#true grace

clothes swap

This is an screen with additional notes that are projected by the overseer

TG has a habit to read pearls in strange way. Also he can "eat", but he can not digest food.

It is a minute after midnight on a Friday;

mere evening for many - too much

still to do before the street lights turn off

in favour of the sunrise.

I am wrapped in my jacket

trying to keep out the cold or hold in

the warmth - so often I forget

what I'm aiming for - and I step off the train,

bleary eyed from a half hour of semi sleep.

Waverley is almost empty.

Footsteps echo off the high walls

and mine thud into the floor as I blindly walk

to the cash machine.

And I turn to exit twice before stopping

to see the piano, sitting in the centre of the hall,

keys naked and cold, inviting the pressure

of my fingers.

And I heave a sigh that looks more like smoke

than breath, pull up the stool and play

for the silence, play of the summer,

the afternoon

that has long since passed us by.

As I play, I think of a woman from the train,

a year older than I, and struggling;

Dear God, if I do not know struggle, then I

know nothing - I listened whilst she sobbed,

said she had nothing left to live for, feels

like no one will love her because she's fucked up - and she sees me watching her,

listening, and is fit only to apologise.

I say, "Darling, don't say sorry - you've done

nothing wrong."

And we talk; she, her friend and I - I

tell her that the hard part is done;

that recognising the problem is sometimes harder

than finding a solution; that she is more

than what her past or present dictates: I tell her

that she will be okay,

that time is the best drug for healing -

and yes, it's shit that it doesn't ever work fast enough -

but the first dose

is the hardest to swallow.

And as she stood to alight the train, I rose too,

hugged her, told her I've been there

and gotten out.

She cracked a tear stained smile, told me,

"Thank you", and I swear I've never seen true grace

until that moment...

And the last notes of summer fade from the empty hall,

and my cold fingers rise from the piano,

and I drag myself up from the stool to the sound

of a single pair of hands,

clapping.

There is a man sitting, huddled into his coat,

holding Burger King in a bag and smiling.

He asks me where I learned to play; I say

I taught myself. He asks what the song is

and I tell him,

"It's called 'Comptine D'un Autre Été L'après Midi."

He says it was beautiful and I cannot tell

if the warmth in my cheeks is from the cold

ripping at my skin,

or the blush creeping up my face.

And I say thank you, wish him a pleasant evening, and head

for the taxi rank outside, and I swear

I can hear him humming of the summer

whilst he finishes his chips alone,

with the echo of a song

Join True Grace book club for a lively discussion of this month's book!

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Wednesday • June 14 • 6pm

In the shadow of Mumbai's sparkling new airport and luxury hotels sits Annawadi—a squalid and overcrowd migrant settlement on top of tons of garbage next to a vast pool of sewage. As India starts to prosper, the residents are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees a fortune in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi's "most-everything girl," might become its first female college graduate. Even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal.