A Song for the Gallery
The gallery stood nearly empty when we arrived, warm air welcoming us in from the night. The owners were up at the front, waiting to greet arrivals like ourselves, and near the back, we could see the artist lurking by the remains of snacks. A few others drifted amongst the sculpture. We pretended greetings with the owners; they urged us to take glasses and enjoy ourselves.
A few feet into the room, you vanished like smoke. You and everyone else in the room. I heard voices dimly, and nothing more.
She was the only thing left in the vast gallery. She and I.
You wouldn’t ask me to describe her, would you? Eyes deep like the bottom of the ocean, skin of purest alabaster, tresses like silk … all the superlatives in the wide world would seem but to profane her beauty. Truth and love shone out from her like a warm summer day.
She was waiting for me … had waited all night. So many nights she had been waiting. Not that she blamed me, she would have waited forever for me. How could she blame me now that I was here, with her?
All I needed was to reach my hand out to her and she would be mine.
One step I took toward her, then another, across the empty room. So little space between us remained, compared to the whole world that had kept us apart.
Until I bumped into someone. I nearly fell, and I lost sight of her for just a moment. Just a moment!
“Please do not touch the statues.”
The artist held my arm in one hand while I regained my balance. The chatter of other people hit me like a wave. His other hand, gnarled and scarred, extended towards the one I had been walking toward. “Beware that one most, my friend.”
Her hands clenched on knives, the siren reached out before her, teeth bared to bite.
His gaze firmly on me, the artist kept his hand on my arm and sighed, “Only be glad you cannot hear her song as well.”
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No joke, that gave me chills and made the hair on the back of my neck bristle.