There are letters lying on the table in the morning. She isn't sure how they got there. In the evening, when she had left the room, the table had been empty. Empty but for the white plate, and the wooden pencil she had bought in a supermarket, of all places. Now there were the letters, left by someone. It startled her, even though there was no real reason for it. The someone had been there before, and there always had been some letters left. She had gathered them, on the shelf. The thing about those letters was, they didn't fit. They didn't form a word. They lay their, like stones tossed over and over again on a street.

Six they had been. Now there are eight. She stares at them, turns them in her mind, turns them on her plate. Still they make no sense. Yet she keeps trying, until the phone rings. One time, two times, three times.

She could have picked it up immediately, but she knows better. You can't pick up phones on first ring. Not when you are desperate for someone. But it isn't a someone who calls. Just a machine, who talks to her in a female voice, who tells her to push buttons, one for yes, two for no, nine for undecided. She pushes the seven, and hangs up before the machine can comment.

Then she picks up the stones, one after the other, and lets them fall down again. Ence pati, they say. She shakes her head and rolls them once more, yet the wisdom they hold remains one turn away.

~