There’s a legend in our village, I don’t know how old it is. Sure it was an old story when I was a boy. There was this great city that stood on this very spot. No one knows any longer the name of that city, it was so long ago, but we know that it was called “The First of the Great Cities of the South.” That’s a very strange thing because, as we recon it, this village is in the northern part of the country. The people who live in cities, they don’t like the idea of snow. They don’t like the thought that snow exists. Me, well, I don’t know that it does exist, but every third or fourth year or so, we see frost on the ground. We lose all our best flowers then, and that big pond on the north side of the village takes a sheen to it like icing. On days like that I like to stand in the morning beside the water and look at the patterns in the frost. It may only be me, but I think that there is still some magic left in this part of the world, because when I look out across the frosted water I almost see a picture of the city like it once was here, as though something still wants to remember what it was. If you walk around the edges of the village, you can still see the ruins sticking up here and there. Some folks say that there’s doors in the old foundations that lead to rooms filled with treasure, but I don’t put much stock in that. If there’s an old hole in the earth, it will fill up eventually, and it’s been so long since there was a city here. But the legend says that there was a prophet come to this city. A young man, and full of yelling, walking up and down the streets and making an incredible nuisance of himself. Some folks say that’s when the city started to shrinking: folks got so annoyed with him they couldn’t stand it anymore and then they left, but I don’t put much to that either. Strangest thing was, though, that what he had to say didn’t make a lick of sense. Least not to me anyhow. Said he could see the day when the white gate would grow its house again. Now I don’t know about any white gate, or how it’s supposed to grow its own house about it, but there must’ve been something to what he said for his words to get passed on from that day to this. And that’s the legend. I don’t really know what that has to do with you and the things you’re about, but from the moment when you started telling me your story about these gold and silver bricks, that’s the thing that’s been rubbing on in the back of my mind. I don’t know but what they might be connected somehow. What’s that part in the writing you were telling me about a busted foundation? Seems to me that if you were going to grow you a house, the first thing you would need is a good foundation. Call the cornerstone a seed, or somesuch. I don’t know. But. I’ve got to get me going. I’ve wasted enough of our time already. I told Millie I’d be back in fifteen minutes, and here I’ve been sitting here for more than forty-five, what with you talking to me and me talking back at you. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, or perhaps I should say I hope you find out what it is that you’re looking for. Good luck to you!
neumatikos 