Page 26 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Divine Spark Rising
It did not look like a movement. It looked like a
leak.
Henry walked the hill above the Alfama with
the news crawling silent on a shop display. A small
crowd had gathered but no one spoke. When a
video from Toronto showed a paramedic refusing
to falsify a time stamp, a man near the door nodded
once and put his phone away. When a clip from
Tangier showed a woman selling oranges lining
them in a perfect spiral and then giving two to a
child who could not pay, a woman in the crowd
wiped her eyes with a knuckle.
He turned down a side street where the laundry
lines crossed the air like thin, brave bridges. A boy
chalked a curve on the tile and stopped halfway,
looking up as if someone had said his name. The
boy’s grandmother called him in for lunch. He did
not answer at first. He kept looking at the curve.
Henry’s phone buzzed. A single word pulsed
across the lock screen. LISTEN. He stared at it until
it faded.
At noon, the markets fell and then refused to
rise. A commentator in London said the price of
lying had been mispriced. He smiled when he said
it, then stopped smiling and took off his earpiece
on live television. The anchor kept talking without
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