petals with frilled edges, pale ones, vivd ones, petals with calyx still attached. they had all clung for a moment to the bricks of the wash landing, but in no time at all they were caught up in the stream again and melted into the mass.

Images were taken with a Leica MP with Carl Zeiss 35mm f2 Biogon and a Rolleiflex 3.5f.

None of the petals were withered or brown. On the contrary, perhaps because the water was so cold, they seemed fresher and fuller than ever, and their fragrance, mixed with the morning mist from the river, was overpoweringly strong.

Petals covered the surface as far as the eye could see. My hands had cleared a patch of water for a brief moment, but petals soon came flooding in again to fill it, and then they flowed on, almost as if someone had hypnotized each one of them and was drawing them toward the sea.

I wiped my palms together, brushing the petals that had stuck them back into the stream.

Yoko Ogawa – The Memory Police