Music Box
I held a music box for a few minutes in the palm of my hand; I recall the sensation of its pleasant lightness that softly engraved its presence in my hand, and its simple structure that reflected a systematic fragment of the entire history of mechanism. I also recall its monosyllabic sound that left lucid echoes in time, in space, and in my memory. I confess I felt a slight, astonished sence of dizziness that I shall not describe when I turned the handle of the music box. The dizziness might be from the faint memory of my uneasy childhood, the memory of my gauche first love, or from the memory of every humiliation I have had. A very long and very quiet breath came out of my contrition among the memories. Among the memories, trembling softly like a sleeping bird, there throbbed, peacefully this time, a melody.