lovely river in the clouds. But I swore I would not give up.

 

                                                        *

 

I attended my music theory class, unaware of what the teacher had been lecturing about. Unaware of the twenty or so students sitting quietly beside me scribbling notes. I left when the clattering motion of their rising awakened me, still wondering who the man was who had burst my bubble earlier that morning. Sammi gave me a blank look when I described him and asked who he was.

 

“Ooh, I think he was saying something other than what you heard,” she laughed.

 

“That would make two comments by men in one day that I didn’t get, then,” I returned. “Wonder who he was?”

 

“Maybe a ghost. The spirit of one of your ancestors!” Sammi said with a smile.

 

“Oh sure. Sammi, do me a favor. Would you check the faculty listings for a new teacher, please?”

 

She shrugged, spun her chair around to the desk behind her, and then opened up the faculty list on the computer.

 

“Boy, he sure has you all…oh wait. Here we go. ‘Piano Composition’—Julian Ming. New this semester. Hmm…Juilliard, concert appearances with nearly every major symphony the world over. New York Philharmonic, London Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony…this is a who’s-who of the best orchestras in the world. He conducts, too.”

 

“I wonder why he’d sign on to someplace like this?” I wondered out loud.

 

Sammi continued to read silently, but finally answered. “Maybe getting back to his Asian roots? Maybe he heard about young Anne Wa!”

 

“Maybe,” I said. “Where does he live?”

 

“Oh come on, Anne, you know I can’t give that information out.”

 

“Yes you can—if no one knows you did it.” I winked at Sammi, and I could see her resistance begin to melt. She no doubt was thinking about the trouble she could face if the department head even suspected.

 

“I have to go to the Ladies Room. Please stick around until I get back…I’ll only be a minute. Answer the phone if it rings, and don’t look at anything you shouldn’t. Promise?” She stood up and bit her lower lip mischievously, looking me in the eye.

 

“Promise.”

 

“Okay. Be right back.”

 

She left. I quickly walked around the counter and grabbed a pad and pencil, and then sat down in front of the computer screen. Within five seconds I had his name, address, and even his cell phone number. Aside from the fact that he’d played with every major orchestra across the world, there was no other pertinent information. Was he the founder of the Rip Young Pianists Society? No information, but judging from his acid tongue, a good possibility. Had he played with the San Francisco Symphony? Probably not, otherwise I would have heard of him. The faculty information screen didn’t specify just what else he would be doing here, other than Piano Composition. Piano Composition what? I intended to find out.

 

“Any calls while I was away, Anne?”

 

Sammi bounced back. She’d been gone two whole minutes, tops. I didn’t ask her any details.

 

“None, Sammi. Quiet as can be—and I didn’t peek at the screen or look for M&Ms in your desk drawer.” I tore the piece of paper from the pad and jammed it into my purse, and then got up. As I walked around the desk to the hall, I thanked her.

 

“I owe you one,” I said.

 

“You do? What in heaven’s name for?”

 

“Thanks, kiddo.” And out the door with me.

 

I decided this; formulated a plan:

 

143 Jersey Street. That’s where he lived, or was staying while in San Francisco. It wasn’t that far away—over to Market, catch the bus, transfer and then go south on Delores to Jersey. Actually, it was on my route home anyway. But I wouldn’t be getting in until late tonight.

 

I was going to stalk Julian Ming.

 

Catty-corner to his residence stood a small restaurant. I’d even been there once, but I couldn’t recall its name. Italian, I think. But from there I could grab a roll, a slice of pizza…or egg roll—whatever they served—and coffee, a chair near the corner window, and wait until he came home. Just what I intended to do after that I hadn’t a clear idea yet, but I’d think of something. Maybe after he arrived I’d march up the steps, knock on his door, and when he answered hold up my hands with The Rachmaninov Fingers.

 

“See? These can reach from one end of the keyboard to the other…and they can easily wrap around your pathetic neck! How dare you…” Or probably I would just ask him to explain just why he thought I…what was it he said?

 

“You know nothing!”

 

“Do you know what Sostenuto means?”

 

“You are not a musician.”

 

I DO know many things, sir!

 

I know Sostenuto very well, thank you!

 

I AM a musician, if not by choice, then by fate, you arrogant twit!

 

If fate had its way, Mr. Ming was probably going to be my instructor this term, and not simply a major talent on sabbatical at an out-of-the-way music center. That was likely. If I insulted him, he would certainly fail me, or in the very least refuse to show me the finer techniques of playing—as he attempted.

 

Sigh. I decided to knock on his door, introduce myself, and then apologize for being such a lousy pianist. After that I would beg him to instruct me.

 

                                                                                   *

 

“We close in five minutes, miss.”

 

My eyes were tired. My brain was tired. I’d nursed a single slice of pizza for hours. Drunk a single cup of coffee sip by sip until the last of it was cold. Scribbled notes haphazardly in my Composition notebook. I’d kept one eye glued to the house across the intersection, watched twenty or thirty cars drive up and down the street. A couple walking their dog. A crow landing in the middle of the street to inspect a piece of food tossed away. The dusk turn to darkness, and the streetlights come to life.

 

More cars. And more, but none that pulled into Mr. Ming’s drive. I’d conceived another useless notion, it hit me. Had he come home he probably wouldn’t have even answered his door, had I gathered up the courage to ring the bell.

 

“Waiting for someone?” the manager asked in a knowing, sympathetic tone.

 

I woke from my trance of thoughts at the sound of his soft voice. “Umm…yes. He didn’t show. He…I…thank you for letting me wait.”

 

The manager, a young guy with a pleasant face, answered as he walked to the door, keys in his hand.  “I’m sorry, miss. I would have shown up. I would have. But…well, goodnight then.”

 

I walked the few miles home in a state of fog that mimicked the cold blanket of salt air whirling down the hills and empty streets. Father was probably worried. I hadn’t called him. It would be like him to be waiting for me, book in hand, sitting quietly in his armchair, a single lamp glowing on the table beside it. The house at last emerged in the wet air like a pale-orange apparition, the only illumination—the porch bulb glowing more brightly with every step I took. The windows were dark, though, and I’d supposed he’d gone to bed, after all it was 10:15.

 

 

 

To Be Continued…

Imprint

Text: (c) Patrick Sean Lee, 2013
Editing: Patrick Sean Lee, Sereni
Publication Date: 05-11-2013

All Rights Reserved