Fiction: Entry

He approaches the alleyway with a light step, murmuring a song and one two spring, grasps the fence, vaults with a clear distance and feathers his way to the ground.

Facing him now: an expanse of clear glass, wood rotting away from it, flakes cluttering the patio below.

He feels the edge, shuffle smooth glide and catches what he's looking for. A ripple of arms above his head and now there's air for him into sideways.

He stands up in parlour space. He looks towards an endless landscape of oil, stopped only by gilt. To his right, pamphlet and tome and volume and stanza, all arranged in order of completion. Or maybe purchase. Or maybe desire.

To his left, where his quarry resides. Resting in the curve of the case for hammered strings, an oboe, proud, glistening, smiling.

"I hear you, I hear you," he says.

He picks her up, not removing his gloves, and plays. And plays and plays and plays.

The glories of all the centuries gone before him, the hosannas and the crescendos and the verve and the bite and the energy and the joy flood out and roll forwards, towards every space around him, air vibrating with passion, history and love.

He stops, and looks at the figure in the doorway. Her arms are folded, her eyes are ablaze, her weapon of choice loosely gripped and slipping away.

She says, "You can keep it. But only if you play for me forever."