The sound of his thoughts

My fingers stopped mid-word over the keyboard when the poet and recovering addict slurred, “No use planting daisies in winter, surely they will wither before the end of the year.” I looked across my desk, searching in his face for what I could not find in his words. His eyes struggled to stay open and his lips quivered without the reassuring aftertaste of a voice. I made inquiring sounds from the back of my throat.

“Continue typing,” he merely said, “I will tell you everything.”

I looked again at the unfinished draft on my screen to find my spot, and waited for him to continue. But after a silence too long to be a reasonable pause, he softly proclaimed, “I find the sound of your fingers dancing over the keyboard very soothing.” I did not expect this, I did not want this. I was terrified by the sudden onslaught of memories flooding my consciousness. “Keep typing, please,” he said, “I could fall asleep listening to the music you make of my thoughts.”

I started to protest. I did not know what to write. I muttered under my breath, “Cause and effect. You cause, I effect." I was merely to formulate his story into a meaningless two-dimensional black-and-white to present to a black-robed figure sitting in judgment of you, me and sundry. But I found no way to penetrate the blank stare of his eyes. They only drooped further, and with his frail hand he gestured for me to go on. He was growing more contented with this newfound sound of this thoughts, more captivated by this rhythmic something that was inspired by him, because of him, but which was not his.

So I presumed to fill out the story of his life. I typed and deleted to retype even if I did not know what had happened to him; I wrote even if I did not know what he had done; and I made music of his past, his thoughts and his life even when I ran out of words.