We were tangled in each other’s arms so that I wasn’t sure whose hand that was by my head, was it hers or mine? I moved my hand. The hand by my head didn’t move. She saw me looking at it.
It’s yours, she said. I mean, it’s on the end of my arm. But it’s yours. So’s the arm. So’s the shoulder. So’s everything else it’s connected to.
Her hand opened me. Then her hand became a wing. Then everything about me became a wing, a single wing, and she was the other wing, we were a bird. We were a bird that could sing Mozart. It was a music I recognised, it was both deep and light. Then it changed into a music I’d never heard before, so new to me that it made me airborne, I was nothing but the notes she was playing, held in air. Then I saw her smile so close to my eyes that there was nothing to see but the smile, and the thought came into my head that I’d never been inside a smile before, who’d have thought being inside a smile would be so ancient and so modern both at once?
