Wheel sits in the great room, pen and papers, dictionary, thesaurus scattered before him.

Zenshiro looks over his shoulder. “What are you doing, my friend?”

“Looking for le mot juste.”

“I see.”

Wheel hands the abbot a sheet. “I need something for the blank.”

________ path through the woods.
Still house.

Iron, moss, and rust:
the gate was open all along.

“So I’m wordstorming.” He hands the master another sheet, this with dozens of words scrawled on it. “The thesaurus helps leapfrog, generate new ideas, and so on.”

“Twangling?”

“I marked that one out, okay?”

Zenshiro places the papers on the table. “Perhaps you should go feed the ducks,” he says.

Wheel wrinkles his forehead. “Why, Sensei?”

“You cannot see a thing by staring at it.”