NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
A small rectangle frames the image of bel Vionnet’s plump face, on the computer screen. Catching her fierce focus on something off-screen. Then the rectangle expands with electronic pointillism and outcomes her voice from the computer’s speaker.
“Wait until it reaches the mailbox.”
“What’s that, bel?”
“Sorry, I was pointing out a shadow to Steve.”
“Yes, glad to see the sun after that storm this morning.”
The screen fills with pixels forming and dissolving rectangles, then it appears in focus that bel is pointing her phone-camera out the open window.
“See that Fred?”
“Yeah; a utility pole, redbuds, street, crows, and ah, is that your mailbox with wisteria on it?”
“That’s right. Now, see that long shadow on the street?”
“Yup.”
Bel’s image returns to the screen. Just her neck and dangling earring. Then the side of her face and now, she looks at me with a gentle smile, a deep red curtain behind her.
“When the shadow of the utility pole reaches the mailbox, it is time to make coffee and break out the chocolate!”
“What do you use to time your afternoon break for the rest of the year?”
“This is a diversion during the emergency.
“We are all Zooming now.”
“Or, Face Time, aren’t we on Face Time?”
“No, this is a new program, Signac/Seurat.”
“Okay, I wondered what that icon was, in your email; but clicked anyway.”
“So glad you did, bel.”
“I haven’t kept up the new cyber stuff.”
“We live in digital times.”
“Yup, and we are all cinematographers, now.”
“Trying to be!”
“There hardly any traffic noise, Fred. We didn’t see much on the Parkway when we were walking, about seven this morning.”
“I can hear those crows outside your house.”
“Did that blue jay’s screech come through?”
“Yup, Hear that, bel? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GLIFUtXj2M
“Oh yes, ah, Oh I know that sound, ah…
“Carolina wren.”
“Right, Steve calls it, ‘amplifier bird’, so loud, yet small.”
“The dogwoods and azaleas are out along with a zillion spring beauties.”
“Have you got grape hyacinths?”
“They are mixing it up with the lawn weeds.”
“Yes, it is funny about weeds, so many native plants are known as weeds. Joe Pye weed for instance, or Ironweed.”
“Don’t know either of them.”
“That’s it bell. Few people do.”
“So, what’s the deal with weeds?”
“For that, I point to Doug Tallamy’s new book, “Natures’s Best Hope”.
“Okay, Diddlie was telling me to read that, too.”
“He points out that anything growing in a field of crops, besides the crop, is called a weed.”
“Well, isn’t it?”
“Yes, his point goes further. Europeans brought their own plants from home to grow here, and local native plants were called weeds!”
“Oh, so am I supposed to let the ivy and wisteria just take over?”
“No, not at all. Those are both called “invasive species”. They were imported and have no predators here. They outgrow the natives.”
“I am hearing something familiar in this story.”
“You are. The point of it all is about the relationship between plants and insects. Our local insects only eat local plants. When we plant imports, they make for a barren landscape.”
“Well, not exactly, those plants are doing fine.”
“Too true, but our insects can’t eat them; fewer insects means fewer birds and a depleted biosphere. It will eventually starve us out.”
“This all sounds like a warning from First Nation!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they were regarded as weeds!”
“Too true, bel.”
“Well, I hope that beautiful redbud isn’t an import!”
“Don’t think it is.”
“The spring flowers make me feel I am in a kind of paradise until I think of PU medical center.”
“How ‘Wordsworthian’ of you!”
“Augie said this is his 250th anniversary and Beethoven’s.”
“Haven’t seen him lately.”
“Beethoven is dead, happened around 1825, or so”
“No, Augie, haven’t seen Augie lately.”
“Okay Fred, anyway, my romantic side is struggling with reality at the moment.”
“Oh, is PU overwhelmed?”
“Not yet, I am expecting they will be.”
“Why?”
“Fred, there are big apartment buildings less than a mile from here full of people who can barely get by.”
“I get it, no gardens, no privacy, no space to, ‘distance’.”
“Did you know, Joy vonLuck is in that hospital?”
“Oh no! Is it the virus?”
“We don’t know but her trouble breathing is suggestive.’
“Also, her computer was hacked.”
“Before or after?”
“The day before.”
“I think, whoever hacked her system got the results of her work with us.”
“Did she tell you she had solved the mandala puzzle?”
“No, she said she was close and working with a Polish artist friend.”
“Maybe that’s where the hack came from?”
The image fragments into a pointillist swirl of colorful pixels, and blacks out again.
“Fred? You still there?
“Right here, what’s going on?”
Bel is back in focus, laughing.
“Josephine just woke up. It’s those bird calls.”
“Aha, so she knows coffee break is coming.”
“Yes, on overcast afternoons, she times the chocolate and coffee point.”
“What does she get?”
“Bel’s Best Home Baked cat treats.”
“That explains a lot!”
“She was climbing the curtain. See?”
Josephine’s tail curls across the screen and now rents at the bottom of the curtain come into focus. The image tilts from left to right before the screen blacks out.
“Oh NO! Fred, you there?”
“Yes, but don’t see anything.”
“Neither do I. Got the cat though”
“You have to click on that button at the bottom.”
“Josephine is trying to get a paw in.”
“Paws are too big for screen icons.”
“Hold on, okay Fred? I must put her down.”
“Okay”
The picture comes back with a view up through a lampshade, past the knob and bulb, and beyond to a sunlit stripe on the ceiling.
“Fred, sorry I dropped the phone!”
“Okay, I am still here. Looking around the garden.”
“Right, okay, so look at this!”
The image blurs before a document comes into focus with a formal letterhead.”
“Looks serious.”
“We got this from Sherman Shrowd.”
“Good grief, what is that all about?”
“He wants to depose us about the work we were doing on the Macadamia patio cipher.”
“I wonder why Sherman didn’t just call?”
“We are wondering how he knows about it!”
“Hard to say.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, he is usually so informal.”
“He needs a paper trail. That’s my guess, but even so, I would have thought he’d call first.”
“Yes, Steve thinks he is under pressure of a case.”
“I remember Steve being cagy about where he got those drawings.”
“He told me they came from Ernie Manstein.”
“That’s right, he did say so but then disavowed it.”
“Only if you quoted him.”
“Are you worried?”
“Ah, I don’t think Steve has told me everything yet.”
“You didn’t expect to get any money out of it, did you?”
“No, nothing like that. It was a challenge and maybe something interesting would come out of it!”
“You might call that letter, ‘interesting'”.
“Not what I had in mind!”
Josephine’s paw appears before the scene changes to an embroidered cushion of geometric design, the fragment of a vintage Kilim, perhaps.
“Hi!”
Blue, white and yellow stitches of Steve’s Fair Isle Sweater fill the screen with a moment’s knitted wool.
“Steve, what’s all this about, Shrowd?”
“It’s PU, that’s what I think.”
“You think they have retained him?”
“Perhaps, or he is working for someone else, but PU is the main player.”
“What do you think is going on?”
“I still believe that everything said in this house is electronically collected.”
“Your bugged!”
“I can’t find the critter, but then, I don’t have expertise or detection equipment.”
“Why not hire a pro?”
“That’s what bel keeps saying but I don’t know anyone I trust.”
“Can’t you just ask around among your contacts?”
“Well, this is not a discussion to have here and now.”
“I get it but who would want to know?”
“I can only guess.”
“And your guess is?”
“No one but you, bel, Joy and me, knew anything about our little project.”
“What about the Polish artist?”
“I found out, Joy was working with her at PU at the time, and she is based in Paris, at the moment and not Poland.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Not that I can mention.”
“Is this what Shrowd is after?”
“Only Sherman knows that.”
“So, when is the deposition?”
“I just got off the phone with Shrowd’s office and they are trying to set it up for next Tuesday.”
“You mean you have to break out of lock-down and go there?”
“Maybe, that is still under discussion.”
“Why don’t they send somebody over?”
“Yeah, we might sit at opposite ends of the dining table.”
“I hope you can use Zoom or something.”
“Or something, I mean Zoom is about as secure as a street corner.”
“What about Signac/Seurat, we are using now?”
“I don’t know, new App, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it was developed at PU Media Lab.”
“Now that is an interesting place.”
“Really, I had never heard of it until someone put me on to Signac/Seurat, the other day.”
“They have some substantial classified contracts.”
“Aha, say no more. I remember Joy dropped the name of a consultant there.”
“They claim it is more secure than Zoom.”
“It may be, but you have to consider “back-doors”.
“No place to collogue!”
“A swirl of colorful pixels cross the screen like windblown leaves. For an instant we are at “La Grande Jatte” on a Sunday, then the image breaks down and a corporate message appears.
“I think we are out of time.”
“Okay Fred, cyber-see you later.”
