She turns her head, Bailey catches her eye, and she smiles at him. Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittens but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone they have not seen in some time.

I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can.

The truest tales require time and familiarity to become what they are.

It is difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the midst of it,” Tsukiko says. “It is too familiar. Too comfortable.

You think, as you walk away from Le Cirque des Rêves and into the creeping dawn, that you felt more awake within the confines of the circus. You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.

The rain increases and umbrellas sprout like mushrooms amongst the graves.

Sometimes I write what I can't paint, and I paint what I can't write. I use a different part of the brain.