Leo realized he wasn’t listening to the CD anymore. He was listening to her voice. The void in his apartment had shrunk. The silence had been replaced by a new sound: the possibility of beginning again.
He found it wedged between a best-of Queen and a forgotten Lumineers album. Franco Battiato: The Platinum Collection . The cover was a grainy photo of a man with kind, distant eyes and a silver beard, looking like a mystic who had just finished a shift at a bank. Leo had never heard of him. But the price was two euros, and the plastic case was uncracked. He bought it. franco battiato the platinum collection
The first notes were a simple, hypnotic piano. Then, Battiato’s voice—clear, warm, and in Italian—began to sing. Leo didn’t understand a word. But he understood the feeling . It was the feeling of a train pulling away from a station at sunset. Of a letter folded inside a coat pocket. Of a question that didn’t need an answer. Leo realized he wasn’t listening to the CD anymore
“I’m learning,” he said.