George
There’s a boy in the paper.Fourteen. Dropped out of school.Went to work to feed his family.Carried bricks in the cold.No gloves. No choice.
I fold the corner of the page.“This city makes men out of boys,” I say.
Margaret doesn’t look up.“Men out of boys,” she says,“but not into anything better.”
She shifts on the bench, shoulders tight.Her foot presses the pedal too long—The note drowns.
Margaret
My mother hung the wash out in winter.Her fingers bled from the cold.White sheets snapped like flags in the wind.The air smelled like iron.
She’d watch the Italian men haul iceup the block, thick slabs on their backs.Heavy as tombstones.
One day, they fought in the street—Fists like bricks. Shouts like sirens.One man went down and stayed down.The other kept walking, ice melting.Nobody stopped him.
George
The city crushes everything under its own weight.I tell her about two men who fell off a skyscraper today.Midtown. Fifty stories up. Steel and sky.
One of them was a gambler.They said he joked on the way down.Said something about luck.
Margaret
“The city doesn’t just fall,” I say.“It shoves. It pulls.”I see it on every street corner—Violence like smoke rising from the grates.Boys with knives. Men with guns.They all walk like kings of ash.
She presses the final chord—Hard. Final.
George
The story’s over.But the city keeps going.
Margaret
The note hums in the air.His words hum too. But flat.
A train going uptown.I see the woman two floors down—Empty fridge. Empty eyes.Hadn't eaten in a week.
He asks what she ate before.“Homemade bread,” I say.I can still smell it, even now.
Warm. Fleeting. Gone too soon.Like things we don’t name.
I look at him,but he’s reading his paper.
I play louder.He doesn’t hear me.
“I might go to Paris,” I say,like it’s a secret I’ve been holding in my mouth.The name tastes like sugar and smoke.
George lowers the paper, slow.“You’ve never been,” he says.Flat. Final.
I let the silence stretch.He looks sure of himself.Too sure.
“Before I met you,” I say.
He blinks.The paper rustles in his lap.“You’ve never told me that.”
“I did.”She says it quietly.“You never listen.”
His mouth opens—A protest. A defense.“You were reading your newspaper,” I finish.
George
There’s a quiet before things fall.Margaret plays Clair de Lune—again.The room softens. I don’t.
Her back, a red ribbon tied too tight.She’s somewhere else. Paris?I tell her about the man upstairs.
His wife left him for a man on a train.“Where was the train going?” she asks.“Uptown,” I say, away from here.
She doesn’t flinch.Doesn’t stop playing.The music’s still soft,But her hands—sharp.
The room feels small.Her words come from somewhere far away,somewhere I can’t reach.
I stare at her back,the red dress, the knot at her shoulder.I don’t know her, not all of her.
“What did you play?” I ask.“...in Paris.”
Her fingers hit the keys too hard.It’s not music anymore.
We’re losing the melody.
Margaret
I’m not hungry for bread.I’m starving for the world.
George
The train’s already left.
Margaret
She presses a key. Just one.The softest note on the piano.
“Nothing,” she says.“I listened.”
I sat on bridges at dusk.Watched lights blur along the Seine.A man played violin under a streetlamp.I didn’t need my hands on the keys.
I needed the world to hum around me.
George
I imagine her—Alone in a city I’ve never been to.A stranger to me even then.
The boy in the paper—The man on the train—The gambler in midair—
They’re all ghosts now.But Margaret—Margaret is real.
Her song isn’t over yet.
Margaret
She turns, finally.Her eyes meet his.
“Would you come with me?”
The question is soft.But this time, he hears it.
© Michael Arturo, 2024
Support by hitting the like button or leaving a comment.
Welcome to Michael’s Newsletter. Writer of contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.
Michael also writes short literary fiction. Below is a link to his first collection.
“Storm The Beachhead, Little B***h"
