#oddsights

Where once was an old log bridge (three thick tree trunks stacked alongside each other, desultory in their placement (the middle log does not even reach across the bog and, instead, has sunken into the chartreuse-dark depths one foot from the other side)), remains an old log bridge—now with two figures standing atop it. Few living things could cross it. Fewer would. The pair’s footing staggers on the two round logs until they stagger their stances—silently and in unison; Robert stands with his right leg on the front log and left leg on the back log, Rosalind stands contrary to this. Such a layout establishes a level of stability. They clear their throats and return to a formal baseline: both tug at their lapels, flatten the gathered creases in their suit jackets, and clasp their hands in front of their torsos. Where did the Luteces come from? A good question. Not the most important one. A better one: how did they arrive here? The best: why did they come?

          “How holistic is the whole? If you leave,”  “have you really left?”  “Or are you an indivisible part of these lands?”

The other’s blank stare is... telling. There is a distinct slowness. Prolonged likely by the being’s dilated sense of time (a tangential theory: the photosynthetic process which they have been converted to has greatly decelerated any urgency; the sun is an inexhaustible resource that need not—perhaps only because it cannot—be hoarded; might this provide a feeling of relief for a being that was once a predator?). A demonstration is in order. Notice: a coin. Unlike any it has ever seen. Or will ever see (present indicative excluded). The reeded edge is pinched between the pads of Robert’s thumb and middle finger; he artfully displays the heads side. Robert snaps his fingers and the coin becomes two: a heads and a tails.

����