Streams

It's eleven I think Eleven If I repeat it more than eleven times it starts sounding like elven Maybe that's what it really is. An elven time. A time for elder elves. A time for that green little elf to wear his human suit and enter the human world.

He steps into the night. Eleven hours and eleven minutes. Eleven footsteps, that's all it takes and he's out of the door. Eleven steps and down the stairs. He's out. Out and into the night.

The night has worn her deep violet veil early tonight. It's late October. It's not that cold but the humidity befriends the shadows and his black leather jacket is not enough to save him from the chills. His high round hat covers his head up to his eyes. Eleven twenty two... The tiles and stones and narrow alleys are slippery and wet. He passes his hand along the wall besides him. It feels rough and cool under his palm. A black cat jumps behind him over a barrel.

He's a shadow now endorsed into the night. He approaches the piano-bar and enters its interior. He's all human now. With human flaws and bad habits. Like alcohol. He sits at the bar and orders a drink. I think it's brandy. The barman brings him his glass and looks curiously at him. He's never seen him before. Eleven thirty three. The elf in human form turns around and looks at the piano. Only the hands of the pianist are shown, a large pillar covers the rest of him or her. The melody reminds him of on old song he could hear from his grandfather's gramophone when he was very little. When all the dreams he could ever dream where right in front of him. An endless availability of opportunities, of things to learn and do. He peers into his glass. The twirling of the liquid. And suddenly all is liquid. A thought crawls right into his mind. "Do we make our life like our dreams, or does she carry us away in her streams?". He gets dizzy. The brandy seems to twist and turn like a hypnotist's illusion board. He falls inside it. Carried away be the stream

Eleven forty four. He seems lost into a realm that's out of this world. A sky filled with the most magnificent colors that you can actually touch, and it sticks to your fingers. Stairs that lead in the depths of the earth while going upwards. Endless spirals that seem to unite earth and sky, locked in a never-ending movement, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. Trees nowhere to be found. Strange creatures hopping now and then, disappearing through smoke and purple lights. Curtains without windows flying with the wind, right on top of his head. And windoors - yes windoors, he seems to know that word, it sounds so familiar somehow - leading to every world possibly imaginable! He picks one. The one right ahead. He opens the windoor and he sees a giant treasure chest. There is a lock, but he has no key. Suddenly he remembers. He sighs and from his breath a corridor is created. He begins to run down the corridor. It so huge, so endless He's totally out of breath when he reaches the dead-end. And right there, on the wall, he sees a beautiful painting of a beach. He lifts his hand to touch it and suddenly the painting changes into a key. He grabs and begins to run again, this time to the opposite direction.

It's eleven fifty five in the real world, when he reaches the treasure chest again. But time does not exist in the realm he is now. He puts the key in the lock. It fits perfectly. The chest opens and a magnificent light comes out of it. He sees it. He sees the beach. And himself! Lying on the beach, enjoying the summer breeze and the howling of the waves.

The bright sun and the tall coconut trees. His heaven, his dream

Twelve Two elves walk into a bar No that's not exactly right. The truth is that two elves walked. The one, who got out of his trance thanks to a nudge from the barman, stood up immediately and after he paid he walked out of the bar, still dizzy and dumbfounded by his previous experience. The other had just worn his black leather jacket and passed his hand along the slippery cold wall and got frightened by a cat.

They both look alike. In fact so much alike you could have sworn it's the same person. They meet at this narrow alley. Both wearing a high round hat and a black leather jacket. A random nudge, all by mistake. It is a very narrow alley. And their glances meet. They are the same Twelve o' one...