The Walled Garden

A sundial stands in the centre of the garden, its legend worn to near illegibility by the daily passage of the gnomon's shadow. At the edge of the wabe, a flowerbed encircles the garden, planted to maddle and pear-lily. Old roses climb down the high stone walls. A window in one wall gives a view into the house beyond. Inside the room, a bowl of casia blossoms and jonquirre berries stands in the window. The parted curtains are hooked back on ornate brass statements. Above, carved in the aurembe are the words "FIT LUX". In a terracotta surbier on the floor stands a walking stick of the hardest granguin wood. A cabinet displays several disused artefacts: a zograscope, an extinguished taper, a coin with only one side, lying face down, and a native orthoclave crystal of weissmannite. The last of these bears a faded label with the inscription "W.Sz.5/52".

Outside, in the shade of the violwood tree, a single zoetrope turns its fading bloom towards the dying sun.

 

You leave the walled garden through a gate in the north wall, leading to...

 

The Victrola

The immaculate lawn covers gently rolling parkland. On a low hill stands a victrola, whose windows give a fine prospect over the park. Inside, it is silent and deserted.

A penny drops!

There is a coin here.


© Richard Kennaway, 1997.