Laura Lynn Bolan

Wolf had found the evening paper in Old Fox's desk. He took it to his room & slowly read the names aloud, into the silence. Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Victor Manuel Díaz, Heber Sánchez Domínguez, Renee Nicole Good, Parady La, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz. He thought of each soul, earthy & loved as roses, high & holy as falcons, fire stars raken into the breath of night. He imagined each name as a child, their first steps, moving towards smiling faces, outstretched arms of love and care, playing in the street on endless summer afternoons, the sidewalk burning hot, laughing until their bellies hurt, blowing out birthday candles, wishing for the future, the rich unlived life beyond. And then he thought of their murderers, and the dark sky seemed to shatter, falling into cold irretrievable fragments.

The Fifteenth Window. Paris, 15th December 1930. The magnificent performance of Wagner's Lohengrin had just finished at the Palais Garnier and the audience was slowly leaving, looking for taxis and gathering on the steps. It had begun to snow and silk umbrellas were raised like flowers opening in a garden. On the far right, there was a figure quite unlike the others. His top hat was worn and dusty and lopsided, his white tie yellowing and undone, one trouser leg was shredded and his unpolished shoes flapped open. He sat there, rocking, occasionally crying out, a greasy cigarette butt held in a shaking hand. Everyone ignored him. He was known around there, in the cafes and in the opera house, and due to the peculiar poignancy of his tragedy - the sudden loss of a wife and child three years previously - they let him be. Even if a jewelled and feathered patron complained, they let him be. But that night, someone noticed him. An angel, passing by on a minor task outside her usual arrondissement. As she flew over, she felt a twisting vastness of pain, a despair as dark and echoing as Garnier's damp, corpsed cellars. Invisible, she swooped, gossamer wings taut, arms filled with red roses and violets and delphiniums. The man looked up and in the now soaking rain, refracted in the lamp light, he suddenly thought he saw his wife, smiling, auburn hair wreathed in summer blooms, holding their daughter on her lap - all is well, all is well, my love. A few moments later, a waiter dashed through the traffic and bent down, his kindly, worn features shining with good news for this poor figure - your supper's been paid for, and a room for the next two weeks, a rich lady came in just now, she'd noticed you, she lost her brother and told me to tell you, she understands - I'll help you - I have some spare trousers in the kitchen - I'll help you - don't be frightened - come now - you come with me now – you're safe now, you're safe. And the Angel stood and watched and smiled to herself - "tout ira bien", she sang, "tout ira bien."

The Eighth Window: The heavy snow had finally stopped that morning, leaving pale blue skies and drifts as tall as Wolf along the lane. After a breakfast of hot buttery muffins and strong lemon tea, Old Fox made his way to the far corner of the Great Woods across the river. There, ringed with gleaming holly trees, like attendants upon a great Dorset barrow-king, was the cottage's Christmas tree to be. It was a magnificent spruce tree, twelve foot high, whose sacred life had been given freely & reverently to Old Fox for that brief season at the turn of 1930, when the light tried so very hard to level in the world. As was usual, Old Fox stood still and listened intently to the tree's tales, stories of the haze of bluebells and violets in the spring, of the little robins and great tits and black caps who chattered and sang on his branches, of the sweet green cool of the woods in the summer, when all the village courted in its lazy realms, of the copper-dun-gilt beauty of the autumn turn, with its scarlet berries and moon-white mushrooms, and now the snows which lay so heavy on his limbs. "Such a life I have had!" said the tree. "Such a life!" And Old Fox bowed to him, a low bow such as a great king deserves. And at that point we must leave them, for there is magic in the deep woods at Christmastide of which us humans have no right to know.