 |
The Cellist |
|
His dreams -- which were often nightmares -- involved birds flying out of his mouth, one by one, until he could no longer resist the temptation to crawl into the tub and put his head under water. It was here, in this position, that he managed to work his body down through the drain. He had no problem holding his breath. He swam down through a dark tunnel that eventually opened up and revealed, farther below him, a vast city full of lights.
He began spending all his nights locked in the study upstairs. He liked for his wife to leave his tea outside the door to avoid the possibility of "any serious confrontations" while he worked. One night she stood outside his door and listened. She heard violin music, coughing, then laughter. When she opened the door, to her surprise, she found him nowhere in sight. The entire room was empty, except for a single bread crumb left on the table.
Before she married, she never felt guilty about telling the neighborhood boys to watch her baby whenever she went to the pub. This was never a problem. But one evening the boys grew bored and decided to leave. They took the baby into the woods, where an old woman was nearby, searching for her lost dress. She had left bread crumbs to find her way back home because it was growing dark, and also because she got confused easily. When the boys heard the rustle of her footsteps, they ran off, leaving the baby in the woods. The old woman later said the boys were really giant rats.
In certain ways, the illusion of one levitating in front of an audience was not magic or music. People gathered around her in the park and cursed her for believing in "witchcraft" and other demonic things. She thought about all this as her son floated into the sky, where clouds looked like giant hands. |
1996 © 2004 |
*