PETAL

There was this lady whose name was Bertola Clarence. She sang songs to the public but in order to keep her life private she sung from behind a thick orange curtain.

She had this trick well not really a trick for it happened of its own accord. The song had a way of arranging itself so as to construe a presence on the other side of the curtain all on its own.

And so appeared the presence of Clara Petal. Night after night she danced and smiled for all the audience to see. An audience that stretched out to a horizon the shape of a flower and clapped and roared with such delight to a sound which touched something within each of them.

At last Clare Petal bowed and took her leave – like steam fading back into water again. It was for this reason that at the end of each performance Bertola Clarence was to be found standing behind the curtain, in floods of tears and it is for this reason that emotion is often tearful. For it is the movement of feeling backwards into the body upon whose contact it is liable to melt back into water.


Moments later there stands Bertola Clarence; a small and stationary figure waiting to board a bus.