An Unusually Beautiful Afternoon

I stepped up out of the underground. The weather was unusually beautiful. The sun warmed my face and cast my sharp, black shadows across the stairs. Spring is a powerful drover driving out the winter stallions with cherry blossom whips and a green grassy spurs. The transformation under this new law is radical. Never before have I experienced such a dramatic regime change. I have not closed my window for days. I have need of neither heat now air con. This temperamatic equilibrium cannot last forever though. Stablility is fleeting. Already there are rumors of an approaching invader. Scorching the land as he romes. The air breathes foreboding. A single bead of sweat whispers of the future.

He’s coming.

He’s coming.

He’s coming...

As it loses its grip on your brow and tumbles to the pavement below.

* * *

As I stepped from the shadows and felt the soft transitional glow of our distant celestial friend, I was distracted by a booming hair raising call. A voice rising above the hum and bustle and slur of tires, soaring above the hiphophop spilling from every open storefront door. A voice unified and strong like an iron bird lifting the ears of its listeners above and beyond the chaos and noise of the city.

I was drawn to the voice, like a child to its mother. From whom did this power arise? What person possessed the skill to seduce even those who could not understand? To make strangers halt their endless steps and pause to listen.

I turned the corner and peering through the crowd, I made my way closer to the front. I stood a head taller than most everyone in the crowd and I quickly saw the body from which this unimitable voice arose. I watched mesmerized. Stunned and confused. A smile slid across my lips. A smile at the bizarre absurdity of this spectacle. At the beautiful distorting echo of reality down the long corridor of time.

She gesticulated powerfully and directly. The motion of her arms like swooping birds of prey. She was a composer, a musician of speech. Her voice soured and dipped rhythmically. Hypnotizing yet awakening. It stirred within me a desire for action. Yet I could understand not a word.

I tried to look into her eyes. Her little ten year old eyes. To see if there was any cognition of the words and their meanings or if she was simply a well trained seal juggling colorful beach balls on the tip of her nose. I could not tell. Her act was so complete, so perfect. She concluded with a Triumph of the Will intensity, her arms lifted to heaven and head thrown upwards. I imagined somewhere a flock of birds took off and flew upward through the rays of the sun. I squinted and everyone applauded. She bowed modestly and the boy next in line yawned theatrically and practiced his taekwondo moves. Someone nudged him and he ascended the steps to the makeshift stage.