Category: Brigid and Felreil France
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0207: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
The Epilogue: A Return to Thyme Brigid and Felreil left Room 215 as they had entered it, by the hidden closet, with the good sense not to ask whether one century had finished or merely misplaced them in someone else’s plan. The bellhop-automaton raised a final card, though neither of them paused to read it;…
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3006: Brigid’s Diary – Two Sixes
Part 15 & 16: 1842, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France (Brigid’s Diary, Winter: 1842: one year on) Where is Felreil?That’s what I want to know. Where is he in his black frock coat, moving as if Boreas lived in its pockets, striding streets and alleys in long English-blackened boots, as though Provence’s glossy night had always been part…
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3006: The Liturgy
Liturgy for His Return, Cagnes-sur-Mer (Summer 1842 — Where the road remembers him) I. The Hill That Has Grown SteeperI found the hill steeper than I remembered,or else I had brought backless of myself than I meant to. This is what a year does.This is what the navy does.This is what it meansto be carried…
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2906: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Year of His Absence(Cagnes-sur-Mer, Winter 1842 — Waiting Becomes a Way of Life) I. The Question That Never Leaves Where is Felreil? Not a question of geography.Not a question of distance.A question of existence:whether the world still holds him,whether the shadows have released him,whether he is still stridingin his English-blackened bootsthrough streets…
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2306: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
Part 14, Brigid’s Diary: Winter, 1836 – 1841, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France Where Waiting Is Believing The arbours are vine-brittle skeletons touched with ice; terracotta pots lay shattered by winter’s slow fist, and even the small grey angels above the door have surrendered to grimaces. For these five years, we’ve lived in a stone cottage adjoining the…
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2206: The Liturgy
Liturgy for a Long Absence — Cagnes-sur-Mer, 1836 – 1841 Where Waiting Is Believing I. The Winter That SettledWinter settled into the stone cottagelike a tenant who refuses to leave.The vines are bare,brittle,skeletal.Their fingers scratching at the skyand demanding warmththe season refuses to give. Even the small angelic statuesin the garden grimace at the cold,their…
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1606: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
Part 13, Brigid’s Diary: The Abbey of Saint-Roman Beaucaire, July 1836, Camouflage The Beaucaire Fair moved like the Rhône in flood, bodies and bargains braiding into one slow current, and Felreil folding his foreignness into the merchants’ black coats and polished leather while quick fingers rehearsed their small rebellions at the height of a purse.…
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1506: The Liturgy
Part 13: Liturgy for the Beaucaire Fair(for those who buy and those who are bought) I. The Commerce of CrowdsThe fairground swallows them whole.Brigid and Felreil, two more bodiesin the great migration of need and greed. Trestle tables groan under linen and lace,under knives that promise to never dull,under potions that promise to never fail.Merchants…
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0906: Brigid’s Diary – A Six
Brigid’s Diary: Part 12.2, Arles, Spring 1836 Under the Floorboard The shouting started next door: boots on stairs, a man’s voice like a stomp, the scrape of furniture across wood, and the thin-pitched sound of children when they learn the house is not theirs. I tasted blood where I’d bitten my lip without noticing, salt…
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0806: The Liturgy
Brigid’s Diary: Part 12.2, “Liturgy for the Loose Floorboard”(Arles, 1836: where rebellion survives by passing from hand to hand) I. The Sound of ArrivalIt begins next door,the shouting,the boots on stairs,a man’s voice heavyas the stomp of his feet. Furniture dragged across wood floors.Children cryingbecause strangers have enteredtheir small kingdom of wallsand will not explain…
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