THAT NIGHT I went out for a stroll in the early evening snow. I walked up by the new church and then turned left and came around by the great department store or shopping center or ostukeskus. Whatever they are calling it these days. Half a dozen underwear models fawned over me from a lit-up billboard and Christmas lights were blinking everywhere. At the crosswalk, there was a red light and I stood and waited in the cold. There was a girl waiting on the other side of the street, in the snow and wind, all dressed in white. She wore a white parka, which was pulled up over her golden hair, and she had on white pants and white snow boots.
For a moment, I was reminded of Dulcinea. Dulcinea, love of loves, muse of muses. She always had such a brisk and wild energy to her. She was like a little chunk of sunlight, warming everything wherever she went. I then wished that Dulcinea was the one standing across from me. I imagined how beautiful she would look with such a white parka and such white boots. When was the last time I saw her? In the summer. She walked by me in the park, and her eyes were the same. They were always so kind, her eyes. Dulcinea’s eyes are impossible to forget.
They’re like stars.
I remembered those words she had typed out to me long ago. “With you, it’s always some kind of soup.” But the girl standing across from me wasn’t her. It was just someone else. Some random pedestrian. The light turned green and we walked by each other. The girl in the white parka wasn’t Dulcinea. She looked nothing like her.
north! 