Alone. Here is under and outside. Outside, head down, eyes with a long, soft focus. Outside, the shadows are rough, but a map of sunshine still traces the gray.
The floor is a collection of marbles which have rolled themselves in dust. Here, inside, there are outlines, complete with objects to match. A material, like velvet, is not velvet, but it hangs on the window all the same. There are spirals on the dresser, stabbed by three parallel daggers. There is a scattering of pasta on the dresser, with a fork intermingled. Someone's feet vanish, alternately, staying consistent only in sound. Something is too long, too high, always. On special occasions, Mrs. _________ puts out their special settings, which includes the table knives that resemble a flower.
One to two, two to three, three to four, four to five. 'It could've been,'� he said, 'either the figure of a person, or the outline of a double-edged dagger.'� Is, was, has, is'the same absence. Everything repeats itself, gray, blindness, desertion, gray eyelids. Felt slippers must have lived here once, here where there once must have been an armchair, or a desk chair. A bulb, stripped, its filament naked on the wall. This man, the man we follow, has a diamond on his collar. A red diamond. Inside it are black figures, five or six of them. Here, the only windows and doors are reflections of the first.
The light is yellow; it makes the snow look more pristine. The scene is empty of man, woman, or child.
A new scene, in a tavern, in a frame of varnished wood. Expressions are suspended, cut of meaning in the moment, inside the frame.
[The brilliance of wide-open eyes]
'Don't be afraid.'� Again, a little louder, 'Don't be afraid.'� He speaks to a boy, a boy of nine or ten, who stands across him in the street. A succession of street lights, which vanish into darkness. The child responds that he is not afraid, only ignorant. The moment passes; the child flees.
All streets lead to the boulevard, and that's where our soldier needs to go. But he looses himself in the monotony of the town. The child leads him to a late-night café.
12345, written twice. Heavy red curtains, velvet. A voice is close, and it speaks in three or four syllables. There is no one. A woman screams. Darkness in the staircase, in the hallway. Three women, one scream, a smattering of shoe echoes, then a question.
'I'm looking for a street'�A street I have to go to.'�
'What street?'�
'That's just it. I can't remember the name.'�
The latch clicks, faintly this time. Circles of light, intervals of time, space, distance, disappearance.
Pale, yellow, artificial light. The intensity of a dim, gray twilight. Then darkness. The sound of a door closing, repeated, and footsteps, dulled by the snow.
'There is no street like that. You've just been standing in the dark? Why didn't you switch the light on?'� He's invited inside, where he sits, holding his package (a box, wrapped in brown paper, tied in a bowed knot with string). Bread, wine, a photograph of a young soldier. In front of him is a network of closed arcs, drying to a crimson stain.
This snow has no tracks, only pale reflections. Eyes have stared too long, too hard. Porcelain catches the light and shines as a hand turns it, clockwise. The street is Bouvard. No, he doesn't think that's it. The other man, almost a cripple, is sure it is the street.
The street is a street like all the others. A house. A plaque. A house with a plaque over the doorbell.
'What do you want? (Pause) This is the place,'� says a man, almost a corporal, wearing rubber-soled gray suede shoes. All insignia has been ripped from his uniform. Our soldier readjusts his brown-paper wrapped package in the V of his arm.
Excess, Srangeness,
Death
Occupied houses with black windows. In that window, the one in the dark house near the corner, the street lamp reflects itself. A room, wearing a curtain of dust. He dreams of grenades, he dreams of red curtains, which may or may not be velvet. A crack in the plaster that grips the ceiling, somewhere that is not the middle. They sleep in full uniform.
Five windows, two leaves, three panes in each.
Fever.
The pills stick to the muscles deep in his throat.
They won't give him more water; his throat burns worse than his fever. A new coat with a black marble in its pocket.
Somewhere, someone speaks as if titling the moment's scene.
A needle-nosed umbrella stuck in the snow.
A motorcycle, a machinegun, pain in his left side.
Everything is white. It is snowing, always snowing, and in some places, the snow looks yellow.
A tin box containing: letters, a gold watch, a ring initialed 'HM,' and a dagger bayonet.
Outside, it rains.

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