text: Weird little Man in a weird little house. He sits alone in the dark, crooked over a drop of memory, carefully closing a delicate frame of silver around it, preserving it. In the droplets reflection we see *him and his wife standing together in the living room. The wife dutifully dusts the shelves, and the weird little man sweeps the floors, settling down the broom and...*, a slice of the ordinary, unmarked and easily forgotten, but ultimately beautiful. He sets the frame down and it pools warm light into the cold damp dark of the now empty house. He sits in the light for a moment. A smile crosses his face, but we see it is forced and fleeting. A corpse of a smile. The house has several frames bathing small sections of the room in precious warm light. The earth beneath the house shakes seemingly in frustration, and on the far wall to the left, a delicate frame is disturbed and falls. The weird man is horrified. As the frame hits the floor it shatters, and he rushes for its contents as quickly as his weird little body will allow. The contents, a memory, a droplet of happiness, lofts up like the amber bubbles in a beer glass. The weird man grabs at it, catching it, just before it moves out of arm's reach, he pulls it down forcefully and squishes in his arms, and in its reflection, we can see *A pot bubbling on the fire stove, two weird little hands are precisely stirring its contents, the viewpoint turns, and his small daughter is cutting vegetables gleefully. They are preparing dinner together while his wife watches from the kitchen island. He turns to her and...* He holds onto at the memory droplet, tightening his grasp, his weird little chubby digits doing the best they can. The weird man is taken with the upward momentum, up, up, he holds on to it, stroking it, sorrow painfully chiseled on his weird little face. And yet the droplet slips through undaunted, like slick ice in a tight grip.... Wafting up and up. he reaches desperate as he descends, but it slips away. And as the beautiful bubble hits the ceiling, it bursts, expelling the light within, like a silent firework. He lands with a crumpled thud where the memory had previously lit the floor, and all the frames in the house jitter. The frames teeter this way and that, time seeming to pull apart, seeming to relish its ability to show the inevitable for the only weird little viewer, and then...they fall. He screams but no one is there to hear it. He runs, arms outstretched, he grabs at the droplets fumbling with one as they all lift upward. His fingers, barely gripping the droplet, through his stretched grasp we can see *A well walked pathway lined with trees, the tops of which almost glow green, illuminated by the moonlight. Fireflies dance across his path as he breathes deeply and....*. It slips through continuing its path up, he swipes left, in another we see \*His wife staring lovingly back at him from the comfort of a pillow, they are both lying in bed, as he moves closer, reaching to embrace her, they both laugh and...\*. But he knew he couldn't hold on to it, and off it went up, up, to join the others. He glares upward intently, eyes beginning to fail at holding back the intense emotion held behind them, he leaps with everything he has, and catches one. This time he gets a firm grip and in it we see *He is standing next to a table all done up in bright colors, his daughter in a modest lone chair, a brightly colored hat on her head and purest delight on her face. A cake is brought in by the weird little man's wife, it is decorated with a large number “5” across it. His daughter, so elated at this, turns and hugs him with all her tiny little arms would allow, he looks down and...*. He holds this one as tight as he has ever held anything, presses it close to him protectively like a baby, his weird little face tucks inward, and eyes shut tightly hoping that he can keep this one, just this one...but it too abandons him, passing through his grip. All the droplets float up and up and then bursting, embers float down through time like confetti, burning out before ever reaching the weird little man's resting spot. The weird man sits crooked on the cold floor in the dark. Completely defeated and broken. He begins to cry. Streams of sorrow run down his weird little face, and as the tears fall towards the floor, we see swirling in them......... *Nothing.* A crooked weird little man sits sobbing in a weird dark little house. And no one knows.