So, I had a conversation with this 6-year-old girl on the NY subway. She asked me what was drawn on my bag, and what was in it, and who I was. And I told her that I am a student, and study biology, but I also want to write books for little kids; and how important it is to have a wish and work hard to try to make it come true, and had a laugh about it. Then she asked me if I would be happy if my wish came true, and I said, "Yes." And she asked if my parents would be happy for me if my wish came true, and I said, "I hope so." She thought for a moment, and replied, "A wish coming true is not that cool if there's noone to be happy for you." At that I lost my capacity of speech.

And I love you. I love you more than the sun and the moon. I love you more than cream and blueberries and gingerbread on a Sunday breakfast. I love you more than presents on the Christmas morning. More than a quiet sunset behind the roofs of Brezi. I love you more than the sea, and more than music. I love you more than life itself, and if I could fly up to the sky and float around, twirling and diving and backflipping and seeing all the birds above and all the cities below me, that would not match the excitement of seeing you. Because I love you.

And when I’m angry, I love you. And when I’m jealous, I love you. And when I’m far away doing tons and tons of other things, I still love you. And even when bitterness talks in me and I say I never want to see you again and I don’t like you, I still love you. And when a person loves somebody, they cannot be completely bitter. The bitterness retreats before it. And then I try to love you more. And when I think it must be impossible to love more, I realize that

you probably love me twice as much.

That makes me feel like a slacker. But a very warm, and cozy, and content slacker :) Because, I mean, being loved TWICE as much as blueberries and cream for breakfast? That’s something.

The garden grows slowly. The rains follow the fogs and the sunsets in the place where time has stopped.

Tall grow the trees – they hold up the sky. For as long as I’ve lived, they have been my height – one foot, two feet… Now they loom over me like titans, cover the doors, climb up the walls.

These walls speak volumes. The biographies of toys and pictures, chairs and blankets intertwine, and even the dust in the curtains seems to know things about me none of the now living do.

And that knowledge is about to expire, too. Disappear with a poof. Be scattered to the four winds with the dust from the old curtains.

The house doesn’t feel like home anymore. It used to be a shrine of the summer for as long as I can remember; a living person, a quiet friend. Its sounds and smells have imprinted in my memory so hard I sometimes sense them in my sleep, miles away.

There are traditions. Like putting the tent roof onto the swing-bench. Or watching the sun set behind the red roofs from the top of the wine cellar. Asking advice of the three ancient chestnuts beyond the wall. Walking out into the corn fields, feeding the cows and collecting wild fruit in the acacia forest. Leaving a present in front of an old saint’s statue at midnight. Counting the tolls of the old church bell, and the hoots of the owls. Holding the knob of the one mysterious door on the third floor and never opening it. I used to believe that behind it was a huge golden staircase leading to the city in the sky – a city where people are happy. I’m still afraid to find myself mistaken. So the door remains closed.

I’ve spent months and months alone in this house, yet I never felt lonely. It’s because it’s inhabited. In the little outbuildings live the peasants. The Mayor of town lives in the winery. The wine cellar used to be a prison. In the tiny house with a tin roof and a slanted door lived the blacksmith, Horseshoe Elder. That’s because the door was decorated with a rusty horseshoe. He had two sons – Soot, the older one, a good, diligent worker; and Horseshoe Jr., a hooligan, a scallywag, an adventurer. He was my age, always my age, we grew up together. We stole corn from the fields, and sold rotting apples to our neighbor, and fought the evil Mayor. We fought for the common people. Horseshoe, he had a crush on me. The problem was – I was the princess. I lived in The House, our castle, and my parents were King and Queen, the rulers of the country of Alhida, who, somehow, were never there. But that’s beside the point. They wouldn’t have approved of the relationship anyways. So we met secretly, and not a single soul knew about him.

Now I find myself to be the Governor of this country. Am I a better one? Am I taking care of it well?

Horseshoe Jr. is still here. So are the peasants. But it’s beside the point too.

We’re selling it. I’m selling it. To pay off my college loans. There is no other way. My father’s second wife died in February. Their kids are here with their grandma and me. They’re sick, so I helped to take care of them. My parents both came here too. For the first time in 18 years, they are together. For the first time since I was small, this house is filled with children’s voices. Somehow, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Slow grows the garden. The rains fall soft on the faint rose petals. The church bell does not tell the time – it may be 20 years ago, or 20 years in the future. I hear my grandmas’ voices here – they fly into the house as butterflies and flutter about in the noise of the kitchen, as per usual. The apple trees outside the window sway dreamily.

One sunrise I will turn a key quietly and walk away as a shadow. The clocks in the house will stay still. And my past will stay with them.

I have once heard a legend about a little sad person who collects all of the sad tears in the world and turns them into stars. When the cause of the tears disappears, the star falls, so that someone at the other side of the world can make a wish.

In the dark room in front of a glowing monitor sat a sad little person - dark eyed and dark haired, quiet and completely still, a sack full of diamond-hard tears dangling from his side.

“You’re alright?”

“Yeah.”

“May I come in?”

“Sure.”

The light snapped on. He must have hidden the sack in the instant.

“I’ll just read here on Douglas’ bed, do you mind?”

“Suit yourself, kiddo.”

The lamp crackled comfortingly in the warmth of the room.

“Do you want to watch a movie?”

I was two pages through. I considered for a moment. “Fine, go ahead, play some.”

We drew up two chairs and I wrapped myself in his blanket.

Until it's time for you to go...

A sliver of white light on bare skin; glittering with diamonds of sweat. The morning has broken.

Tired limbs, muscle ache - a faint nostalgia of the evening: cold stars piercing the crispy black cloth of the universe, sharp as pins.

Pins - pains - pines. Tall, green, unreachable pines, swaying up-above-beyond the clouds on a chilly, foggy morning...

The morning has broken. Arms flexing, feet brushing, ears straining. The flannel of a blanket against the bare warmth of the body. An open wound. A wound-up toy. A ball on a string.

The tongue of light slid through the tight shutters. A mountain rose, waterfalls of trees and grasses and flowers sliding down his shoulders in folds. He left without looking back.

He found and neglected his pale wildwood flower.

What do I have in common with a person who collects kitten cadavers in formaldehyde?” – rang angrily in my head, my indignation straining to conceal the self-conscious realization that I truly WASN’T nearly as magical, or compellingly unordinary, or out of place, as the girl kneeling in front of me. “One who treats her guests with cricket bars, and walks barefoot around town, and makes friends with pot-smoking clowns? For what ungodly reason do I want to maintain any connection to her? And why do I find myself under her bed every night, listening, mesmerized, to her odd stories?”

I remember walking into her room for the first time. Unintentionally – she caught me in the hallway by surprise. I followed two other visitors under a canopy of dry branches. What did I feel, looking at her specimens? Pity? Concern? Amusement? Unsuspecting curiosity? Some indiscernible, incipient sympathy? I wonder. She was the Peter Pan of her Neverland, touring us through her meticulously created universe – a dollhouse, a glass ball model of the outside world. Down the hall was Kasey, the safety of the familiar room. I lingered behind, my attention snatching at every new object. She gave us fresh guavas and persimmons from a string-bag tied to her bedpost – a present from “a senior who’s soft on her.” I didn’t want to leave her side – she was surreal, an air of careless childhood fantasy about her. Yet she ended her tour and retrieved into her room, leaving me to drown in visions for the rest of the night.

Falling into a sea of dandelions.

If you ever fall off a cliff – that common nightmare – it is always better to fall into a bed of scintillating white dandelions, sending millions of parachutes up into the sky. She drew it for me on a scrap of paper. Little fairy. Creating universes upon request.