Bartering in Favors and Dreams
The world took shape over eons and Csaba watched nature take wondrous bloom.
Still Csaba felt his creation was merely purposeless threads on a loom.
With blade in hand, severed finger from man, and laid it within the earth’s womb.
Again Csaba’s seed took root, and his glorious tapestry could be resumed.
I returned to consciousness to find myself draped over two warm steel arms extending from Bosck’s chair. The front of my shirt caked with the scarlet, turning brown off pooled and dried blood. Yet another blood stain on my ages old secondhand shirt.
My eyes met Bosck’s.
“You fell and gave yourself a bloody nose. Youth makes much of everything.” He said disapprovingly.
I looked down and discovered I was being lifted from the dust by clockwork controlled paddles, protruding from a device, seeming to promise always another mystery.
“Boy, if you’re going to faint, at least have the decency to be a pretty girl.” Bosck’s annoyed tone sharpening the playful insult. “What came over you, anyhow?”
“Nothing.” I mumbled as he set me back upon the table. My body felt weak under the oppression of some fading force within me.
“Well, I see why you don’t play delicately. It seems playing beautifully make you turn out the lights, lad.” Bosck teased.
“Thanks, I think.” Now it was my turn to be annoyed. “You’re kind of an asshole, old man. You talk to me as if we’re brothers. Though, I must admit, it is refreshing.” I smiled. Few people in the world treated me as an equal.
“Best of all, I’m an asshole in need of a favor.” Before my skepticism could take hold, Bosck raised and hand. “Csaba’s balls, boy, calm yourself. Hear me out. I need a message spoken and a package delivered. Both are intended for the same gentleman. NOTHING ILLEGAL, I assure you.” He said, interrupting my protests yet again. “Just an old book to an old friend.”
“As for payment?” I asked cautiously.
“I’m sure we both know what price I offer and you expect. I have a few sets of strings as well to carry you for a time.”
I am aware of the peculiarity, having such a compelling desire to own the very instrument which had such immediate and impairing effects on me but you must understand. I have not touched an instrument since my childhood, and they consumed my life until the passing of my _________(word for master [maestro? leraar? Sef? Mestre? Preceptor? ]) I needed this guitar. I knew I would be unable to walk out of here without it. “I’m afraid I can’t. I have no place to hide such an instrument and every bobby within the city walls knows my face.”
“Let’s not play games, you desire this old box harp more than you care for your next breath.” The man said dismissively. “As for anonymity, I believe I can help with that as well. Lay the guitar upon the table and join me.”
Bosck motioned for me to push him once again. I sighed and fell into position behind the chair. He gestured carelessly to a corner covered in vines and grinned mischievously as confusion spread over my face.
As I pushed, I watched the old curmudgeon fiddle with his chair once again. He slipped his hand to the underside of the right arm rest and with a flick of his wrist he produced forth another extension from his manmade marvel. This one by far the most impressive yet. I could feel my jaw drop at the very sight. I couldn’t move. I could hear the old man snickering at my shock.
From the front of the arm of the chair extended a hydraulic and clockwork arm with a very intricate pattern on the palm. Bosck’s hand crept over the arm rest covered in a black glove in a steel frame covered in gears and pulley and all other kinds of machinery. As his fingers moved, so did those of the mechanical arm before the chair.
Bosck gestured for me to keep pushing. I gathered my wits back into semblance once again and gave the old man a spiteful shove. As we came upon the vine blanketed wall, I watched as the old man spread his hand out perpendicular to his arm, bringing his fingers together into a flat solid shape. His other hand slid a lever back and I heard a hissing sound as if pressure were building within the chair.
“It feels like centuries since I’ve done this.” Bosck mumbled in a contemplative tone. I could feel his mind grow distant. His focus absent. It began to feel as If I was the only one in the courtyard. I was intruding into this man’s world. “God’s great beard how things have changed. How quickly the time passes. Nia, I’m still not sure how to live this life without you.”
I grew more uncomfortable as the man’s mind meandered.
“Balls of God, look at me fading in and out like an old coff-dodger. Now watch this, boy!” Bosck’s voice growing in intensity and excitement until nearly screaming. He reached for another lever to his left and tugged it back with vigor. A soft click proved anti-climactic until a hiss began to build and the old man looked back with a childlike grin on his face. Fire erupted from palm of the hand, projecting forth in a cone, devouring the untamed, invading vines covering the newly revealed stone wall.
This day was piling high mysteries and I was about to my threshold, when yet another presented itself. An impression of a hand rested upon a section of the wall, previously obscured by vines.
The man retreated the formerly pulled levers, causing spewed hellfire. My shoulders relaxed as shock and boyish wonder visibly receded from my childish face.
I crept around the chair to get a better look at the sigil on the wall. Within the impression lay a tree with a black trunk, its leaves were emeralds set into the stone. Below the roots sat 4 stones with small black metal frames, shaping them into the four alchemical symbols, fire, earth, water, and air… and another symbol I didn’t recognize. Set under each of these are what would look to most like a rifle’s crosshairs, but only a musician would recognize as a coda.
“It’s a lock!” I sputtered.
“Such powers of deduction!” Bosck said sarcastically.
“And the hand is the key!” I said, ignoring his petulance.
“Move aside, move aside.” Bosck gestured. He extended his palm again in the same fashion as he had to spew forth flame. The mechanical hand mimicked the movement yet again. I took the chance to examine the chair’s hand extension yet again. It was an exact copy of Bosck’s, only straight. The size, shape, and creases matched up exactly. It was remarkable. Bosck took the opportunity to rush the chair forward on his own, smashing the palm of the mechanical hand into my face and knocking me clear on my rather notable posterior.
“You old bastard!” I screamed.
Bosck erupted with laughter, his body shaking, tears spilling from the wrinkles near his eyes.
“The gems.” I said.
Bosck’s laughter tapered off after what seemed like ages. “What?”
“The gems work like tumblers in a lock. The shape of your hand like the edges of a key.” I mumbled. “It only works to your hand.”
“Very good!” Bosck said, impressed.
“And your chair has a small tank of a flammable liquid, oil I would assume, lit by a chemical flame within the folds of the mechanical hand.” I said, growing bolder.
“Correct again, young Callum.”
“Now who built it?” I asked accusedly.
“The same man who built these locks. Now, move aside so I can finally open it.” Bosck twisted his wrist and used the mechanical hand to shove me aside.
I walked around the chair and slowly rolled him towards the hand shape lock. Bosck rolled the hand from wrist to fingertips and pressed it into the impression.
And…. Nothing… not a pop, not a click, not a rumble. Now it was my turn to laugh. “For a man boldly giving me sex advice, after that I think I’ll work it out on my own. You disappoint just before the whisper of climax.”
Bosck made a sour face and began to open his mouth in protest. BOOM. The ground shook. Once again, I was knocked on my ass. The dust re-settled and Bosck’s chair had slid back a few inches, his eyes wide.
I looked back to see Bosck’s confident smirk return. “You were saying, shithead?”