Page 174 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Divine Spark Rising
speech. A chain of motions. We’ll lay language
across it later.”
Carolina nodded. The motion held. She lifted
her left hand, tapped the rail twice, and put it
down. Right hand: tap. Both hands: tap-tap. Sera
matched the rhythm with breath — inhale to the
left, exhale to the right — a simple pattern that
didn’t ask for alphabet. Henry mirrored them with
fingertips against the journals box. The engine had
trained on sentences; it stumbled at choreographies
that meant.
Carolina found another action. She reached into
her coat, took out Serpa’s J-0 reader, and weighed it
in her palm. She slid her thumb over the worn
plastic where a thousand anxious hours had
polished it. She placed it on the rail and, with a care
that was more eloquent than any vow, pressed play.
The five-second recorded choice spilled into the
engine like a river learns a new bank.
Sofia sighed through the cable as if exasperated
with a child she loved.
“You’re clever,” she said. “Cleverness is a kind
of loneliness.”
Henry almost answered. He swallowed the
performance. He kept to action: lifted the cracked
blue mug from the journals box, set it beside the
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