Esme Writes.

I took a deep breath and looked at him.

He asked me to convey what I had just said in a sequence of isosceles triangles.

My breath caught in my throat, a suspended burst, a truncated laugh, ready to explode and fill the sterile room, until I saw his eyes.

He was serious.

This man with his pad and paper of illegible notes and Sanskrit or gibberish otherwise, wanted me to use three lines and three angles to pour out a story that had taken me nearly an hour to tell.

The silence ballooned around my head.

Fumbling, I looked to the shelves on the walls, the plaques, the desk, the slightly swaying cord of the blinds in wake of summer’s AC, remembered the wet embrace of the humidity outside and bit my bottom lip, left side, there was always a wound there from my unforgiving teeth.

You would draw a row of triangles point down to begin, sharp and narrow. Daggers. They would arch over three thickly fat ones, filled in, one above, two below.

Then the dagger triangles would circle around and around until they blurred and the three were invisible behind the blur.

Then one by one each triangle would fall from the rotation until it was just one, spinning and spinning. Alone.

It would stop one day, one day suddenly just pause then begin again then spin in the opposite direction. Then pause.

Then at random times a few would attempt to join it. Once in awhile. One at a time, or two. Then she it would spin like mad. But as before, the force would eject it’s companion. She-it would pause again for a second and continue to spin.

Then one day it would spin with one for awhile. Together. The first triangle began to rotate on its axis within its orbit and the other one joined the rotation. Around and around and around with her- it. The speed and velocity and them, together whirred and purred and moved in beautiful harmony.

Until one day she-it stopped.

The momentum the two had gathered threw that last beautiful triangle out. She began her circular rotation alone, pausing here and there, ignoring the new triangles to come.

She likes her lonely rotation. It is comforting.

The blinds swayed slightly as the AC coughed on, and my eyes went from the window to his eyes.

They all traced a lovely pattern together, though. In fact, it was such a delicate dance. Those angles and those sides. It was almost like music.

His pen scratched his Sanskrit and I shifted in my seat, praying he didn’t next ask for me to tell it again, this time in Morse code.