It was almost empty then. A few dried coconut leaves and shells lay in a nook. I always withdrew from the hullabaloo. Yet I wasn’t alone in that thatched woodshed. A chameleon on the bamboo pillar often stared at me, changing its color to red. I didn’t believe it was sucking my blood. Under the roof of my dream, I reclined in a cane chair. William Shakespeare gave me philosophical company. I could hear the Western huntsman’s horn. When I slipped into a snooze, Lucy Gray gave me a nudge. Then I heard spiritual echoes in the corridor of the Ode. Luckily Francis Bacon didn’t see me, lest he would call me sloth, for spending too much time in studies. Bookworms ate my love. There was no flooring. I put down my textbook to watch a tortoise crawling in through the hole in the thatched wall. It retracted its head to restore peace. Nothing scratched my serenity. My dad enchanted all my anxieties and nailed them on his chest. He looked for my bright flames. Like the antlion in the pit on the sand floor, I waited patiently for wings.