I was walking in the park when I saw them.
Two slim, perfectly elastic bodies, fencing.
Their épées at the ready,
cling, clang, cling, clang.
Touché
She was faster than him
but he was more graceful.
I was texting.
Trying to write a brief, precise text that covered all aspects of a delicate subject in a friendly but serious way.
(Not my speciality.)
I went on to the micro on my phone, I hit record and did what the full-time writer does when she despairs of the possibility of annotating, of slicing the page into readable sentences: I projected my voice into my small, annoyingly ubiquitous device.
I was redacting a short letter into the air and into compressed digital waves in the hope it would be listened. I redacted out loud, walking the park.
I hit full stop. Enough said.
Then I hit play… and the park came back to me, embracing my sentences so beautifully.
The dark was there, backing me up, dressing my text into a typography to die for. Then, I heard it:
The sound of the épées.
These impossibly elegant fencers were part of my air letter.
They were inside my text. They had become the most precious form of underlining.
Zig, zag. Touchée.
There. Celebrating my words.
I was so happy.
A voice letter to myself, crafted in the most exquisite stationery.
I would not send it.
What a satisfying
walk
park
night.