Hermes, lowers the arm in which he holds his caduceus, straightens his back and looks down at the hustle and bustle of the soft ones.
There was a time which was their time, of the solid ones made of plaster, stone and metal, living on facades, corniches and rooftops—but they didn’t realize until it was over. There was a time when every day brought another inhabitant to the neighbourhood, but for many, many years now, no new solid has appeared, and even the old ones are vanishing, peeling, cracking, slowly chipping away.
Hermes sprints along the corniche of the building, gathering momentum, and soars above Dacilor Street, landing on the roof of Mirbach Palace. The six sisters chortle. The solids are deeply connected to the edifices they live on and having someone walk on their roof feels ticklish.
“I’m not the murderer, you are! You killed Summer with your cursed pigeon message!”
“I killed her? I told her the truth! You were the one courting another woman!”
“Athena and I were just talking!”
“That’s not what the pigeons were saying!”
“What do pigeons know!?”
“Everything!”
Hermes stomps along the ridge towards the next building, as the monkeys on Ștefania palace scream out of control.
”Come back and fight me!” Hector shouts behind him, as usual.
On the corner of 3rd August Boulevard with Corneliu Micloși Street there’s a particularly powerful street light. Hermes can’t risk being seen, so he removes a tile from the roof of the building and aims it at the lightbulb. A crack and the street goes dark. The tile shatters on the pavement, and a soft one pokes his head from a window of Steiner Palace.
“Again?! You hooligans! I’ll call the police!”
He knows Summer can’t see him—he’s tried. She’s not a solid anymore, but not a soft one either—she’s a creature of light now. St Nepomuk told him they’re called angels.
There, on the other side of the river, high above the dark trees of the park, a gigantic Summer glows and spins and twirls across the night sky. She thrusts her hand forward and the Mirbach Palace grows out of her palm, not cracked and peeling as it is now, but perfect, as it was in the beginning.
