nobody knew where he came from. nobody knew why he had chosen this place to live. he may have had a keen sense of the fragile balance of builders and destroyers in our polarized environment. his soft, well-spoken manner was reassuring to many; yet he hid in him an absence, a void, a focal point of some dark energy. perhaps he was just another mirror of the world as it shows behind the veneer of politically correct prizes and praises and all the let’s-do-good bullshit. monsieur Ducasse knew where he was going without having to stare at the shiny lentil of a compass. he functioned mentally both in an archaic past and in a future not yet foreseen; yes, it was indeed a most disintegrative and perilous position but he wouldn’t be limited by restrictions of linear time, he used to say. what was time to him?  a form, a number, a structure, a sequence to anchor a greedy, life devouring beast in the noise of semantics and representation.

we built together a house for the birds: a fragile glass dodecahedron inscribed in a sphere of glowing mist. it was winter and many birds needed shelter and dreams to feed on. the moon breathed icy silence on our heads.

many sleepless nights followed the ascent of the shadows; the veil was lifted and the fragmented soul revealed. I was left bereft and ashamed of my past. ‘I could have done better’ was a stab in my heart. I became a ghost. I looked arround, measuring the emptiness.

monsieur Ducasse was still there, walking barefoot on broken glass, eyes closed.