.

R is standing on the sidewalk, looking through the window
of his shop when I arrive. Enjoying the unusually warm air,
I join him, if only to study the play of light on his
skin which lends his face an air of timelessness, in
stark contrast to the usual twilight in his eyes and
in his storefront space.

"The mirror? Show me.", he asks. I nod my head and follow
him inside. I've looked at it before. Oak, bevelled glass,
circa 1910. He bends down to study it and lifts it up to
reveal the back. "Feel how heavy." He pushes a finger against
the glass and shows me how to look for the gap between his
fingertip and its reflection. "You can tell how thick the
glass, by how big the space. See how big?" What I see is the
halo of light surrounding him. "How much?", I reply.
He claims a figure. I pause, pointing to a small flaw in
the glass and counter his price with a lower one. He smiles.
We shake hands wordlessly. But I can feel his fingers
gripping the left arm of my leather jacket, tugging my
coat sleeve deeper into his storefront space, past all
the clutter, towards a hinged wooden box. He is cranking
it up, claiming that there are at least 30 more discs.
Standing there, surrounded by a dusty assortment of antique
objects, large and small, framed by a 90 year old Edison
recording, we listen.

A scratchy voice serenades the busy weekday streamoflife
spilling through the street outside, sailing into
the cortical library, its squeaky reply to a 2 billion
year old home of light, into unconquerable realms of
spirit and mind, ancestral archives, pearls of glass
and other endless multiplicities housed within.

R looks up from the phonograph just long enough to add,
"No new mantle clocks today". He knows something about
my ongoing quest to catch the tickticktick of Sunday
afternoons. Magical Theatre of the Mind wound tight
into the interlocking cogs of an old, second-hand time
piece that I can't quite locate. This is his way of
telling me that I am not alone. "I knew that", I reply.