Eusebio

Eusebio walks hunched over, but it isn't age: it's the way of carrying something you can neither squeeze nor set down. His citrine holds inside it a piece of sun from many summers ago, from those long middays when light was plentiful, and he gathered it the way one gathers firewood for later. When winter gets into someone's house — and we don't mean the cold outside, but the other one, the kind that shows up when the days all start to look the same — Eusebio comes close with his pointed cap and leaves the stone nearby for a while. He never gives it away. He lends it. The citrine warms the air just barely, just enough for the person to remember that the sun exists and comes back. Then he picks it up and goes on his way. There are warmths you can't buy or ask for: someone keeps them for you without your knowing.