Josephine the Songstress

But you better believe we hissed and whistled this disturbing non-entity back to silence and did so even despite the fact that this wouldn't really have been necessary for it's quite certain that the little thing would have been happiest if she could have crept away on all fours and hidden herself in some hole due to her shame and angst whilst in the meantime Josephine's vocal prowess started into whistling triumphantly and due to her self-satisfaction she became practically ecstatic, what with her arms splayed out to her sides and her throat that couldn't possibly be extended any further. In any event, all of this is simply standard fare for Josephine-any minor irrelevancy, some chance event, the most picayune disorder or bit of unruliness, a creaking noise coming from somewhere high up in the parquet, somebody who's gritting their teeth, even the slightest malfunction in the lighting, she uses all of these to heighten the effect of her performance, in her opinion she's singing to deaf ears anyway-though there's never any deficiency in spirited enthusiasm or applause-but then, in respect to any real under-standing in the particular way that Josephine means it, well, this is just something that she's learned to do without and so all of these disturbances simply play into her hand, everything that conspires against the absolute purity of her voice, all of this is an easy battle, indeed it's no battle at all, simply by means of this contrast she comes off victorious, all of this helps her along to wake up the crowd, not that this would teach them any real understanding but still it teaches respect, it gives them a premonition of what's at stake. And it wouldn't be beyond the pale that one might think that she -just for instance-that she herself had somehow had a hand in instigating that the little tike formerly mentioned might pipe up if only this wasn't contradicted by her dream-like, confused state that hasn't the least bit of concern nor any respect for doing anything in accordance to the normal strictures of cause and effect, rather she's always acting 'the artiste.' And if small co-incidences play into her hand how much more so would the great. Our life is so terribly beset by strife, every day brings its share of rude surprises, fears, hopes and shocking outrages-it's simply impossible that any one of us might bear it, fortunately the individual gains strength by being carried along day and night upon the shoulders of the community, but even so it's terribly bleak and difficult, often enough millions of our folk tremble beneath the weight of the burden that is placed upon just one. Then Josephine intuits that her time has come. Already she's standing there, the tender soul, there's a spot beneath her breast that in rapport to the angst of the times starts to vibrate, it's as if all of her powers were gathered up within her piteous song, as if everything that wasn't directly involved in her expressing her song, all extraneous concerns, powers and possibilities were removed, that she's totally stripped, sacrificed and under the mercy and protection of angelic beings, as if she were so exposed that during this interval of her rapture whilst her inner being is so taken up in expressing song, well, a cold draft of air that simply might be passing by would be all that it would take to kill her.