EVER SINCE CORNELIA came out of her mother’s womb, the windows to her soul were always open. The four winds of heaven blew the dust from her shadows and her shadows glowed like rosy stars. Her voice had the tendency to redden the cheeks of the air and turn the pale of the evening into wine. Her parents were proud of her but felt also that she was a little odd. The oddness was something that made itself more known when someone looked deep into her eyes. The soul is always odd when the windows to your own are closed.

‘Don’t sit next to her!’ the children at school would say.

The teachers did not feel much different; they were just not as honest. In the playground, Cornelia played on her own. She amused herself by sitting under an apple tree, closing her eyes, letting her spirit fly and playing with the angels. When the bell rang, she opened her eyes once again to the solid dream of earth.

At home she fed the peculiar birds in her garden. The birds were odd like her and so a bond was formed. She fed the bird’s nuts and seeds and sometimes berries and others fruits. Her mother found it all a terrible business and found the birds ugly, shewing them away whenever she had the opportunity.

‘Cornelia, please stop feeding the birds.’ her mother often pleaded. Her father was indifferent to the situation and was deaf to such pleas.

On weekends Cornelia visited her grandmother. Her grandmother was of an ancient origin and like her granddaughter, was something of a black sheep. She was teaching Cornelia the language of the trees, which was as her grandmother told her, like music as it is always translated in feeling. She took Cornelia out into the woods and they kissed the wind with the vows of their hearts, in honour of the trees which painted the landscape. She was teaching Cornelia the important lesson of respect. Her grandmother learned respect as a little girl when she was playing in the countryside...