(diaryland) May 15, 2002 - 10:50 p.m.

I was going to write an entry about seeing The Count of Monte Christo but I can't do it yet because I need to put a picture with it and my picture webspace isn't working. Arse!

So here is a story instead.

The guy kept making up songs about the girl who loved best to be alone.

They were abysmal songs on a ratty little keyboard which he wished he could play in nice outdoor settings like riverbanks and stuff, but since it was a keyboard, it always needed to be plugged in to the wall in his room. Also, the door to his room was busted, so he had to come in and out through the window.

He had never met the girl who loved best to be alone, but he thought that odds were, there�d be one somewhere along the outskirts of his town. He didn�t actually want to meet her, ever. She wouldn�t like company and he didn�t want to upset her in any way because he cared about her way too much.

Sometimes the guy would make little albums of pressed leaves and flowers from the bits of his garden that didn�t get burnt in the fire, wrap them up in bright paper left over from last Christmas, and then place them in random parts of the forest around the town. He would mark approximately where he put them on a map, and then write the date next to it.

Most of the time, when he went back to check a month later, the packages were still there; untouched and a little soggy. Occasionally, they�d been opened, by either the birds or the girl, and the wrapping paper lay next to them, partly chewed. The guy tried chewing the paper one time and found it to be very tasty. It was technically possible the girl liked to eat wrapping paper.

One very special time, he went back and the package had disappeared. Someone had definitely taken it. Either that, or he hadn�t gone back to exactly the right place. That package was an important one because it had a tape of four songs he had made about her. They were kind of scratchy, because he had only used his slightly melted stereo to record it.

At the end of the songs, he went against all he had promised himself and recorded a personal message. It went like this: �Will you meet me? My name is Thomas.�

He was kneeling down probably right where the tape should have been. He looked up, and there were spider webs through the trees in a big ring around him.