Her hair flew over her shoulders like flailing creatures
She stood before the rumble of the masses
Their disinterested eyes, through with their appraisal, cast towards their hands.
She looked at them and smiled
The cold block of wood beneath her hands, streaming with patterns
She was curious about her own feelings, the capacities within her
An irredeemably abstract thought pattern
and the bright red of her shoes
Considered throwing herself into the sea of oblivion below.

Then, her wizened lips parted
Nothing else existed
The audience was suddenly irrelevant, simultaneously a crowd and an empty space
She became a pure flow of experience.

Random details seemed to matter the most
The taste of the spinach the night before they came
Feeling the unfamiliar softness of the donated blankets
And the disturbing gaiety of the oblivious sunlight
In the face of unadulterated human cruelty.

As she whispered the last word, the details of the room came back into focus
A magnificent silence of connection, then newborn applause
The sound of people who wouldn't ever forget