i.

Darkness, with light like liquid amber spilling from the candles. Silhouettes of people, quiet, in muted expectancy. The creak of a bench, a door. Shoes scraping on stone, hardly to be heard. Robes rustle like night birds shifting their weight. Waiting. Waiting. Then song, gently rough like sandpaper, warm and strong as the forge; a rippling murmur from the heart’s deep folds. Song like an angel stooping down low. Rising like wings of the albatross into the sky far, far beyond, far beyond the ceiling like a maiden breathing in: Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae; vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

ii.

The lights dim, the projector whirrs. And on the screen, new images unfold before our upturned faces; faces that also unfold, like flowers turned toward the sun, toward the horizon’s edge of the canvas. We look on, rapt, bundled against the cold of the air-conditioner, and we don’t notice as the time rolls on like the road, the waves of the sea, the colours of the sky. For now only us, hugging ourselves or holding each other, as we step outside of time and into the dreaming place of stories; and for a moment everybody wants to say, kiss me.

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