I'd originally planned on posting the second section of my story in the Writer's section here...but Ilya and Aleo and Dorianna are being a bit stubborn at the moment...Ah...a writer's life. Fictitious characters actually take on lives of their own and become intractable when you really want to finish telling their story. Oh well...Ilya, the central character IS cooperating at least, so part two of "The Guardian" will probably be appearing tomorrow. In the meantime, I am taking advantage of this moment to actually make a post, and as I was scrounging through the zillions of photographs I'd taken, I came across this lone, yellow flower. I remember the day it was taken. It was on a day I longed to return to the constant stimulation of Prague...the city itself, the people, the Pilsner Urquell for unbelievably cheap prices at nearly every bar in the city...the serene and lovely Vltava River. I'd missed the rakish Czech charm that I'd come to know and love...and though I didn't know it at the time...Prague (and indeed the entire Czech Republic) had come to influence so much of what the fictitious worlds of Nemaea are becoming. Dortmund is a different city, with a more workaday vibe. Ambitions among those I know are simply to work. Laudable goals, most assuredly, but for anyone who has ever created or captured, you know that working for a boss is NOT the best thing in life. In a desperate attempt create, I went out to take pictures...to find something to stimulate me--to stir my blood, if not my passions. It was a warm day, I remember that. It was an overcast day. I remember that as well. The steel mill in the distance DID stimulate me--in the manner of a backdrop: stage dressing. But there seemed to be precious little else. So what I did was look for something small...something easily overlooked, and though I have no bad things to say about the kind-hearted residents of Dortmund, there is a lot that is overlooked. Flowers, I was told in implied ways, should be photographed ONLY in gardens...and so a lone blossom peeking through a fence over a cracked sidewalk easily escapes casual attention. This one didn't however...and little did I know that at the time of this picture, I was nearing the time when I'd be reunited with Katja and Stepan, with Jarda and with Pavl, with Katja-number-Three, and with the other people I'd missed so much. Seeing the image of this flower brought all of that back and reminded me of what I can too easily take for granted here in Prague. I *MIGHT* be going back to Dortmund for a while. I left a lot of things there, after all, and I DO need them...but I'm not too anxious to leave Prague...there is too much that I wish to start here...too much that I wish to finish. So here is a flower...a lone, yellow blossom captured in the waning days of summer. I consider it the prequel to my return to Prague, and even if Dortmund doesn't compare to the city I've fallen head over heels in love with, I'm glad for it and for the friends I DO Have there. In a sense, this flower is for them, for Prague, and for everyone else who has good things in life that are hard to see and easy to ignore. Thank you for viewing and reading, and commenting on this and previous posts, and I hope you are all having a great day/evening...and SOON...I hope...I'll have part two of The Guardian posted. Until then, enjoy a blossom.