:: glean ::

:: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 ::

The Construction

He wasn't really sure why he started to build it, and afterwards, all he could say was that in his mind, it had been something very small, something that could fit in a matchbox. He had never expected that once he started to build, it would grow until he had to wheel it out of the workshed and continue working on it in the backyard under a plastic canopy, to keep the rain off.
His wife refused to comment about it, but it she showed her displeasure when he uprooted the roses to make more room for it.

:: Fretting 8:50 AM [+] ::
...

The Lake

Two small school boys were the first to notice the change to the lake, as they ambled to school. Other people had been in the area before them that morning - a street sweeper, for instance, doing the rounds of the suburb before light had passed withing metres of the lake, but hadn't registered the change. A homeless man had even spent the night on the lake's bank. He had lain there, unable to sleep, reflecting on why and how his life had ended up the way it had, he who had been dux of his class at age 13. In the shopping jeep he pushed around he still had the book that had been given to him as a prize in 1982, inscribed by the school headmaster: "To Phil, who shows much promise."

:: Fretting 8:09 AM [+] ::
...