“Sophie Mol eventually found what she had been looking for.
Presents for her cousins. Triangular towers of Toblerone chocolate (soft and slanting
in the heat). Socks with separate multicolored toes. And two ballpoint pens—the top
halves filled with water in which a cut-out collage of a London streetscape was
suspended. Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. Shops and people. A red doubledecker
bus propelled by an air bubble floated up and down the silent street. There was
something sinister about the absence of noise on the busy ballpoint street.
Sophie Mol put the presents into her go-go bag and went forth into the world. To drive
a hard bargain. To negotiate a friendship.
A friendship that, unfortunately, would be left dangling. Incomplete. Flailing in the air
with no foothold. A friendship that never circled around into a story which is why, far
more quickly than ever should have happened, Sophie Mol became a Memory, while
The Loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. Like a fruit in season. Every season.”