Outpacing the Speed of Sound

[Stephen Torelli]

Lights flash and a hushed crowd surrounds the police only to watch an old gray and bruised yet silent gentleman lay on the sidewalk aside the bodega; and a bewildered handcuffed youngster exclaims, “I only hit him once!” Doors shut as sirens howl, engines rev and separate cars take one to Lutheran Hospital and the other to the 68^th precinct.

The sun rises and a raven swoops in to steal tufts of hair for the family nest while a miniature mouse nabs flakes of red also clinging to the sidewalk before scurrying underground to lurk within. A young couple from the mid-west who now live above the bodega exit their flat, unknowing what occurred because they slept like babies after a night of lovemaking and now, inhaling the cool breeze from the Verrazano Straits and passionately kissing before parting to the R train and the other, to the express bus stop.

Unmindful to most, an elder’s spirit ascends where light travels, and the words, “I only hit him once,” follows, but at a slower pace. And as the young man’s words resonate in the daily newspapers, Father Paglia prays for the soul of the elder gentleman yet knows the ascending light was always heaven bound without the prayers.