The Cacophony Orchestra

The swirl of the washing machine. The onions being chopped on the worn chopping board. He reads. Her life unfolds as his dedicated eyes run across the lines of words. A picture paints a thousand words; a word paints only a partial picture. He imagines all the bits that the words do not reveal. He tries to complete her life-story with only his imagination; soft, fluffy cloud-like imagination which dissolves in the hand. The washing machine continues to churn.

So does his desire. No, it has gone beyond curiosity and crossed that narrow border into desire; some unexplainable hunger. More than the words he reads about her, beyond the imagined gaps he fills between the fonts, he wants to know her. Yet, he gets this strange feeling he knows her from somewhere before. The tap drips into the stainless steel basin.

He wants to be part of her story.

As his cornea takes in every sarif of the words on the page, his being is desperately wanting to jump into the well-thought verses and poetic imaginary; he wants to be in the narrative. He wants to be the narrative. He wants it so bad that he cannot bear reading on not finding himself in the story. He wants to throw the pages into the English summer breeze, yet he knows Regret will hound him the minute it is done. The water in the electric kettle starts to boil.

But how? How does he get into the story? Would the story be equally enigmatic and captivating if he forces himself into it? No, if he wants to be in the story, he wants to be invited in, fitting perfectly as a semi-colon fits into a beautiful sentence; how romantic. Well, perhaps such romance is reserved only for day-dreams and Hollywood. "Damn it! Is it wrong to dream, to desire?" he yells silently. All he hears is the click of the electric kettle. The water is boiled.

He waits.

He still does not get an answer. When will he get an answer? Will he ever? Perhaps it is best he learns to let go. Perhaps her story is best the way it is, with him following it off a page. "Drop the darn story and move on. Move on," a undecipherable voice whispers in a shout. No. It just seems all too real, all too certain that this might just be the story to follow from start to end! He wants an answer, an inspiration, a feather of direction. The washing machine spins to its climatic scream.

And still he waits for an answer. The food starts to cook in the boiling water.



Uncle T