It was similar to watching TV with the sound muted. She was telling me something and I was nodding my head, but I wasn't hearing any words. My eyes were watching her fingertips twirl a lock of hair. Copper strands wrapped around raspberry nails. Then I noticed how her earrings danced when she laughed and how, when she wasn't sure how to say something, she would bite a sliver of her lower lip and wince, as though the unfound word was a pebble in her shoe. I was so involved in these sightings, in this discovery, that I never heard a single word of dialogue.

That is until her last line, uttered with a Cheshire grin, leaned forward across the coffee shop table:

You arent listening to a word of this, are YOU?

Honesty being the best policy, chin in hands to greet her smile:

"Not a single word, not a vowel."

another canvas sent to me

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