They’re standing in a stiff breeze, but Charles ignores the leaves brushing his feet, the chill creeping into his bones.
Erik is holding a chunk of metal easily in his hand, his eyes intent as he shapes it. The idea of wings, the beak open in a small O, a hollow space in the heart of the bird.
And now it’s singing. A thin trilling wisp of sound, slowly spinning on the wind.
Erik is caught up in the moment of creation, his face lighting up.
It takes Charles a long moment of concentration before he realizes Erik is humming along with the bird: a deep counterpart to the simple melody, changing with the wind that flows around them.
He catches Erik’s eye, waves to his temple with a fingertip, and Erik shrugs and nods minutely.
Music in the family?
My mother. Prayers and blessings. Sabbath over the wine, and sometimes she would sing because I was frightened, because my father had not come home in so long. She taught me how to sing the prayers over the dead.
I’m so sorry.
“Don’t apologize, not for that. It was a useful thing to know, in those times. It brought comfort and meaning to others. It was a time when I could still help.”
“And you don’t, now?”
A weapon, and you know why. You understand why.
Painfully so.
If that is so, then that is all I ask.
Charles has nothing to say to that, and so he turns away, and he thinks of long afternoons listening to his mother as she sat in her room, oblivious to the world and to the music playing on her phonograph, snatches of old melody, and then he purses his lips and begins to whistle, to improvise. Softly, so as not to overwhelm the bird’s thread of song.
He’s half-hoping for it, and he smiles and keeps whistling when he hears Erik’s deep hum starting again.
The music is lost in the wail of the wind, but they keep going, all three of them, and Charles takes Erik’s free hand when it slips into his, and holds on tightly.
For Lucy, love of my life and keeper of Arthur, Eames, Charles, and Erik’s secrets
Erik is holding a chunk of metal easily in his hand, his eyes intent as he shapes it. The idea of wings, the beak open in a small O, a hollow space in the heart of the bird.
And now it’s singing. A thin trilling wisp of sound, slowly spinning on the wind.
Erik is caught up in the moment of creation, his face lighting up.
It takes Charles a long moment of concentration before he realizes Erik is humming along with the bird: a deep counterpart to the simple melody, changing with the wind that flows around them.
He catches Erik’s eye, waves to his temple with a fingertip, and Erik shrugs and nods minutely.
Music in the family?
My mother. Prayers and blessings. Sabbath over the wine, and sometimes she would sing because I was frightened, because my father had not come home in so long. She taught me how to sing the prayers over the dead.
I’m so sorry.
“Don’t apologize, not for that. It was a useful thing to know, in those times. It brought comfort and meaning to others. It was a time when I could still help.”
“And you don’t, now?”
A weapon, and you know why. You understand why.
Painfully so.
If that is so, then that is all I ask.
Charles has nothing to say to that, and so he turns away, and he thinks of long afternoons listening to his mother as she sat in her room, oblivious to the world and to the music playing on her phonograph, snatches of old melody, and then he purses his lips and begins to whistle, to improvise. Softly, so as not to overwhelm the bird’s thread of song.
He’s half-hoping for it, and he smiles and keeps whistling when he hears Erik’s deep hum starting again.
The music is lost in the wail of the wind, but they keep going, all three of them, and Charles takes Erik’s free hand when it slips into his, and holds on tightly.