"Unsilted" memory
A news show was reporting on a recent demonstration. Waiting in a noisy restaurant for my family, and for a table, I watched the written version unroll across the prominently displayed TV screen.
It seemed the newscaster had been interviewing someone about his brother. Unable to catch the gist of the story, I was surprised to see the words "unsilted the memory of his brother" roll across the screen.
A part of my mind knew it was a typo, that someone's grief was exacerbated by feeling insulted on behalf of a brother he had lost.
Meanwhile, a deeper part went to work on the imagery; I comforted myself with the possibility that the spelling was correct.
This suggested a completely different story. Perhaps the brothers, separated in childhood, had not seen one another for a very long time.
Now some sight, sound or movement had unlocked a treasure trove. As these long-inaccessible memories rose, cleaned of the silt of time, the man wept for his long-lost brother and was comforted.
If only that were so. But no matter how true, what newscaster would speak of the unsilting of memory? Such imagery belongs only to poetry, or fiction.
It seemed the newscaster had been interviewing someone about his brother. Unable to catch the gist of the story, I was surprised to see the words "unsilted the memory of his brother" roll across the screen.
A part of my mind knew it was a typo, that someone's grief was exacerbated by feeling insulted on behalf of a brother he had lost.
Meanwhile, a deeper part went to work on the imagery; I comforted myself with the possibility that the spelling was correct.
This suggested a completely different story. Perhaps the brothers, separated in childhood, had not seen one another for a very long time.
Now some sight, sound or movement had unlocked a treasure trove. As these long-inaccessible memories rose, cleaned of the silt of time, the man wept for his long-lost brother and was comforted.
If only that were so. But no matter how true, what newscaster would speak of the unsilting of memory? Such imagery belongs only to poetry, or fiction.