“One thousand words.” He said “that’s the going rate.”
I looked down at it in my hand.
Taken back to the day it was first shown to me.
“What if it’s burned?” I asked.
“Burned?” He asked. “How burned?”
“Not very, just around the edges.” I explained.
“Like, it was saved from a fire. Would it be worth more, then?”
“Well, no.” He answered, matter-of-factly.
“What it it’s old.”
“Old?” he asked. Leaning forward, now engaged. “How old?”
“What if what used to be white is now turning yellow.
and what used to seem new now looks antique
and she looks so young that you think it can’t be her.”
“Well…” He paused, thinking it over – or pretending to.
“No.” He finally decided, leaning back into his position of power.
“One thousand words. That’s the going rate.”
“What if…” I searched it for any other idiosyncrasy “It’s autographed.”
“Like – half in cursive and half printed – and the ‘I’ is accented by a tiny heart.”
“That’s tempting, but rules are rules, and rates are rates.”
He smiled, enjoying my pain too much.
“It’s worth a thousand words. No more, no less.”
“What kind of words, I mean do I get to choose them?” I said
“Mostly fluffy words, not very heavy handed words. Not five dollar words.
Just our two cents worth.” He said through his grinning teeth.
The thought of her being reduced to one-thousand two-cent words made me ill.
So I left and took the picture with me.
I wandered and pondered and got lost
finding myself
at that pier she used to talk about, where she first met my father.
The sight there had to be worth twenty thousand words, in French.
I don’t speak French.
So I did not understand why it was beautiful
only that it was.
So it was there and then that I decided I would set her
priceless and free.