Dissonic Voices

The Amazing Sterling

The audiencefell silent as they watched the Amazing Sterling clasp the oldwoman's hand. From the stage, he bent down, lifting his chin up intothe spotlight that cascaded upon him. The better lighting he thought.The glow that encompassed him was blinding, but he could feel thephotographic flashes aimed at him, capturing the moment.

He released herhand and stood erect, the shirt he wore taunt against his muscularchest. He opened his blue eyes and met the gaze of the woman belowhim. Her face held a hopeful smile. She was a looker at a timecenturies past, he thought. He sighed and dramatically raised hisarms above his head then collapsed them quickly around his body. Hisgaze did not falter though he did notice cleavage moving out of thecorner of his eye.

"Yourhusband, Clarence," Sterling said into the microphone that wasclasped over his ear. "Died when you were." He paused,broke his gaze with the elderly woman and began to work the stagelike he had for almost a decade now. He furled his brow. As he turnedback towards the woman, he rose one eyebrow as he brought his gaze tothe source of the cleavage. The dark haired woman was young for hisnormal fans, and her black tank top held the tops of her breasts upso he could admire them. Surely he had seen them before this moment?He thought to himself. She must have had them hidden in the leatherjacket she wore.

"Yes,"a feeble voice came over the intercom. A directional mike was pointedat the old lady to capture her verbal reaction.

"Yourhusband, Clarence," the Amazing Sterling said turning toapproach her once more. "He died when you were twenty-eight ofpoisoning..." His voice faded away. His gift was giving him astatement, but it was not something he wanted to say. The words werenot commercial enough. "He ate dinner and then fell into a sleephe never woke up from." No, Sterling told himself, he was notgoing to say she had poisoned him. It was a fact to him as clear aswhat he had had for breakfast two hours before. Next, he thought. "Hebeat you. Didn't he?"

"Yes, hedid. It was so long ago.."

"But youraised your three children by yourself," he said hoping that thedark haired girl was a relative, a grand-daughter perhaps. "But..." he said kneeling in front of her. He reached out for her hand.She wrapped her withered fingers around his large hand. "Butthey are all gone," he said softy. "Gone."

"Yes,"the woman said trying to pull him closer, but Sterling realizing thatshe had killed them as well dislodged his hand and stood. "Youhave very bad secrets." He took a step back. He leaned his chintowards his chest to cast shadows on his eye sockets. "Mary."

"Yes,"the woman said.

"Yoursecrets are safe with me."

"I havenever told anyone..."

"Andyou shan't. Secrets are our ways of making our lives fuller thananyone knows," he said turning from the older woman. He raisedhis head to address the crowd who had been silent, except for theoccasion click of acamera. "We all have secrets. Some good. Some bad. I have asecret." he said hanging his head.

He stoodmotionless, waiting for a prompt to stir him out of his frozen state.He wondered what the large breasted woman's name was. It didn'tmatter. His gift would tell him enough to make sure he would not bealone tonight. It worked that way on the road. He liked that itworked that way on the road. The crowd was still silent. Where wasthe prompt? he thought.

"What?"a man's voice came from the back of the room. It was Sterling'sbrother. He wasn't part of the act, but he knew how to help the actwhen lulls occurred. He had missed his cue, it would seem.

"Yes,what?" the crowd started to ask. Sterling let the questionsbuild. The pattern of his show was always the same. He lifted andlowered his hand to quiet the blended voices.