8·melu so shua

Where to looks back, so looks forward: same position, touching the verb, announcing that the doing is still ahead. And one small gift in this chapter costs you nothing: lo mia (many-I) is how Phi says we. You have owned both pieces since chapter three.

SceneI

Evening, at the table. Plans:

melu so shua.lo mia muila so muholi.lo mia wei muila thinoe so loa.pheralu so lepa.sileta keru so loa.lo peloru so sheloa.

A friend will come; we will dig the earth; we will give seeds to the earth. That is how Phi plants: giving, wei muila, to the earth as to a friend. Rain will fall, the sun will give light, and the flowers will bloom. Six sentences, and a whole garden stands in the future.

SceneII

Morning. The future starts arriving:

sileta rihe. melu shua.melukia. wa lo mia muila so muholi.phaolia. whelani.phao muila muholi. melu muila muholi.lopia thinoe kolua.lopia wei muila thinoe loa.

Notice the friend's question still carries so : at the door, the digging is still ahead, and four sentences later it is simply happening, unmarked, now. Tomorrow keeps turning into today; the particles keep up.

SceneIII

lohau muila muholi.phaotua lohau. tua.misheko lo miona nila.misheko nulae.

The dog also digs the earth. This is not the help it appears to be. The cat watches the entire enterprise and reaches its usual conclusion.

SceneIV

lopiawa lo peloru so sheloa.wheolia. lo peloru so sheloa.shero shua.lo mia nulae.misheko rihe.

Will the flowers bloom? They will. The elder says it the way elders say such things: with the same words the child used, returned in the same order, and no doubt anywhere in them. Night comes; we sleep; the cat considers this a sensible beginning.