Section Four – Harold Arnn
‘What about you guys?” Sasha asks Sophie, a mischievous and inexplicable twinkle in her eye.
Sophie’s fingers snake up my arm to the back of my neck and thrumb there: “We just had our nine month anniversary.” I hang my arm at her waist.
“I gave him a beautiful ceramic cat. He gave me a purple crayon.” She rolls her eyes, as if I’m the embodiment of a specific cosmic inscrutability. Alex and Sasha patiently await an explanation.
“It’s a pretty little ceramic cat…”
“It’s really cool. About this high, black with whiskers and everything,” I explain. “She called it The Waiting Cat. He sits there, eyes wide, looking very attentive. He hangs out at the Scrawl now, in my place, watching over Sophie’s desk.”
“…and I got a crayon.”
“It’s a special crayon,” I turn to Alex, in a futile search for common understanding. “You know, Harold and the Purple Crayon.”
Alex and Sasha stare back blankly. I go on:
“You know, it’s a children’s book about this hydrocephalic child who goes wherever he wants, does whatever he wants, by drawing it on the wall with his purple crayon. So he draws an ocean, then a boat, and he’s sailing. I thought it was a sweet present…”
Sophie leans into me, “It was a sweet present…”
Alex and Sasha continue to stare as if we’re speaking Bantu. After a moment, they give us the kind of smile I imagine missionaries practice in the mirror to demonstrate their acceptance of the vagaries of foreign culture.
The conversation is interrupted by loud and savage whooping from the gamers in the corner, celebrating the death of the Alien Queen or the fall of a civilization.
Sophie by Harold Arnn
written and performed by Harold Arnn
Harold Arnn grew up in Danville, Virginia. He currently works as a piano tuner in Kernersville, NC.
The Cloud Diary Music Project
We sent musicians a synopsis of Cloud Diary and a randomly chosen scene from among 12 scattered throughout the novel and asked them to respond to the scene, musically or aurally. The piece could be of any genre and any duration. It could be music already recorded, adapted, or written specifically for the scene. Find more information here.
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