She brought in a yellow plastic bag filled with elastic bands. She took a carrot from her pocket, and began to wrap each band around the helpless root. She talked about the weather, and rye, and her favourite colours, and quantum physics, and Debussy, and the creatures of the sea, and Mount Etna, and telephones, and clock hands, and Scotland, and wine, and rhythm, and politics, and jelly beans. And on the last band she spoke of you. And she parted the soil and planted her work. And then she walked away.