our unlighted hearts

Strange things happen to paintings that no one looks at. They start to sing. In the absence of people, the empty room reverberated with the colors humming on its walls. Ben stood alone and listened as each wide flash of color vibrated at a different pitch: wistful wavering high notes for the airborne woman, deep resonating low tones for the Lovers in Blue. The dark little picture rattled the air with banging of piano keys like the ones that once lay below it in his parents’ living room, a minor chord struck by accident in the middle of a song.