Not a Mannequin

Portret Manana doesn't miss the church dinners, but he misses the oak smells of the sanctuary walls.

He misses the red church cushions, too, and the choir seats.

He also remembers. There was a vagrant who had wandered into the church grounds. He was hungry, but acted as if nothing in the world mattered to him. His hair was dashingly the color of wet straw, a dirty, unwholesome color.

The vagrant had wanted to know if pipe organs, usually loud and boisterous, could sing quietly. Portret demonstrated, and the vagrant was persuaded. Yea, the organ could sing softly and lovingly.

The vagrant then went off to eat in the meeting room.

Portret had to revise the impression of the vagrant, who was not actually an indifferent ball. Far from it. Everything in the world mattered to him. Absolutely everything. That is why he was a vagrant.

He wanted to be an exception in the world so full of models and examples. And he was destined to find exceptions in all things.

A mannequin, he was not.