act number seventy-eight

there are no stage directions for act number seventy-eight.
suffice it to say that she would often arrive after the sun had set, while the sound of bells was still crawling through the neighborhood, while the ripples in faraway ponds inched toward small boats which were held captive on the shore, awaiting the clumsy footfalls of the weekend visitors who could unleash them, who could draw their crusty anchors up out of the water, blithely.
advancing through that dusky rumble and making a shambles of the flowers that were strewn along the path, stepping firmly, purposefully and with an awareness of the dust pressing up against and through her skin, she would sing simple songs, praising the warm concrete and the lateness of the day, with the voice of a bird.
and so, she imagined that her arms were wings, that those feathery agents of flight were to be revealed to those same persons who might, in an act of kindness or refutation, free the vessels which though distant, vibrated at her approach.
past the threshold, then inside, making a theater of her destination, and under the calm umbrella of forgiveness, the orchestra began. the boards she trod upon stretched out into infinity and the stars were revealed on a scrim made from water and repeatedly gauzy soliloquies.
those actions are incontrovertible, those objects are made from memories, she said to a man waiting in the wings. someone else, upstairs, pointed a light at her, making the gathered shadows sharp as she dangled her bare feet over the edge of the pit where complex sounds rose up in defiance of melody.