"You hear it, don’t you?" The old man's eyes glistened like rain droplets in sun-splashed twilight. "The hum, the cadence.” He clutched his overcoat buttons tightly, as if they were pieces of a spun melody that once was. "It's been there ever since... Reminds me of days past, when silence was a luxury."
His lips moved almost rhythmically, as if conducting an orchestra only he could perceive. "The pigeons, they know too," he muttered, staring past me, his gaze fixed on nothing tangible. "They carry secrets in their coos—forgotten songs, unheard lyrists. I... I've tried to catch them."
hear the pigeons' chantThere’s method to this madness, if you ask the right question. Ask about the brass harmonica lying forgotten in his attic of shadows. Ask why he feeds the strays on melismatic evenings. But do not tread into the melody-less abyss—there he loses his cadence, his reason, his...