MERVEILLES1 STACK012

Text :

At the end of the Kaesong market, where the canal divides the
last shops from the oldest district of the city, six children watched
me watching them. A mirror game that goes on and on, where the
loser is the one who looks down, who lets the other's gaze pass
through, like a ball. The long volley of smiles.

My third eye was a bit like cheating. Every click of the shutter
was greeted with great hilarity, like when Chaplin puts an iron in
his boxing glove. At half-time the three little girls got together,
and with much natural grace and gravity they offered me their
performance.

Behind me, the mufled sound of the market crowd, calm,
numerous, almost without cries or shouts, rather all rustles and
soft squeaks -a gathering of birds. And before me, without a single
adult in view (except for the white shadow busy at some kind of
cooking behind the windowed door), three very young Fates
tracing figures of style, from the berceuse to the paean.

Perhaps they were Haisuni, Talsuni, and Peolsuni, the three
little girls in the story (our Little Red Riding Hood multiplied by
three, with the wolf replaced by a tiger-of course, how else could
he pass for their grandmother?). In the end, Haisuni becomes the
sun, Talsuni the moon, and Peolsun the stars, and their job is to
leave no patch of shadow on the surface of the earth, nor in the
hearts of men.