They picture: a bicycle; a hand pulled rickshaw; an Ambassador car; and, that most beloved of urban symbols, a three-wheeler scooter rickshaw (TSR in sarkari bhasha; to some foreign tourists, a tuk-tuk). Visitors usually register them with micro-smiles, given with faintly amused approval and without comment.

Deep Design settles in to the soft cushions and runs a speculative eye on the road travelled by these variously-wheeled vehicles. How did these objects of everyday utility turn into what we may call figures of fun?

Visit an appropriately tony gift shop and note that these images are commonplace, reprised repeatedly by designers, named or anonymous. The bicycle is a popular street toy in wire. The Amby, as the Ambassador is affectionately known, appears as a toy, has served as muse to many nameless designers, also to eminent photographer Raghubir Singh who shot a documentary book around it, and celebrated contemporary sculptor Subodh Gupta who cast one in metal. (Gupta’s work frequently references quotidian objects, revealing a grotesque comedy of class manners). The TSR is a curio favourite, and the illustrator’s pet..

There are more such: the little bronze miniatures of coal-heated irons, the massive istri your presswala (the Delhi term for ironing man) flattens your clothes with (pictured); the ‘bhopu’ or air claxon that served as a horn on the TSR long after cars went entirely electric.

The ubiquity of these images, and the certitude of their interpretation, is the reason that my typical guest gets the image, without comment. You could say these images are in the ‘popular culture’ (itself a pop culture term) except that the term ‘popular’ assumes that we know who is or isn’t included.

An American, as a first time visitor, for example, would not warm to the TSR or the Ambassador in the way ‘we’ do. Without the shared reference, the image does not travel from us to him in the manner it travels amongst ourselves. This sort of generally westernised, English-speaking Indian visitors to my drawing room can be expected the access the encoded meaning of the images; the American cannot. We say that these images form an index, a code that is shared by a specific group.

But shared reference is not enough to enter an object in the index; nor is the property of antiqueness, or ordinariness, sufficient. A Honda car may feature as a toy car, but has zero status as an image for consumption.

To be indexed for enjoyment, the property that an image/object needs is what I call distance, a degree of separation from the object, so that it is taken out of our everyday, our present. Thus, the TSR driver and the ironing man cannot be expected to share in our jollity on their everyday tools being picturised, as innocent, glorious or fun.

The meaning is created not by the shared reference of the coal iron or TSR as objects, but by the distance from them, shared by members of a class that is characterising the other. By imaging and framing these objects, a class further distances and separates itself from the other (in this example, the dhobi and rickshawala class) by emphasising the object’s foreign-ness, and viewing it with a ironic, if affectionate gaze.

a class further distances and separates itself from the other by emphasising the object’s foreign-ness, and viewing it with a ironic, if affectionate gaze.

So the shared meaning is in the gaze, not in the object.

Class is thus a fecund source of image codes. Image and identity make each other. The objects both indicate and sustain a kind of intra-class signalling, making the mundane exotic, and the adjacent foreign. The result is the creation of a vernacular.

Meanings can also be reinforced by members of powerful outside groups. The westerner’s fascination with the TSR signals or reinforces its value; the class that can access and align itself westwards, now finds redoubled enjoyment in it. A kind of inter-class signalling.

Not just objects but styles and aesthetic themes can emerge from class or group signalling. Businesses can appropriate the codes thus created.

Not just objects but styles and aesthetic themes can emerge from class or group signalling. Businesses can appropriate the codes thus created.

In India, we recognise as a kind of kitsch the styles that emerged from Hindi cinema posters, now lost, as we do the swaggering (or swooning) dialogue that we parody. The use of polychrome gods on a notebook as a kind of urban chic (pictured), and the instructional “Ideal Boy Charts” (pictured) that now have meme status depend on this class-located gaze. The ironic enjoyment of these is for those at whom the original images were not aimed, in order: the not-filmy-at heart, the well-schooled, and dare I say it, the ungodly, to whom the notebook might be a mild sacrilege, or attract devotion, not a wink.

What’s in all of this for design? Design’s first task may well be the creation of better outcomes or adding value to a client situation, but it cannot be left at that. A residual task of design is to contribute to the visual world, leaving it better. We remember whether products were beautiful or ugly long after we took for granted that they worked, or didn’t. To do this, and perhaps even to be effective in her primary task, the designer needs a heightened awareness of how things come to mean something, and especially, to whom.

____________________

First published in a slightly modified form ‘A Class Apart’ in Business Standard, 31 March, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.

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This is a recipe for eggnog, the ‘traditional’ holiday drink, at any rate in the English-speaking world. Downing a glass induces the kind of warm torpor so suited to reflection, which, with celebration, is part of the deep design of all festivals, especially those that mark a new year. A good place to start is the quote marks on ‘traditional’.

Festival traditions are in a permanent state of slow flux, subject to the processes of evolution, cross-breeding, mergers and a myriad of social and economic currents. So Christmas has several origins, as does Diwali, often referred to as India’s equivalent of Christmas. No single myth governs them. Diwali is a convergence of practice among different faiths, not a consensus of meaning.

This suggests that most festivals that are part of religious traditions, are also connected to older folk traditions. Thus Christmas is eventually Christian, but its traditions and origins were several before they became singular. Christmas lore is an amalgam of the traditions of several countries; even Yule (Yuletide, remember?) is a Germanic, pre-christian festival, and the long-bearded appearance of Father Christmas/Santa Claus/Sinterklaas may wind back to the Norse Odin (or later derivations thereof). And so on and on.

Festivals are co-opted into newer religions as a part of an embrace-and-extend strategy adopted by religious leaders since religions also collaborate with power. (Though differences in degree may distinguish Semitic religions from, say, the Hindu faith).

The point is that since these festivals are neither non-religious nor explicitly liturgical, they are much freer to evolve or invent themselves than religious rituals. The co-opting of festivals by larger, powerful religious movements, or by different communities may lead to a certain uniformity of performance.

In modernity, though, commerce and media are likely the most powerful forces that both stimulate re-invention and crystallise festival tradition. India is not a stranger to these newly synthesised ‘traditions’. The Santoshi Mata cult appeared spontaneously in the 1960s, spread by lore and word of mouth. But an iconography (appearance, dress, texts) are products of print capitalism (posters) and, to coin a phrase, entertainment capitalism, with the 1975 blockbuster film Jai Santoshi Ma.

In modernity, though, commerce and media are likely the most powerful forces that both stimulate re-invention and crystallise festival tradition.

And so it is with eggnog (the recipe above is Jamie Oliver’s, one of the 13.5 million pages answering to ‘eggnog recipes’ on Google). The recent, often commercial origins of many Christmas rituals is common knowledge. The figure of Santa (as a fat man) is said to be a Coca Cola creation, and the current uniform, the ‘Santa Suit’ dates to Henry Nast’s work for Harper’s magazine. A newspaper illustration of Queen Victoria with a Christmas tree is said to have ignited the popularity of the craze, with artificial trees (1930) being introduced by a toothbrush manufacturer putting a spare machine to profitable use. Christmas cards date to Sir Henry Cole who had the first set printed with a common message, and so on and on to every detail.

Consumer media culture has created an exact, and universally agreed set of symbols with which we celebrate, and especially, consume the festival. Design, through media’s power of multiplication facilitates the creation of these symbols. They are born from other, older imagery, by repeating, and re-using them and fixing their shape in specific ways.

Consumer media culture has created an exact, and universally agreed set of symbols with which we celebrate, and especially, consume the festival.

The examples above, (to which add flying reindeer sled, gifts, holly and mistletoe, all drawn from various traditions) are the work of a legion of illustrators, advertisers, songwriters and tunesmiths who have fashioned a commercialised, consistent and largely transnational festival. A red, green and white palette in certain proportions instantly spells Christmas, if it is a certain time of the year. Gradually, less and less figurative detail is needed.

The deity Ganesha similarly is an all-weather icon, made compact, portable and viral. Ganesha transcends affiliations. Even minimally religious people collect Ganesha figurines as showpieces, or they might jostle for space on the pooja rack: no theological specificity applies. A painter down on his luck can survive by churning out a few. Again, his popularity allows the elimination of detail and extravagant simplification of form. Fittingly, communist China supplies both Ganeshas and Christmas decorations. One village, says BBC, has 600 factories that account for 60% of the world’s supply of the latter.

But the graphic plane is not the sole site of simplification. Festivals themselves are radically simplified into a precise choreography of symbols and rituals, driven by commerce, not by community. This objectifies it in two senses. A symbolic code with a set of visual, physical (even edible!) objects; and in the sense of making it objective—tick these boxes (wear the Santa Cap, stuff a stocking) to satisfy the conditions of performance.

In this setting it’s hard to achieve an authentic connection with the festival without escaping into the arms of the Mass or the mandir. A Diwali tied to crackers or a Christmas marked by a sad mall Santa sweating under his cotton beard, picture the world that the communications industry—and designers, too—have helped fabricate.

It’s something to consider when we sit down to design. Our profession fits in the framework of creating value for our clients. Our output, though, becomes a part of the pool of images and artefacts, that we call culture, and therefore can and should be seen outside that frame. Every now and then, we are criticised for our part in creating an ugly world, just as those who see Gurgaon’s commercial district as monstrosities must surely pass some of the blame to architects. But with these images and artefacts, we facilitate changes in practice and traditions. Perhaps we’ll take some of the blame for creating a shinier, prettier, easier world, and in so doing, a trivialised and arguably impoverished experience of this thing called the festival.

Our output, though, becomes a part of the pool of images and artefacts, that we call culture, and therefore can and should be seen outside that frame.

The symbols increasingly substitute the thing, inserting the gaudy, trivial and universally-unrejected in place of the personal, fulfilling but effortful. A bit like an eggnog powder (just add water).

Season’s greetings anyway.

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First published in a slightly modified form ‘A brand new Christmas’ in Business Standard, 23 December, in Deep Design, a monthly column by Itu Chaudhuri.

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We learnt a lot about design, and about ourselves, in the last month. Our studio recently curated an exhibition, which pitted ten products by a Swiss product design firm against ten objects from our culture, to ‘tell their stories’.

The pairings aren’t direct. Finding a counterpart requires a matching cultural context, which often doesn’t exist, so we tried to discover conceptually analogous matches.

Deep Design looks at the test result, treating the Swiss products as provocations. Decoupled from the their Swiss matches, the selection has its own fingerprint. Discover inspiring new products, and rediscover some old ones.

As we reflect on what fascinates us, dogs us, or challenges us, here are some of the themes.

The Commonplace

First, finding designed products was hard. The product design industry in India is thinner than Europe’s. Accordingly, we responded with commonplace, ubiquitous objects.

The Chai Carrier is an example of ‘silent’ design, that has been evolved, rather than consciously designed, by anonymous creators. A more primitive form of it is improvised from twisted wire.

These commonplace finds, as with products of evolution, follow a ‘just enough’ ethos in their construction, showing a marvellous frugality of material, minimal tooling and technology, and opportunism.

commonplace finds, as with products of evolution, follow a ‘just enough’ ethos in their construction

But how well they serve their context and purpose! The Chai Carrier will travel on a lift to an office, or up a bamboo scaffolding to a welder working high above the street.

The God Tile is opportunistic: transferring a ‘God photo’ on to a standard white ceramic tile adds great value. It’s a zero-footprint puja point in the tiniest home, or a ready decoration for the tiny, high maintenance temple on your pavement (and for another use, see WIT).

The Phat Phat Boat and Banta Bottle fall are also commonplace objects but have other points of interest (see ALIEN REPORT).

Alien Report

Like the brand Bata, we may think of the Phat Phat Boat and Banta Bottle as Indian, but all three are have 19th century European origins. In India, the Boat and the Bottle became popular before independence, when markets were much more open than at any time between 1947 and the 1990s. They have survived, if only barely, the onslaught of Fisher-Price and Big Soda. A small legion of fans keeps them alive.

The Banta Bottle (patented 1872 in England as the Codd bottle but manufactured in India) contains an ingenious glass marble that serves as a pressure lock. On opening, it rolls back into the neck ready to be used for the next filling, magically letting soda flow freely when you swig. A genuinely sustainable bottle.

Like the Chai Carrier, the Bottle now enjoys a claim to an inverted chic, because a new, tony urban class now finds the street’s artefacts and language exotic. The Phat Phat Boat (an English patent from 1891) is powered by a tiny oil flame. It responds to nostalgia and parents’ yearning for simplistic, educational toys that are tactile. It’s made from recycled tin (scoring eco-points) and sold online under a creative commons license, a very 21st century touch.

Craft

It’s difficult to think of Indian design without traditional craft. It gives it identity, and a good deal of commerce. Outside textiles, though, it’s hard going. An unchanging discourse centres on ‘saving’ skills and communities, challenging designer-entrepreneurs to find new uses for objects or new techniques that can connect artisans to the market.

challenging designer-entrepreneurs to find new uses for objects or new techniques that can connect artisans to the market

Varnam’s Bird Hooks are a reuse of traditional turned-lacquer toys. They can be fixed to a wall to just charm, or hang up your T shirt or hand-bag. The maker’s effort to build a modern boutique brand around it is noteworthy, with attractive packaging.

The Unipod is an ingenious lightweight frame structure which exploits the lightness and tensile strength unique to bamboo, resulting in a portable seat that can bear 200 times its weight. By leveraging artisanship rather than products, it’s a compelling story of the melding of modern design and traditional skill.

Wit

…is well and alive. The Indian Standard Time watch is a copywriter’s gag which turns our chronic lateness into a national joke we can wear proudly on our wrist. Money Tree visually pictures the old warning about trees and money, but creates an arresting image of the cycle of money, with the air of a shrine to money. SwitchMe is a simple amusement, half toy, half appliance, letting you switch on your salt or pepper.

The first two ideas draw on two cultural strands that hold meaning for us: lateness and Lakshmi. All three are children of this age, employing a type of verbal humour that travels well on the internet. (Another cultural idea, in a different class of wit is the common use of the God Tile on the exterior wall of a building, to discourage passers-by from using the wall as a pissoir or a paan-spittoon).

employing a type of verbal humour that travels well on the internet.

Modern Product Design is not a Footnote

Our studio was conscious that our selections would represent India in a particular way. Craft, and anonymous ingenuity are all very well, but what about professional Design? Three of our picks are outstanding examples.

Ticket’s Etherena IUE is empowering and inspiring. It inserts a pre-loaded IUD in a one-handed, no-touch action. Its curvature eases the process, avoiding pain, injury and sepsis. The simple push-pull knob action needs minimal training. It won the prestigious Red Dot Award in 2013.

The Unipod’s contribution has been detailed above, and has won several awards; the SwitchMe is well awarded, and has been shown at the MoMA.

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In India, the notion of the brand is both nascent and spreading at a gallop. States, NGOs, government bodies, spiritual leaders, cricket teams, and other once-unlikely entities are starting to receive marketing attention, so the brand is never far behind. It’s the new orthodoxy.

University brands, an oxymoron in India until the 1990s, are a fascinating example. They are numerous, often very old, and slow to change, and display, like species, many stages of evolution. This is reflected in their visual identities.

Of course, there’s much more to a brand than the logo, which is only the tip of the brand’s iceberg, so to speak. But it is a tell-tale sign of how an organisation sees itself, and the face it wants to show.

Deep Design reveals the interplay of symbol and reality and the invisible hand of evolution. We shall consider two epochs, the shift (in India) occurring in the late 20th century.

For 150 years, university identities followed an internationally prescribed code. The words seal, insignia or emblem come to mind. A circular typographic arrangement, or the ever-present shield serves as a container. The contents picture symbols of learning, or subjects of study. Shields, divided in a medieval manner, allow a set of images, rather than a unitary symbol.

For 150 years, university identities followed an internationally prescribed code

Like Olympic games symbols up to 1952, they were more traditional than the period warranted, and designed to look like authoritative insignia of learning (with Indian or other local inflections). This applied even when universities displayed modernity in other ways, like architecture. IIM Ahmedabad is housed in a famed modernist masterpiece, but its logo defers to the code: a Mughal arch and tendrils.

Privatisation is the lens through which the evolution of university identity, visual and non-visual is understood. Let’s use 1995 as a convenient year, when the first private university was notified. There are now over 200.

Privatisation is the lens through which the evolution of university identity, visual and non-visual is understood.

University identities after 1995 are visibly different from their forbears. There’s more variety and individuality, and some modernist simplification. The best attempts look more like modern logos, not insignia. Look, no privatisation! Case solved?

Not entirely. Many, like Amity (a prototypical private university) sport logos that reek strongly of the older code. And even in the previous age, there were privately funded and managed colleges and universities (BITS Pilani, for example). The name Ivy League (ivy climbing up those centuries-old stone walls), brands a club of old, influential universities that retain links to their heritage identities, a code imitated by several US universities.

So are university logos explained as effectively by period (design fashion), and imitation, as by private ownership? To gain more nuance than these hardy perennial explanations provide, we must return to the founding concept of the university, which is the archetypal ideal that we hold in our minds.

The oldest (let’s call them Classical) universities predate modern states though they enjoyed royal and religious support. A community of wise men, either proven or incipient seekers, self-governed, with their own rules, traditions and arcana, and free from excessive oversight. Often monastic in origin and spirit, joined by the pursuit of knowledge, for its own sake.

The oldest universities are often monastic in origin and spirit, joined by the pursuit of knowledge, for its own sake.

Modern states preserved the essentials of this arrangement, even for private universities in the new nation of America. These old universities approximate classical ones (and receive state support with minimal oversight).

The post-private university or PPU (a new phenomenon needs a new label) differs on many of these dimensions. It no longer lurks in the shadows of the state, but feels the harsh glare of competition, not of ideas, but for customers. Global rankings objectivise and hijack the meaning of institutional quality.

The post-private university feels the harsh glare of competition, not of ideas, but for customers.

For the first time, the university must be marketed. It is a product with a proposition for customers (students, donors, and faculty). In many PPUs, students rather than pursuing knowledge for its own sake, are buying a career. ROI calculations are openly made.

Its superboss may be an ‘edupreneur’ who exhorts a Chief Marketing Officer to achieve explicit business objectives. Annual ad spends may top Rs. 50 cr. Crucially, the PPU is managerially run, like a corporation, and thus not entirely collegially governed. (On the plus side, some academic staff may much better paid).

It’s natural then, that the university’s logo needs to maximise visibility, memorability, compactness and attractiveness, that is, more like a modern logo rather than a seal. It is an object of universal, accessible appeal, not a depiction of an immovable ideal. It’s corporate identity, and in some cases, literally so.

Despite this pressure to market and brand, the identities of many Indian PPUs, unlike their Western cousins, are ungainly vestiges of colonial codes or confused hybrids. Not for want of funds, but of vision.

Most PPUs start with a deficit of reputation. The logo (along with copious built infrastructure, in some cases) attempts to compensate by evoking antiquity. It’s an attempt to brand by association with the classical university and channel its trust, authenticity and experience.

Too few have the confidence to assert a fresh path, by conspicuous investment in wise men, or a long term program of excellence.

Two exceptions, among others, are Ashoka and Nalanda, who have made the former investment. I mention them because their names place them in ancient antiquity, rather than in the colonial past, and their identities are coherent with modernity.

It’s not inconceivable that these post-private pressures will apply to classical universities, who may compete for funds if not for students’ fees, as in the West.

University brands need to forget markers of antiquity, and express the values which make the old fellows relevant in modern times.

A university draws its credibility from research that seeks the truth on subjects of unchanging and ancient interest. That’s a philosophical standard that is universal, permanent and non-differentiable. University brands need to forget markers of antiquity, and express the values which make the old fellows relevant in modern times. Adopting a few of those values will be differentiation enough.

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“Clutter,” said the Grandiosely Opinionated Deviant, (GOD) “is a master theme of Indian visuality.” He adjusted a pair of futuristic-looking hospital-issue dark glasses, an odd presence in the restaurant we were in. Recovering from eye surgery, he’d asked—summoned, really—my help with making notes and drafting a paper on aesthetics.

Clutter, really? I asked, thinking aloud.

“Clutter, is a master theme of Indian visuality.”

Visual clutter, said GOD, resists precise specification but there are Rules. The First, he said, counting with his fingers, is High Spatial Density, or a crowd of elements. Second, A Narrow Spectrum of Importance: elements are scattered around the ‘middle’ of the importance spectrum, not in groups of equal importance. And no single element dominates. Third, Locally Bounded Organisation: no organising principle is visible, except in a partial region. Fourth, a High Specification Density—multiple colours, sizes, shapes, lettering. Fifth, High Level Clutter involves multiple themes, and codes (that charming cluster of fridge magnets satisfies all the rules except this one).

Knowing GOD’s distaste for pseudo-mathematical formulations, I suspected satire, but his black glasses ensured an opaque expression.

Having used up all five fingers, said GOD, now for some Postulates. One, nature is never cluttered, however wild. And Two, clutter is not intentional, but a result of lack of intent.

One, nature is never cluttered, however wild. And Two, clutter is not intentional, but a result of lack of intent.

Postulate Two suggests that urban clutter reflects the absence of a civic impulse and sufficient capabilities of orchestration. Postulate One recognises clutter as essentially urban. Purely tribal or rural environments are only cluttered by urban contact, since they have been adapted to natural systems, over centuries.

So clutter, (and its nastier cousins, squalor and ugliness) may be a consequence of the fracture created by economic energy greatly exceeding the formation of social consensus or culture to manage and accommodate change. We can build cities and machines much faster than we can adapt to them socially.

Clutter, may be a consequence of the fracture created by economic energy greatly exceeding the formation of social consensus

Our visuality is shaped by our environment, which is shaped by us. It’s a cycle, he said, tracing a finger around the edge of his empty plate.

Our visuality is shaped by our environment, which is shaped by us. It’s a cycle.

That rash of a hundred signboards you see on every street, but no longer notice? They’re a result of what was imprinted on you as you grew up. And your inurement to your surroundings is a part of you.

Here, GOD went into a brooding silence. I wonder, he finally said, if we just tolerate clutter, busy-ness, noise, and its other forms, or actually like it? Do we find it useful, comforting, even enabling?

Successful TV news channels are the most cluttered, he said, gesturing to a wall-mounted TV which showed an anchor scolding a politician. Times Now, he said, has zoomed past past veteran NDTV, which responded with a low-clutter, white and red scheme. Its election graphics are clear and focused, while Times Now’s are crowded, garish and make me look for the data in the clutter.

Yet, clutter wins.  I watched a colleague, said GOD, watch an election results show who seemed baffled by the clarity of the NDTV graphic, asking, where’s the data?

Clutter seems to correlate with success, and Mario Garcia, the international news design consultant, says that Indians like their news busy. Though Fox News easily out-clutters and outsells its rivals, too.

Clutter seems to correlate with success, and Mario Garcia, the international news design consultant, says that Indians like their news busy.

Now what does that say about us?

We can mine clutter to excavate its functional, emotional and symbolic sides. News presentation in India trends towards more, shorter stories, more entry points, a larger menu—that’s a functional argument for clutter.

So is, curiously, that state election campaign poster, did you see the one outside? In a developed country it would focus  on the message and its sender. Ours are a throng: six politician’s heads, names, designations, dates, venues, party symbol, slogans floating in a steaming soup of saffron, white and green. Clutter at its best.

That poster, said GOD, isn’t meant to convey an election promise. It asserts the power that flows from local and national support: oppose at your risk. The protocol of precisely sized heads reflects both the power and how it is shared.

Clutter also promotes flexibility, avoids commitment, and keeps things moving—for today.

Clutter also promotes flexibility, avoids commitment, and keeps things moving—for today.

Next, we experience clutter as value for money; there’s always place for a third person on the two wheeler. It feels like the little extra we crave. We eat cluttered; a bit of pickle, a bite of onion, and another of green chilly chasing the food already in our mouths.

It’s reassuring; a cluttered store telegraphs economy and freedom from cunning artifice.

Symbolically, clutter is democratic! announced GOD, tapping a fork like a judge’s gavel. All citizens are equal before the (lack of) law; all are enabled when they steal a public good like visual access or order. My right to an obstructive, unsanctioned signboard is equal to yours (or more equal).

Anti-clutter, to coin a phrase, is the Western ideal. Its manner seems bare and sterile to us, like a sort of poverty. Less is a bore! Clutter is fecund and in a perverse way like our traditional art which pictures fullness and plenty. So do our old temples, which are ornate but not cluttered. But step inside, and behold the deity, cluttered with signs of love and power! No splendidly forlorn, untouchable Christ for us.

Anti-clutter, to coin a phrase, is the Western ideal. Its manner seems bare and sterile to us, like a sort of poverty. Less is a bore!

Anti-clutter’s honoring of a central object seems egotistical and oversure [the second Rule]. We like monuments, too, but to soar above the clutter, but not address it. Agra counterbalances the Taj Mahal, Mumbai’s modest parts are an antidote to Antilla.

At this, GOD lowered his black glasses. Through red, swollen eyes he blinked painfully at the sight of the restaurant. I followed his gaze. When I turned to look at him again, there was a flash of light and he was gone. On his plate were some withering rose petals and broken marigold flowers. I swear.

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