A child had thirteen fingers on each hand, and his aunts immediately put him to playing the harp, something that made good use of the extras, and he completed the course in half the time needed by poor pentadigitates.

After that the child came to play in such a way that there was no score worthy of him. When he began to give concerts, the amount of music that he concentrated in that time and space with his twenty-six fingers was so extraordinary that the audience couldn't keep up and was always behind, so that when the young artist was coming to the end of "The Fountain of Arethusa" (a transcription) the poor people were still in the "Tambourin chinois" (an arrangement). This naturally created horrible confusions, but everyone recognized that the child played like an angel.

So it came to pass that the faithful listeners, the same as box-seat subscribers and newspaper critics, continued going to the child's concerts, earnestly, not trying to be left behind as the program went on. They listened so hard that several of them began to grow ears on their faces, and with every new ear that grew on them they got a little closer to the music of the twenty-six fingers on the harp. The trouble came when the Wagnerian concert let out and people on the street fainted by the dozen as they saw listeners appear with their whole visages covered by ears, and then the municipal superintendent took drastic steps and put the child in the typing pool at Internal Revenue, where he worked so fast that it was pleasure for his bosses and death for his co-workers. As for music, in a dark corner of the parlor, forgotten by its owner perhaps, silent and covered with dust, the harp could be seen.

Julio Cortázar, what a dream

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Today: 3.5 miles