Marissa looked down at the stack of notepaper on her desk and smiled. It was held together with a new binder clip she’d found at the store yesterday. Her weakness when it came to impulse spending was cute office supplies. As vices go, it was a minor one and not even worth noting for a workaholic.

The new binder clip had a smiling face cut out of its metal body and made even making a to-do list seem like more fun. Marissa pulled a pen out of the cup on her desk and went to write her list for the day.

“Hello,” the binder clip said. “Are we going to work together today?”

Marissa dropped the pen and her mouth fell open. This was it; she was finally having a nervous breakdown from having worked too much.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Just want to help.” The binder clip went back to smiling.

“Okay,” Marissa said as she picked up her pen. “If I’m breaking down, I might as well get help from the office supplies.”

An hour later when Marissa’s colleague passed her office door, he heard laughter. He peaked in through her window to see if she was goofing off, but she was working on a large spreadsheet, chuckling and talking to herself. He shrugged and went back to his office.

“Do cats dream?” the girl asked as she watched the brown tabby cat’s feet and whiskers twitch as she slept.

“What do you think?” I asked.

She squinted her eyes at the cat as if she looked hard enough she could make the cat’s dreams become visible. The cat’s whiskers twitched again. The girl shook her head.

“I don’t know.” She looked up at me. “What do you think?”

I smiled. “Of course they dream. Everyone dreams or else how would we keep this world spinning?”

The girl smiled. “I like dreams. Cat’s dreams must be exciting!”

I took her hand and reached out my other hand to the cat. I laid my hand gently on her head so as not to wake her. One of her eye’s opened to a slit before closing again. “Then I think you’ll this dream.”

“No one’s ever made it to the end of the breezeway,” Clif said with a shake of his head. “They run and they run, but that green you see there it don’t ever get closer.”

“Why do they try?” Lee asked and pulled her scarf tighter as another gust of cold winter wind blasted through the unprotected space.

“They say if you can make it to the end, to the green, on that side is paradise.”

“Have you tried?”

Clif nodded then  turned so he could blame his tears on the wind.

Lee stared at the far patch of green then turned and began walking back to camp. “One day I’ll try to,” she said. “And I’ll make it, too.”

“I’d like to see that,” Clif said as he caught up.

Lee nodded. “You’ll be with me old friend. Together, after the wind changes, we’ll make a run at paradise.”

 

“Well, here it is,” the shopkeeper said as he placed the worn volume in front her on the counter.

The spine had been worn down in places, the brown spine showing the cloth weaving of the binding below. The cover was similarly battered, but the words “Weekly Time Book” were still legible as was the line drawing of a watchface, wings, and scythe that made the shopkeeper shiver if he looked at it too long.

“It’s not much use,” the shopkeeper said, scratching his head. “Most of the pages are already scribbled on with gibberish. If you wait ’til next week’s train comes through, we’ll have a shipment of brand new time books. You could get one then.”

Devin looked up and smiled at the shopkeeper as she pulled out her coin purse. “No, this one is perfect. How much?”

“Ten cents seems fair. New one would be twenty.”

Devin nodded. It was more than fair. The shopkeeper had no idea what he had and she had no intention of telling him otherwise. She counted the coins out on the counter and the shopkeeper wrapped her purchase up in a sheet of yesterday’s newsprint. As she took it in her hand, he held on and she frowned at him, an eyebrow raised in question.

“Tell me, miss, what could you possibly want with this old thing?”

Devin’s face melted into a smile. “Time waits for no one, Mr. White, but perhaps someday it will wait for me.”

He let the parcel go and watched her walk out of the shop. He shivered once as the bell on the door chimed from her passage and shook his head as he went back to work.

“That’ll be twenty-five,” the taxi driver said.

Bethany turned back to the taxi. “Of course.” She reached into her wallet and pulled out the fare, plus a generous tip. “Thank you.”

The taxi driver grunted and stuffed the money into his pocket. Bethany decided the grunt meant thank you in taxi-speak and turned her attention back to the sky. She closed her eyes and smiled as the sun warmed her cheeks. As she opened her eyes, she looked at the white stucco patisserie in front of her. The fanciful, painted script was still there on the side of the building, just like she remembered, and the bush in front was now flowering.

“Perfect,” Bethany said as she picked up her two bags and walked to the front door. A whisk stuck out of one of the bags as she set it down to fiddle with the lock.

A few hours and few bangs of pots, cupboards, and doors later, the unmistakable scent of baking sweets curled out from the patisserie’s doors. And, for the first time in many years, people stopped and sniffed the air with puzzled, but hopeful smiles on their faces.

One man was bold enough to knock on the door and, finding it unlocked, popped his head inside. “Hello?” he called, more question than greeting.

“Oh, hello,” Bethany said, sticking her head around the doorframe to the kitchen. “Come on in. I just finished the first batch of madelines and would love a taste tester.”

“Madelines?” His face lit up with a smile half-hidden on his lips.

Bethany smiled and nodded.

“They’re my favorites. My wife used to make them.”

“Then you must try mine. Perhaps they’ll be half as good as hers.” She set down her bowl and brought out a plate of delicate madelines.

A few minutes later, the sound of laughter combined with the smell of pastries and sweets swept out the front door and into the street. The patisserie was perfect indeed.