The Orator

His lips are moving but they don't match the motion of his words.  He may as well be dancing in an empty room.  Is it a speech or a story?  The crowd only catches a word or two before their attention is swept away to somewhere else.  They should be an audience but their level of participation only merits the label of a gathering.  If they had a purpose, say listening and participating, then the mere speech or story would take hold in them, of them, and even transcend its own narrow confines and rise to the lofty and coveted height of an experience. 

This gap that must be bridged is, in reality, the minutest of fractions.  But its a completely uncrossable one until both sides agree to build that bridge, to meet in the middle, to create an avenue of free and open exchange that in itself could lay the foundations of a brand new civilization.

But the crowd only catches a word or two before their attention is swept away, and away with it, the possibility of a bridge.  But hold.  This assumes greatly that the fault lies completely with the crowd.  What of the Orator?  Is it a speech or a story?  If even this simple distinction cannot be made then what hope have we (for if one is not the Orator then one is surely the crowd) to understand if we should be learning or entertained?

What is he babbling about?  I heard one or two words in the beginning but then he stopped and looked as if he expected me to know what to do or say to bridge that gap all by myself.  Is it a speech or a story?  I still can't quite say.  So where does that leave me?  And where do I, and we, go from there?  And what is the meaning of all this?  And what was that last thing he just said?  Who?  Why, the Orator, of course.  The one giving the speech or telling the story, whichever it was.  The man right over...  

Well, he was right there a minute ago.

 I'd tell you all about him but I'm afraid I don't have much to say.  You see, I only caught a word or two before my attention was swept away.  Maybe if he had made the whole thing clearer or more clever it would've been harder for me to forget that I was listening.  Now all I can hear is the incessant buzzing of this crowd.  Their lips are moving but the sounds don't match the motion.  What are they saying?  Is it a speech or story?  Whatever happened to that bridge I was building and why am I in this empty room?


*another of my older works*