8-bit flamenco

I walk in as the last few songs of the night wind down in our living room.
She pours, as she always does, her soul to voice,
in an intangible mixture of exuberance and frustration,
combining her long week—it is being a long week for everyone—
with the history of defiance that birthed the flamenco she now sings.
I listen to the guitar in the hands of a friend dance with her voice
as they have been doing for many weeks now.
This mere practice session vibrates
with more soul than any other moment of my day so far.

As soon as the friend departs, in a trail of graceful goodbyes, with his guitar,
she tip-toes in to my room
with a visible skip-and-hop,
and wearing that same dimple
—which video evidence shows, she had since the age of six—
and starts humming the same song she was singing moments ago,
but this time in short, deliberately blocky, square notes.

“Like the Supernintendo”, she says, continuing to hum MIDI-style,
not needing to explain the reference
as I recall how she told me about when
she used to play Super Mario with its adorably choppy music.
“Eight bit flamenco!”, I confirm and join her chorus,
with a facsimile of the tune that, in such stumpy notes,
is forgiving even of my limited range
—I was born to sing in eight bits.
I start dancing to the song in two-frame animations,
arms and head moving between one expression and another
and then back again, like her favorite plumber from childhood.

The tune becomes hard to carry
as we collapse in a puff of laughter
with both of us now dancing in two-frame steps.
The princess, it seems for a moment, is in the right castle for once
and the frustrations of the world seem to be
no more than a turtle to jump over
—if one only picks the right soundtrack for them.

Melih Sener