Prologue
A snow-globe perched on the edge of a small table, beside a bed, in a dorm room, of a prestigious Ivy League university in America. More elegant than the usual last-minute-airport-gift plastic snow-globe, it was large, with thick glimmered glass that was perfectly rounded, set on a sturdy, shiny redwood base, heavy and elegant, a faux gold-plated banner proclaiming "Hollywood" stretched across it, below. Inside, the hills of Hollywood rolled, those signature letters spelling out the name that signified a thousand dreams of millions of people across the land, across the globe. Yet within this globe, silver flickers whirled and eddied with the shaking of it, shimmering through solid water to come to rest again at its enclosed floor, covering it in sparkling gray confetti-snow, until that next shaking occurred.
Somewhere else, in this city that once upon a time emerged full-blown from war and revolution, a product of momentous tea-parties and willed into existence by personages proclaiming independence and freedom, a perfect facsimile of another place, a different era, was even now being assembled on a movie set, inside of a non-descript building, on the far side of town. It had a porch. It had an entryway. It had a family room. It had a stairway. It had a history, too. And though it was transplanted here, into a large metropolitan city from a small, bayside town, memories seeped from its makeshift walls, as sap does from a tree – sticky sweet and yet just the slightest bit dangerous. Because sap is the life's blood of a tree, and if the sap is seeping from it, so, too, is its life slowly trickling. But that was beside the point. For this, now, in the midst of assembly, was a typical American house, awaiting its ghosts to return, to bring it to life, once again.
Earlier that evening, in the middle of town, a man and a woman stood by a jukebox, alone together, in a bar-room filled with people. They joked. They laughed. He playfully nipped at her arm. She wiped at it, somewhat repulsed. But she was smiling. They exchanged a summer memory, tossing each other traces of grins. And then they shared a look -- just a glance, really -- that resembled embers banked after a blaze. Yet beneath, errant sparks lay hidden, awaiting rekindling, but now, not to be ignited. So properly doused, she took his wrist in a gentle grasp and led him over to the table where their three friends sat, making them five. And they communed and cajoled as well as conversed and cheered to their libations, anticipating the arrival of the sixth of their intended party. The hours wore on and the five dwindled to just she, the one. On the verge of becoming none, he finally arrived, that aforementioned sixth emerging flustered from a taxi cab that had pulled up suddenly to the curb. Re-entering the bar, the renewed two drank to their reunion, and then danced to a song that conjured up that old familiar haunting. Later that night – or perhaps now it was morning? – those two became one, as had been foretold, all along. And then – only then – did the elephant officially enter the room.