My sons were all plate drawers at night. I was the maestro and they were the masters behind the make. Every day in the morning I would go out to get the plain white plates in all shapes and sizes—circular, small, square, and more. On my way back I would also get the paint. It is a type known as enamel acrylic paint, and the brand was called Diamond Rush. The strike of eleven in the night meant it was time for the fight to begin; everyone sat at their name-stamped tables, prepared their ideas and paper drawings, and started drawing. The scene was unlike anything else, and my senses at many nights were going to burst from the action. Surrounded by a circle of twenty-one artists at their tables, I listened as the paint brushes waved in all the different ways and curves. This was a symphony, but a symphony. And these kids were scarred, but legends of time they were. I myself was not spared the trouble; I was—and still am—terminally ill. One of them was blind, yet he drew the most amazing shades of blue and green—seas and trees. One was deaf, yet heard with a pure heart the most enticing of stories from the universe, stories which he then brought out in full definition on a plate. One was, and another was, and so it goes—none of us was complete. But my sons did not talk. If rarely they did, it was in whispers. If rarely they did, it was among the lines of “do you still have blue?” and “give me your fitch.” Why? I’m not certain, but I think they know that talking would ruin the pure images and ideas in their mind—bad news for the plates at night.

We had been doing this for years, and so at some point I had to rent a storage to keep all the plates. Twenty-one plates just-about-each day for ten years means…let’s round it to twenty then multiply by three, get sixty, place two zeros next to it to get six thousand, then add…hmm…twenty times sixty-five, or let’s say just sixty, get one-twenty then place a zero to get

a thousand-two hundred…that’s…I’m old and sick; you do the math. But this didn’t appeal to them, and they didn’t let it happen. And so in the orphanage we were crammed against towers of plates on top of plates to the sky—our ceiling. I myself was an orphan to the world, but my parents were alive, safe and well, in my heart.

My parents are two canaries that live in my mind, fly in my mind. They sing wisdom, and they are ambassadors of balance in life. They once told me that they love to watch the sundown of every day, because it carries a message that escapes everybody. They said that this message is in the gradience of the sky, from red to blue. Sit down at the sundown and see how your life manifests from red to blue, from birth to death, from the energy of youth to the peace and calm of old age. But the message was much more; they said, “You can’t isolate two consecutive lines from the sky and say, ‘Hey, here’s the difference; there’s no gradience between them.’” This is because, as they looked up at the sky, it all looked like one continuum of infinite gradience. It’s all continuous, with no stops along the way. They said that this is just like our days; we can’t feel their passage until the end, all the way until the end, until the end hits and greets and clinches our necks and sucks up all the air. When I heard this I was chagrined, but stable.

Fearing the bewildering scope of life, I always liked to get back to their story of how whenever they saw a good, prosperous, long tree, they believed that, instead of that tree growing out of Earth, Earth grew out from that tree. And that must be a wise tree, and its roots must mean the world. I wonder if that’s why I always see them standing on the branch of some good, prosperous, long tree, chirping their days away. A memory worth my life here, is when I was still very young; they got me a seedling of a tree. It was so small that it was contained in one small cup. Next day, the poor people woke up to find the tree dead: roots in the open air and stem shoved in the soil, the tree was turned upside down; I wanted to create a whole new world, out of a whole new tree.

My sons were all great. They were an unnamed alliance of powers and good traits. Each one was an anecdote of mystery. But they were chords of the same instrument, one chord of integrity, one chord of foresight, and so on. When they slept at night, they were spotted with paint. Strangely, I never saw how one could get paint all the way up to his forehead; it always just happened. I believe I never saw the action because it never happened in front of my eyes. Even though I was always watching, by old age I understood that it probably happened when they had to look too close at the plate to form some detail, to strike some line. And so, what happened was that I would see one his face all clean.

He bends his head down to the plate.

Up from the plate.

I would see one his face very faintly painted across.

And so I could never see the action take place.

After they were all done, with clothes and skin tinted, they formed a line to their room. They all slept in one room with ten bunk beds on the same side of the room, all opposite to an eleventh bed that stood unique on the other side. They never washed away the paint, and they always got in bed right away. With a conscience of steel and cold air, each one slept very quickly. Unlike most people, my sons surrendered to time at the end of the day, knew that it was just right to take a break.

Four days ago, I decided to take them on a trip to this lake I found on my globe. For a reason I did not know, they all agreed. I told them that if we do it then there will be no plate drawing anymore. At the same time they all said, “We know.” Hmm, okay. I bought the plane tickets and rented five cars to deliver us to the airport. After we prepared everything, the cars arrived and we were taken to the plane two hours ahead of time. Now, four days later, my sons are sitting on the floor in this circle, talking vocally and clear for the very first time. Talking about their dreams of colors and the good deeds they saw in each other through their life together. They are older now, given that when I first formed the orphanage each was six years old. They talked about dreams of harmony, and they talked about wanting to carve a mountain in the approximate shape of an old man, but they didn’t say who that man was. They are going to heaven without a doubt.

“My sons.” I said, today.

They all looked up at me.

“I just want you to know that…the line of shadow separating you from me isn't the line of shadow separating me from you, and they both aren't the line of shadow separating us.

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“I'm becoming lost in the shadow of history, and whenever I walk in a street I always hunt the shadow of mystery.

“I will die one day, but right now I don't have a problem, because I don't know when that moment will knock all my doors and there will not be any way to escape.” I said.

“Yes, father.” One said. “We understand. You should go to bed now.”

And so here I’m now, at my desk. Before I sleep I just wanted to say something to my father, because I didn’t find him in my mind today, for the first time since time.

~~~

Dear Father,

When you walk a street, you're hunting shadows, because the sun scares your heart. You also hunt the empty spaces, because you want to avoid the risk. All in all, it makes me grind my jaws, and God knows how much I miss you and Mother, but the empty shadows, for God's sake, are your place. You are an empty-shadow hunter. That is what you are.

I really miss you and Mother.

~~~

Ah.

Dear Father…

Ah…

Some weeks later—

I’m here to continue from where our father left off. He died nearly two months ago as he slept. But we did not stand still, even though we were all hit with the sickness of days, that disease where the heart does not recognize itself and the mind loses even the ability to have a sense of direction. Although all that was, everyone got to work. No one had talked to the other, but each was a cog in the same machine. We all knew what to do, and how to do it. Five of us flew back home and sixteen stayed at the lake to prepare. First things first, we needed the plates clean, and you can imagine, thousands of plates left for years and years. But no. For each week’s worth of plates, we had always encompassed the whole tower by cling film, and after the last plate of each day a plastic card pierced the plastic film. On the card was written the date of the day alongside a number, but that number’s a secret. Back at the lake my brothers were preparing for our final move. Some were adding melted gelatin to this chemical called formaldehyde—everything in precise measure. Some were building small ladders, and some were buying diving suits.

After we put every ten towers in sturdy plastic boxes and pressed in cork planks to separate the towers within the boxes, a few small-sized trucks arrived at the orphanage to take everything to the airport. With sensitivity and care the plates arrived at the airport, and then at the lake. More than seventy thousand plates flew above the surface of Earth to their final destination. And then, just like before, just like after: a number of trucks arrived at the airport to transfer all the plates to the lake.

Now we—the twenty-one of us—were all at the lake. Diving suits. Metal ladders. Gelatin planks. Oxygen tanks. And thousands and thousands of plates and plates. And more.

The time? We, the Battalion of Trust, are ready, the acoustics of our harmony sounding the whole lake and the village from south to north, east to west: Ten of us wore diving suits. A ladder was placed some two hundred feet away from the northern edge of the lake. After that, we—the brothers on ground—placed gelatin planks at slot number one on top of the lake’s water. This slot number one was at the sharp east of the lake’s north edge. All the divers were ready with oxygen tanks, and each of them held one tower placed inside a padded bag. Given the weight of a tower, the divers made use of the shallowness of the lake and they devised the following: with slot number one ready with the floating gelatin planks, the ten divers, holding ten towers of plates, started diving vertically until they very calmly touched the lake’s base, tens of feet below the cold surface. Then they pulled ropes that were fixed along the length of the lake’s base; this took them with the heavy towers all the way to the slot. The divers then fixed the towers down to the base of the lake and opened the bags to get access to the plates. Each diver took a plate from the tower and placed it in its correct place above the floating gelatin planks. After slot number one was all covered, this whole process was repeated until the last slot:

The eleven of us above ground prepared the gelatin planks, placed ten towers in ten padded bags, and refilled the oxygen tanks.

Five divers delivered the planks to their slots. Five divers took the plate towers to below the planks.

Each plate was placed in its place on the plank, which, after five hours of being on top of the water, would dissolve away, leaving an ordered formation of plates floating on the surface of the lake. The ladders were essential here; they were our way to not disturb the surface of the water with the movement of the divers, who placed the ladders some distance away from the floating plates and calmly leveled down in the water. At this part the oxygen tanks were essential, because the divers had to move at the greatest depth so that—again—they don’t disturb the surface of the water, which would not just disturb the plates formation but also drown some of the plates, for water shall not get on top of a plate if it is to stay afloat.

~~~

At the very end more than seventy thousand plates floated on the serene lake’s surface. The secret to these plates is that they were our diaries; we drew our daily worries and thoughts on them. But this was not the end of it; at the end all the plates collectively formed a specific image: our dear Father’s face, with a tree behind standing tall, and two magnificent canaries flying across the sky.

The plates from the north to the south drew our father’s face from ten years ago to just a month ago. Time manifested itself in this portrait; but also our minds, stories and ideas were sketched on these plates.

After we were done, we opened the lake as “Calm Lake Exhibit” and so many people—more than I can count—started visiting it daily. Some villagers liked to sit at the top of a nearby hill to see the lake from far above, and some went on weekly “Calm Lake picnics.” Some others liked to see each individual plate and the story it expressed.

The same day we were done, my oldest brother died. By the way, we were all born in the span of twenty-one hours, and each one of us was from a different place of this beautiful Earth. The second day came as my second oldest brother died. My brothers started dying in their peaceful sleep one by one; and here I am, twenty-one days later, with no brother left. We all knew this. We all knew how we would start dying, as leaves falling off a tree. Our message complete. And feelings restored to heaven. My last brother died yesterday, which means…

I think it’s now my time.

…

…

Good night.