She cleared her throat, the lectern hers at last. Left off the list, she’d risen nonetheless. Extemporaneous, her strong suit. They’d have to listen now.
Movement below her and to the left. She would have to get right to it. Off the high board. Slice the surface. Slip seamlessly inside.
Hello.
The sound of her own voice surprised her, amplified as it was. It burst out into the auditorium and echoed back. Reverberating. The word sounded so good inside her head she had to say it out loud.
Reverberating.
She smiled at the effect of reverberating reverberating. Circulating. Circumambulating.
More movement. Down and to the right this time.
It’s my turn.
Three tiny words. Blurted and magnified by a bud of a microphone on a slender stalk. No bigger than the head of a pin. No telling how many angels danced upon it. No time to count them now. No time to wonder what those Japanese would think of next.
It’s. My. Turn.
Three words. Each followed by a period. Huge in their magnificence. Satisfyingly succinct. Thirty years as editor couldn’t be erased. “Retirement,” notwithstanding. “Let go,” notwithstanding. Kicked to the curb, notwithstanding.
Yes, editing was her specialty. Cutting to the quick, her craft. Extraneous everything out and on the floor.
Footfalls to the left. Stirrings to the right. The dais under siege. Where’s Jean-Luc Picard when you need him? A crisp command from the bridge? A nick-of-time jump to warp?
My turn.
The mic screeched. Heads snapped to attention, facial muscles all acringe.
Finally mine at last. No. Scratch “at last.” Redundant. And let me say I know an unfortunate thing or two about redundancy.
After all the years. The sneers. The jeers.
Her inside smile broadened, loving what the open mic had unleashed.
No longer lost in tears.
Exaggerating the roll of the “l’s” off her tongue. A momentary nod to her ancestral Scots.
No longer lost at all. Uncaged. Unfettered. Unbound. Making up the map as I go.
The “p’s” of “up” and “map,” quick percussive pops.
This Sibyl will no longer be silenc—
“Get your raggedy old ass off the stage, Nutcase!” A disembodied voice in an ocean of bobbing heads.
She gripped the lectern. Her distance vision tunneling. Her heart thrumming in her throat. Faces in the front row sharpened into crystalline focus, muscles twitching in discomfort.
A jolt of electric blue. A woman in the third row, standing, smiling, urging her on.
I…
Her voice crackled over the waves. She glared out to the spot in the sea from whence the snark had risen.
I will not be silenced.
Looking down and to the left,
Not by you;
and to the right,
not by anyone.
She leaned into the mic.
I am here. Like it or not. I am loud. Like it or not. I am…
Silence rose up to hold her hanging pause aloft—to give it space to breathe and grow. Bodies leaned in. Eyes asked the communal question, “I am what?”
I. Am.
Exuberance exploded. No need to analyze or dissect the impetus that had propelled them up and out of their seats. Her words had somehow roused them. Moved them. Lifted them. That was enough for her.
Period.
A hand grabbed her upper arm. Another pulled the plug. The mic shorted out with a squeal.
She offered no resistance.
The room erupted. A rhythmic chant followed her as, flanked by two large men, she was led away.
“I am…I am…I am…”
Exclamation point, she whispered.
[Tweet “Reverberating. The word sounded so good inside her head she had to say it out loud.”]
This is a story puzzle, certainly, and I am not sure which is the first piece, peace, pea ace. Yet strangely, after watching an episode of Dirk Gently from my ceiling window or is it a television (?!), it makes sense. By the way, what did that dog in the corner have to do with the story, Mary? Was it the red herring in the room, I presume.
Golly, don’t we all feel that way at some point in our lives. And doesn’t somebody pull the plug on us when we get to that place?
From birth to death, we have those moments. Is that what makes us writers? No one can stop the words from forming, even if no one reads them.
One can only hope we don’t slide off the edge when we finally get the stage, the podium, the microphone, and then lose the words we can type but elude us when we get there………
This story feels timely and important to me… extraordinary that it has come out during a cultural/historical moment when women (and some men) are speaking out against sexual oppression and censure. This story captures some of the terror that rises when one person insists on having her say in a crowd of people made uncomfortable by her confusion and hesitation, her difficulty finding words…
Powerful stuff, Mary Lou. Such visceral description, I was there with you… also agreed with the comment that it seems extraordinarily timely, not just for the shared testimonials of sexual harassment that WILL be heard ~ but also the appearance of the two large men, who flashed me back to unhappily familiar scenes during a certain political campaign.
Punctuation is really the perfect spice for this piece, especially because you have so carefully chosen each type and placement. And I must confess ~ circumambulating is one of my favorite Latin-derivation words. Thanks for sharing!
What can I say….timely and powerful. Thanks
Ooh, this is really good. It’s rare that so few words tell so much and so powerfully.