She leaned all of her nine years against the whisper wall, waiting for a message that would never come. Fragments of conversation darted back and forth across the room like invisible time travelers, breathy and segmented.
But she heard each of his words clearly, hot and hissing and as deliberate as bristles on hardwood. Startling, vile aspirates flew from his unseen mouth while lewd consonants hatched deep from within, acrid and sickly. Terrified, she waited until only traces of other people's hushed secrets could be heard richocheting between the walls before she turned around, slowly.
Scanning the room, she choked on the air, heavy with truncated information. His smile mocked her from across the hall. He stared into her eyes and nodded slightly before vanishing into the crowded museum.
Dizzy and overcome, she remembered the smell of the damp, flattened brown bag lunches they had eaten in the Field Trip Lunch Room, smashed peanut butter and rain sandwiches. How she wished to be like those cold cans of soda, tightly wrapped in layers of tinfoil. They were so shiny, those cans. So safe.
Photo: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
