The Echo in Heaven
By Denis Hirson
Excerpt from The House Next Door to Africa
When an echo rolls out on an errand it can’t stop. On reaching its destination
it can’t stop. And it has great difficulty pausing in the middle. There seems
no end to the work of an echo. It must always be returning, bending and
condensing what came before.
Eventually, it is small enough to slip under the doors of its soundproof
heaven, far from the falling branches, the risky walls, the bullets and the
footsteps. Then it can stop shaking the air, and stoop down, and forget.
But sooner or later a god bursts out, or a lost soul starts pounding to be let in,
or a band of angels arrives on a cloud. The doors slide open and the echo
wakes up, restlessly wondering where it came from, and what all that noise is
about outside.
