Page 24 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Divine Spark Rising
turned his phone face down and folded his hands
as if bracing for a wave.
Across town, a bride in a satin dress took a step
away from the altar and told her fiancé that she
loved him but did not want to spend her life
apologizing for who she was. The priest nodded as
if relieved. The groom stood still for a long time
and then laughed once, clean and angry, and said
thank you for not lying in front of his mother. The
guests went outside and stood in the sunlight like
people who had seen a storm pass and were not
sure what had been saved.
On the metro in Tokyo, a station guard bowed to
a line of commuters and told them the schedule
had been padded for five years to hide the
company’s staffing shortage. He said trains would
run slower today so no one died. People looked at
the floor, then at each other, and made room on the
platform. A teenager took off his headphones and
put them in his pocket without looking up.
A nurse in Lagos leaned over a man on a gurney
and said the pill he had asked for would help his
pain but not his fear. She offered her hand. He took
it. They counted ten breaths together and the
monitor steadied.
Some of it was brave. Some of it was cruel.
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