Today's Reading
PROLOGUE
Third-Person Limited
"Let's start at the very beginning... A very good place to start."
I took a seat on the grass next to a young man dressed in a brown jumper and short, blond wig playing the guitar. This was the University of Michigan. Meaning this was just another normal Tuesday afternoon.
He was singing in perfect pitch—a vibrating soprano—to a group of acorns he had gathered from the university's famed, century-old Tappan Oak on its Central Campus.
When he realized he had a live audience, he stopped, turned to me and bowed.
"I'm Julie Andrews, and these seven acorns are the von Trapp children," he explained as simply as if ordering a Big Mac. "We're restaging The Sound of Music this year, and I got the lead."
"Congratulations," I said. "You sound just like her."
"Thank you." He beamed. "A lot of pressure. It's a classic. And people hate change. Especially when you change a classic." He stared at me and then said, his voice lowering about eight octaves, "Mostly people will just hate me for trying this. But it's what makes me happy. It's just sad that the world loves to destroy the unique when it's the only thing we have going that makes it so special."
My mind whirred to my family and the book I was writing.
"Please," I said. "Keep going."
I said this as much for him as for me.
"Where were we, children?" he asked the acorns, before beginning where he left off.
I joined him in song.
His eyes glowed with joy.
My parents taught me to appreciate poetry, to love lyrics and study short stories. They represented the pure essence of great literature, writing condensed to its finest form.
His phone trilled.
"Frauline Maria didn't have a cell, did she?" I asked.
He laughed.
"Can you imagine?" he asked. "She never would have sung to the children. Just sat them down to watch a movie or play a video game."
"Or Siri would have been their governess," I add.
"Why have we never met?" he asked. His phone trilled again. "We gotta go!" he said, patting his guitar. "My friend is over there. She's helping me rehearse. C'mon, kids! I need you for inspiration!"
He grabbed his acorn children, shoved them in the pocket of his jumper and began to run across campus, very much looking as if he was Maria skipping away on a mountaintop in Austria. As he took off, one wayward acorn escaped and bounced at my feet.
It was a perfect autumn day. I laid the book I was going to read on the grass next to me and picked up the acorn.
GiGi told me when I was a girl that an acorn was like a secret.
Whether or not it ever grows to see the light depends on how deep you bury it."
I studied it, turning it round and round, and then placed it in my pocket.
I had a secret. And it was way bigger than any ol' acorn.
GiGi gave me my love of reading...
"A, B, C," I sang to myself.
...and she taught me to keep random mementos like these.
"Tangible time stamps," she called them, "to remind you of moments in your life when memories ultimately become cobwebs."
...
