The Planets

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Dream, nightmare, truth. To Grino, the series played itself out like a promise rather than a dream. Days earlier he had woken to a memory, at the time still unreal: Sela’s little legs, which suggested a future beauty and inspired a desire inappropriate for her age, ruined by her fall. But dreams were insatiable, they always demanded more; according to Grino it was not enough just to dream them, they also sought some other form, a complementary action to rescue them from the confusion of the night. It is not only the dream, then, that took on a new inflection; real incidents — in this case, Sela’s fall — were cast in a nocturnal light, revealing an enigmatic quality. It would be in keeping with the order of things for a ripe piece of fruit to fall to the ground under the force of its own weight, but the fact that the girl should tumble from the tree after he dreamt about her fall transposed the whole sequence of events, including the backdrop against which they took place, onto the realm of the fantastic: the causes outnumbered the effects. Grino often wondered about the power of his dreams: whether they simply reflected events or if, perhaps, they catalyzed them. A patio, a few flower pots, a fig tree, and typical tile flooring completed the scene; the bedrooms were off to the side, set back about three meters, and one meter further, half hidden by branches and cans containing the sprouts of future plants, a railing separated the patio itself from the area used for the clotheslines, the laundry room. Little by little, Grino had become accustomed to the details of this scene, in which the girl was only one element; he had decided to call her Sela as soon as he laid eyes on her on his first day of work.

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