Confident that this message will reach the right you at the right time: I do wish you would stop by. If not for the company, then for the tea, if not for that then for the warm scones with freshly spread butter. Yours in hot chocolate rendezvous atop snowy peaks, R. Lutece

"The air is heavy with all the tantalizing possibilities of a fresh new year."

I am defined by what I am not. The antithesis of an affirmation; not blank space, but the culmination of a non-presence. Not a canvas, merely the promise of a void. Voids look to be filled, blanks hold the promise of potential. I am neither and, in that, I am not.

Eleven years. A lifetime. A moment of a moment. So much, so little, and nothing at all. Yet we persist.

"When one's mind is a home for dreary thoughts and one's heart beckons rainy feelings, trust in tea to keep warm, to centre, to comfort."

"There is always a lighthouse."

"Exploring a reality where the motion of yo-yos and pendulums are switched really does have its lefts and rights."

"Headmistress, it has been some time. Would you join me for tea?"

"It is an unfortunate mental path to take when one looks out into the vast, near-unfathomable universe and feel as if one were nothing. Instead, one should take heart. In all the void, the infinite happenstance, the incalculable possibilities, one exists, unique and true."

"Past few days have been trying. So much so, I shall require a strong drink. I'll be leaving the tea leaves in for at least half a minute longer."

"Rain hits the café awning like the idle drumming of unseen fingers. I was caught unaware, but not regrettably so. I am dry, the tea is hot, and the butter is melting on fresh scones. I am not a religious man, but this is Heaven, in every sense of the word."

Surely Man was not meant to walk alone as even the most stubborn clock has two hands.

There is a measure of clarity in being alone, I must admit.

"I believe that love can be a quiet thing. A silent thing. It exists in a stray thought, carried on an ice cold glass in the Summer. Or on the warm scent of freshly baked bread, resting on the counter as the sun breaks. It manifests itself, waiting for the right moment."

Oh, dear. I fear I may have become an obstacle in others' paths to happiness.

I keep on brushing fingers with ghosts, wishing the memories would warm me.