Tag: Listen

LISTEN

Oh he had something. Unique it was what he had. Something to do with his ears, he said. Everything fine-tuned so his balance was perfect. He walked between high buildings balanced on a high wire and cameras recording every balletic stumble but Emile never falling.

I saw him once take a wheelbarrow out on the same wire, like there was a garden in the sky needing his attention, and a woman in clouds of white tuille and lace was seated in the barrow, and he made it look so easy. And another time he fried an egg on a small travel stove. An omeltte I think it was, and with a napkin tucked beneath his chin he made a meal of those broken eggs, and only air between him and his own scrambled end on the pavements below.

All in the grace of his body, bending and twisting and pirouetting onto the pages of our newspapers.

And it’s all in the ears, he said. That’s the secret of perfect balance. You listen to the movement of the air, the breath of God, and you let yourself be played, like a wind-harp, and balance is just holding a single perfect note. Listen.

I told him again and again it was over. I whispered it in his sleep, sang it to him over breakfast, spoke it plain as speaking can when serving him dinner. It’s over. He looked up from his beer and his chips. He was smiling. I don’t think he’d actually heard what I’d said.

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→Written by Lindsay and shared through the comments section of Daily Journal Prompt #152. If a daily journal prompt inspires your writing, please share it with me so I can consider posting it for others to read as well. Thanks for reading! -PMc←