A new sun has emerged and dew is draped across the grass. A bird in the tree waits. The meadow is silent and full of infinite surfaces for life. Colors deepen and glow as we watch from the center of the Great Gradual Curve. A low-frequency hums.

Shhhhh….KaBOOM! A puff of smoke shoots up the chimney and the window shutters slap the sides of M.’s three hundred year old cottage.

Inside, a thousand footsteps clomp about with no rhythm or discernible pattern. Someone coughs. A cabinet door creeks open then slams shut. Bang! Knock! ping - Dash – Schyipp! The headless din creeps into M.’s bedroom as we see through the keyhole: he is asleep.

Wh-BAM! The sound of 10 hammers all at-a-once! M. is awake! His heart is bashing – covered in sweat. Then! One hundred stone bowls are set to rolling on their edges right outside his door – wobbling oblong, droning and carving the floor.  Whoom – whoom – Faster and faster in tighter circles, escalating, choral fever, into a desperate alarm. Suddenly the stoneware army comes to an abrupt synchronized STOP!-

It is strangely quiet now – the deaf air hangs. The room smells like a candle-just-gone-out. M. would rather be wherever he just was: a quieter, softer reality. He relaxes his eyes and begins to fall backwards.

Shadowy shapes form in the dark. Yes. M. is reversing time… now feeling something enormous to emerge – sinking into a black ether pudding… the sounds round and dull… The Meaning of it all… right on the edge. He can almost see it - maybe touch it this time. Maybe steal it back. Vibrating…

Knock, KNOCK, KnocK! “GAHh!” M. spits through his teeth. “What the hell is going on out there?!”

Bam Bam Bam! on the door. Poor door. Poor M. “Go ‘way!,” he yells from under the covers. Knck-knck! now – a little quieter. “Go ‘way, I still say!” No response…

The silence turns to a hiss, pressurizing… something is coming… something worse than the rest. SCReeeeeeT! An awful metal twisting begins, dragging rusted claws across M.’s mind. Shhhhhhhht - The doorhandel!- M. braces for impact- PunCHOOT! The bedroom door whips open and the outside air rushes in, mixing a tornado up under M.’s quilt - cold and stinking of acrid experiments. 

M. is not made of patience. Completely awake now wondering what awful transgressions will come next. We sense a tiny presence in the corner of the frame. A long’ish silence creeps up and waits…

“Um, Father?” The skittish creature sniffs forward from behind the door frame. A small green eye and then another – and a tiny mouth like a mouse - shifty and scratching its ear. “Um… Mothe- Father, I mean…” Every moment extends the known universe.

“F,ff-F…ather?” M. continues to play dead. He is not above pretending. “Fuh…Father?-”

“Where is your Mother!?,” M.. interrupts from under the bedding. He kicks the covers off and sits up in the sun. They are face-to-face in the swirling dust. Tiny eyes blink.

“Hrm… Mouse, where is your Mother?!” The floorboards groan but the mouse does not move or say any a thing. M. can feel the world turn. Still, silence. Eye-to-eye now…  “Hrm…?” M. needles. We zoom in slowly…

“Father?”

“GAH!” M. flops back into his pillow, whipping the blankets up over his face. 

Muffled now, “Um… Father?” Mouse is patience.

“Yes, Mouse – what is it?!”

“Father, I need to tell you something –“ A feather is tickling M.’s nose.

“Yes, what is it – tell me already, please!”

“Well, ok, but can you come out from under the covers?”

“Fine, but I don’t see why that has anything to do with –“ Wh-BAM! Thud.

“Aye!” M. cries out as he is extruded to the floor. Sunlight trumpets his face! Timpanis celebrate his piercing pain. Colors and stars spill into his vision like an intoxicated cartoon. M. lays there, looking under the bed, across to the small feet placed perfectly on the far side. He exhales loudly.

“Father, where are you? Have you fallen again?”

“Ugh…um, I’m not here anymore…” The back of his head ringing when he speaks.

“Where? Father, where are you?,” Mouse is pure. Mouse is Patience. 

“I’m not here, err, or there. I need a moment, Mouse – to gather my thoughts.”

“Father? Are you lost under the bed again?” Mouse shines.

“What? Shh – no, it’s not that. Where is your Mothe-?”

“She’s not here. I told you, Father!”

M. scans his view under the bed, sees Mouse’s feet again, and noticing the dust bunnies and crumbs he is distracted again. “Where is it!? What was it!?” his thoughts query the void.

“What is ‘IT,’ Father?” Mouse steps into the stream, reading M.’s mind.

“The Meaning! The thing from my dream. It was all there – the answer.” he dramatizes aloud. He resigns and closes his eyes with a big huff. Does it even matter he wonders?

Alone in this darkness, he hears buzzing and senses raw materials moving around each other. Base elements, magnetism, soft underwater explosives, tape hissing….. maybe, he can still get it… Quiet now – shhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHTTTTTT.

“Father? Father!?”

“Yes, Mouse!” M. is sharp and then resigned. It’s gone. He sits up off the floor to see Mouse on the bed, aimed at him. He is holding something.

“Look, look, Father! Look!  Here you are, now you can see what I’ve been trying to show you!! Look!”

“Gah!” taken aback by the object in his face – unseeable. “It’s too close, Mouse!?” M. clutches his blanket, squinting, waving his hand near his face, moving backwards then forwards to focus.

“It’s what you’ve been looking for!”

“Ha! And pray tell, my little mouse, what have I been looking for that you would know abou…… oh, uh…..??” “Wh-What…” M. stumbling – fumbling with reality. “It is…” - the words sputter on M.’s lips. Steady ‘ol boy. The wind blowing in the trees stops - his eyes focusing now. “Aye, Tis’ what I’ve been looking for, mouse! The Meaning.”

“It is! it is, Father! The Meaning.” Mouse cheers.

M. wipes his eyes away. He is a laughing waterfall. He is a bare bone, and he is a child too, after all. His clouded mind opens up and M. falls through.

“Father, it’s for you! It’s what you’ve been looking for – ‘it.’”

Mouse is pure. Mouse is Patience.