M*ses, p*ets & the vortices of Brownian motion

Ah, Chair and Dwarf, you're both right. Witness the complex interstitial vortices of random Brownian motion between humans....

Let us consider that we, too, are particles in motion in the same warm water, or motes in the same stream of sunlight, even as we observe other particles. Let us consider, also, that sometimes we swirl past them, close enough to change their random orbits with a breath. And as our human particles continue to dance, in liquid or in sunlight (you can choose) I'll explain.

Dame Agatha went to see Ron S*xmith at the T*lipfest this afternoon, with a complement of neutral observers, and a coyote in tow. (I'm a musical coyote. Listen on any full moon.) It being an outdoor concert, and dampish, and any coyote popping up behind the Chateau likely to be spectacularly obvious in a bad way, she offered to carry me in her carpetbag-sized purse. It was very like my burrow, but small. I just fit, except for my tail, which I curled around her collar to accessorize as a faux fox stole. Titled Englishwomen of a certain era carry off fur well... and any PETA type looking to diss her for offing critters such as myself would've been in for a shock.... I digress.

Around the third or fourth song into Ron's listenable set, the one where the lead guitarist plays a tasty solo on a jangly red Rickenbacker, Agatha looks down at me, eyebrows quirked, and laughs quietly.

"Is that the lcp over there?", she breathes.

I poke my sharpish snout out of the big handbag, far enough to see, rows ahead of us, the profile beneath the signature poetic hair with the signature stripe.

"Yes," say I. "But she's not with him. It's someone else. Someone with straight red hair."

She laughs again, at the coincidence, and I yip in reply. Then I settle myself back into the carpetbag's warm darkness and listen to 'Strawberry Blonde.' So it goes, to the end, and through the encore. Then, while Dame Agatha and the observers stand in place and discuss the highs of the concert and Ron's new haircut, a stream of people swirls past. Suddenly, the lcp and his woman friend are before us, unaware of our presence, yet close enough for me to reach out and brush their sleeves with a paw should I choose. I do not choose. But being the trickster I am, I borrow the voice of one of the observers to say, brassily, "Hallo, Poet!"

"Hello!" The lcp turns and smiles at the group, and without missing a step, reaches into his jacket and pulls out a ream of peach-coloured sheets of paper, double folded, like letters. He passes one to the observer, who in turn hands it to Agatha. The lcp disappears into the roister, and, as is often the case with these things, Agatha pushes the folded paper down into the handbag beside me, unread, and continues discussing the concert with the observers. I believe that up top, eyebrows are wiggling all over the place at this point, but I am occupied sssssniffing a sssssniff of fresh paper, overlaid with a sharpish burnt waft of toner.

The post concert crowd is nearly dispersed when Agatha's small group begins to stroll to the exit. In the handbag, in the dark, I busily nose the folds of the intriguing peach-coloured paper open with my sharpish snout. And then I laugh, howl really, at serendipity, loud enough to stop Agatha and the observers in their tracks. She looks down into the bag, and I, still laughing, unable to trust myself to speak, point my mirthfully quivering nose to the title atop the lcp's latest short broadside:

"from variations on the f*fth m*se
... for l*a..."

So let us consider, finally, that all of it -- all of it -- m*se and poet's own take on the seeming tragedy of her situation notwithstanding -- is much, much closer to hilarious random comedy than anyone would dare to guess. Who would have thought fate would hand us our confirmation so quickly, on a quicksilver platter?