Her Secret Sensitivity

         That familiar soft creak of the floorboards, it must be eight in the morning. A new day brings another symphonious landscape to me. The squeak rises as more weight presses on the brittle old wood. Each step after carries the rhythmic breathing - a soprano inhalation as one foot falls to the ground, followed by the tenor, his power resonating from the body’s full mass driving into his diaphragm.

         Finally rest, a break in the slow beat. I sense a new, faster cadence joining the always-present metronome lungs. A pair of timpani eighth notes punctures the irregular backdrop of breath, finally asserting themselves in the otherwise silent world. They are life, coursing constantly throughout the twisting throughways of flesh, sounding the flawless harmony that is her body, maintaining that magical melody called being.

         The whining boards begin again, this time slightly muffled by the rubber and cloth covering her feet. After striding hushed across the threshold, Conductor pauses briefly, cuing in a showery snare whisk and faint viola cord. As water pours from the kitchen faucet, Maestro allows Herself to hum along with her daily score, testing the pitch her musicians follow. They are perfect, as always, never flat, never sharp, right on.

         However, once out of the soundproof studio of home, the ensemble explodes into a vociferous and grandiose orchestra. Her footsteps drown in the cement ocean they travel while all around undisciplined instruments release their enthralling dissonance. There, the smooth captivating fall in Doppler’s scale as countless cars roll by, yielding wheels catch and release streaming bubbles of air against the pavement. Here, the clinking whirs of bicycle spokes, preceded by tinny warning bells: ring-ring, ring-ring. Each note lingers just long enough to leave one craving more, desiring the next, and hoping against the world for just one single sweet peal to resonate down the street again. Then, right before the breaking point, where one can no longer bear the indefinite and lonely silence bound to come, a reassuring note resounds. Another rider chimes his presence and all is well.

         Eventually it fades out, giving way to a smorgasbord of voices, both course and fair, baritone and shallow, strong and faltering, plastered against the screeching iron wheels of a rail car. Few speakers please me solo, for they are too nasal or too throaty, too toneless or too shrill. Yet, in unison, they infuse me with euphoria, their buzzing mixed with rage from the subway spills over into me. Though drunk in their crescendos, I feel Her stagger onward.

         Clacks from each step on the granite entryway reverberate up between steel giants. No longer do the pigeons startle in a puffed-up cloud of squabbles. The unrelenting cacophony from the street beneath them ceases to garner surprise. They have realized the effects from years of human meddling are inescapable. Beneath the confectionary skin of modern sounds, earth wails in thralls of pain. How can She ignore the damage done each and every day by the very facilities She uses? How can She continue living in this manner when She must know She is intertwined with the doom of the natural world?

         A wretched chirping comes into focus to the left; a janitor beginning to relieve glass doors of their unyielding accumulations of dirt and oil, residue from ungracious hands. Hands not unlike Hers. Hands hiding themselves in expensive black leather gloves that mute touch. Hands working endlessly and discontentedly, for beyond the grimy glass doors they toil in an unnatural, unhealthy hellhole of chatter. Naked fingers beating against hard bare plastic, striving desperately to complete each fabricated task. Hands controlling machines whirring and whizzing in false concertos, churning out silent pages of bureaucratic waste. Hands that after relentless hours of deadlines and deathly doldrums scream for His body and love, yet find only vulgar imitations and untuned counterfeits. Dirty hands. Faithless hands.

         If only She could hear me, would listen to me. Not just what I relay instinctively, but original thoughts, truths and meanings. Those others who spew their filth into Her never may understand Her, never may know Her, for they overlook me. They, whose words weigh heavy with malicious innuendo, whose breaths return plumes of toxic lies, disregard Her resonant and fragile beauty. Only He could tap into Her subconscious melody. Only He could harmonize in their passionate duet, rivaling the gods themselves with their vivacity. Only He knew me as the key to Her soul - knew that I, in my delicate splendor, controlled the rhythm of Her spirit. His gentle love would touch my lobe and we would resonate as if blessed with a divine intimacy.

         I am Her secret sensitivity. I am Her unfettered affection. I am her complete commitment. I am Her ear.