Jan the watchmaker

Lives in a small apartment at the top of an old house. He sleeps in a single bed, in a somewhat dark attic and loves to read by candlelight.

He often lays awake in the faint warm glow, thinking of little gears. Turning.

Tiny ticks of constant movement, mimicking celestial motions. Jan often thinks of this connection on nights where he lets the moonlight shine through his window.

He obsesses over the turning of things.

Jan has a small son who sometimes comes to join him working in his workshop come bedroom. Little Jan.

His bright eyes are so full of life. Reflecting the candle light almost perfectly, the tiny flame flickers in the marble green ocular backdrop - of Little Jan’s eyes.

He sits on his fathers lap for a bedtime story, then often falls asleep. And it’s at this time their heartbeats seem to fall in sync. Like two pendulums, swaying in the pull of gravity.

The dim little attic is animated with things forever flowing and moving.

——-

Evelyn the heiress

Wakes up in a bed large enough to fit six people. Flat, simple and expansive.

A bright, white room with high ceilings. The East master bedroom of a stately home.

She sleeps in this room to be woken naturally by the autumn sun. Looking through the huge windows out over the dewy grass stretching into the distance toward the orange glow behind the tress.

Throwing light onto the simple furnishings. Deliberately bland oval white vases that aren’t too ornate, which let the rising light bend over their beautifully curved surfaces.

A white chair, at a white desk. Everything is given a nice hue by the changing light but is itself lifeless and inanimate.