*Kai*

Lounging in my mother’s parlor while she prepares dinner, I am once again thinking about my visit with Anna earlier. I am not one for creating fairy tales, for going on poetically about love or happily-ever-afters, so I have no inkling where my fantastical story about the parasol-less couple had come from or what has spurred me to spout such drivel when I am a man dedicated to accepting the harshness of reality. Yet sitting there on the grassy knoll with her had apparently served to seize my common sense completely.

Hence the sickening spouting.

Then she smiled, sweetly, softly and a bit crookedly, and I was glad for...