Recovering Lost Treasures
The True Song begins with Csaba’s whisper that calmed the wrath of seas.
Pleased with their stillness he carried on, in the oceans he buried a seed.
A seed that took root and raised mountains, fed saplings, painting valleys green.
He found he admired the shape of each tree, still wishing each tree might agree.
The courtyard was minimally, but tastefully decorated. I find the two often correlate. A few trees filled the sky within the walls. Furniture was scarce. What was necessary was placed in practical positions which remained aesthetically pleasing. Two walls and a gate were lined with ivy that may be obscuring formerly hung wall art. The remaining wall contained the door we had just come through. The wall was painted with what seemed to be a stunning woman, from which light radiated, seemingly feeding the ivy of the other walls. She stood before wispy clouds and a sky, fading into sunset. The old man’s face contained a cryptic stoicism as he tried desperately not to look at the woman as we rolled near. It was a place for tranquility, a place where a man could enjoy the charms of a book and the caress of a beautiful woman. I found it represented the spirit of this old man very well.
I walked the old man and his seemingly magical chair into a few rays of warm sunlight and sat in front of him, atop a long wooden table in the sun, resting my feet upon the benches intended for sitting around the table.
The old man’s face soured a bit at my impropriety. I smirked playfully and his face brightened with appreciation for the colloquial nature of my somewhat rude behavior. This man was boldly sharing with me an artefact that would have him lashed or sent to a prison camp, and acting as if we were discussing the price of fruit. I figured we were beyond formal conduct. Let us behave as the cordial criminals we now were.
I lay the guitar over my knees and slid my fingers over the strings like a lover, starved for touch, as if I was teasing her… teasing myself. Looking down at her I sighed under the influence of enigmatic familiarity. I found it mystifying. What was I doing here? I was holding a literal instrument of treason in my hands. I was becoming far too familiar with an old merchant who was trying to find a reason for me to walk away with highly unlawful paraphernalia. I had lived nearly all my life in this city, most of it living on her streets, and I had never once seen the shop in which I now sat behind. This was not a manner in which I would ever allow myself to behave. Was I bewitched by this old codger and his cloudy beard?
I looked up to his big shit-eating grin.
“I am fairly certain I can surmise what is running through your mind, son.” The charming old bastard chuckled. “I swear on Csaba’s stone and earth, I have done nothing numinous or wizardly to you to bring you to this moment. I merely saw a boy who needed both shelter and mystery. Luckily my little shop had both of these in stock. Now play me a song, my paranoid, transient, friend.”
I eyed him suspiciously, still.
“Will you say it under blood?” I said, leering.
“What do they teach you on the street, boy?” The shopkeep’s tone was shocked and disapproving. He shook his head with a judgmental glare. “It’s an archaic, barbaric superstition. I did not think you a Neanderthal. Very well, come here and I will share blood with a fool.”
I laid the guitar upon the table with the gentlest of touch and approached the man, drawing a small flick-knife from my pocket and sliding the blade along heel of my palm. I watched the crimson bead and handed the knife to the merchant.
As he reached out to take it, I eyed him, suspiciously, yet again. “What is your name, merchant?” I asked.
“Finally!” He exclaimed. “In the future, when you hold a man’s crime in your hands, it’s proper to ask for his title! Call me Bosck. Let us touch bloods like idiots.”
I naturally scowled. He slid the blade under the crease of a gnarled finger.
The ancient asshole grinned. “Your name, son?”
“Callum.”
The man nodded, took my hand and pressed our self-inflicted cuts together. His blood seemed to warm my own. “Callum, I do not shape you, I do not change you, I show you only who you are. You are safe, you are under your own power, and you chose your path to and from here. Feel better now, cretin?” He smirked. “ Next time, if you want to find if you’ve been bewitched, lay salt upon your wound. It will draw you back from most influences… save from those of a shapely woman.”
“Really?” I wondered.
“Didn’t we just do some meaningless stupid ritual to ‘prove’ my honesty?” He scoffed.
“If it is worthless, how can I trust you?” I returned.
The old man reached into his coat and brought out a glass bottle filled with a white granular substance, with a metal and rubber contraption to keep the bottle closed. The bottle was not bigger than two of my fingers pressed together. He then brought out two scraps of cloth.
“Here. Use it. Don’t embarrass yourself with blood rituals anymore.” He insisted, handing me the bottle and then one of the scraps of cloth. “Now. You. Patch yourself up and play that damned guitar.”
He began wrapping his cut as I did the same, returning to the table, resting Shariah’s gun upon the table next to me and sat in the same irreverent fashion I had before.
The man began packing his pipe and humming lightly to himself, bobbing his head like an interested bird.
I hadn’t touched an instrument in… what had to be more than ten years. The strings felt rough beneath my fingers. The streets demand different callouses than song. My skin felt soft and weak beneath the taut, anxious strings. I laid my hands upon this lover and was found wanting. I gave myself a moment to take in the nostalgia of the occasion, then let my hands wander her frame. Warmth radiated from the wood, as I sent my hand up the neck and found the machineheads beneath my fingers. I slid a hand over the body, feeling the smooth, shell and ebony in-lays around the opening. I plucked gently, letting her only whisper out notes, not to give up her secret just yet. She rang true and clear, tender as I required, but strengthening me, encouraging my return to the graces of song.
After she was properly tuned, I could feel a transcendental energy circuiting between us.
I looked up to find the man, squinting in a pursed anticipation. Like a cat stalking prey. I admit, it was a little unnerving. Smoke puffed from around his already cottony beard, obscuring him, making him appear to be a cloud with eyes poking through.
His raised his hand through the tendrils of smoke, making a shooing motion, telling me to go about my playing.
I felt a smile play across my lips. I fingered a chord and strummed from end to end of it and back again, and let the chord hang in the air as I exhaled deeply. My eyes following the tempo of my breath as they slid shut like an ocean break finding rest upon the shore. Peace. Unending peace. Then, an enormous upwelling of energy and purpose, the wave drawing back.
I felt my weight shift uncontrollably as I seemed to lean into the beginning of the song and erupt. Notes flooded out of me and spun wildly into a tapestry of youth. Anguish, solace, doubt, lust, loss, young love, abandonment, reckless abandon, the first touch of a woman, starvation, exuberance, desperation, obstinacy, every feeling from the last song to this one, poured out in mere seconds. I had no control. It was an emptying of an emotional bladder strained beyond accountability. I was purging the pain of losing my music, the purest form of expression I had known since a child. It was a deluge of notes woven into short progressions and transitioned into greater thoughts and purpose. Each line nestled into the contours of the next. I could feel pressure building behind the drain of such intense emotions and I chased it with no regard for what may come. I had needed this like air in my lungs and I never let myself look upon the emptiness it had left. My song played true. My melody was my memories. My harmony, my heart. I played for what seemed like years, letting my life open into the light. I played and played until I crashed upon a final chord and found myself tearful and exhausted. My body hung limp as if I’d fought 20 men… and as far as I was concerned, I had. I had fought all the manifestations of myself from the last song until the latest. I looked up to find the man shaking his head in both disbelief and some form of disapproval and wild appreciation.
“Son, that was incredible, impressive, enchanting, and by Csaba’s gaze, the most wasteful bit of music I have ever seen.” The old man chuckled. “You have amazing proficiency for the instrument, but you have such undeveloped artistry. Let’s hope you fuck a whole lot gentler than you play or there is likely to a string of sullen women behind you!”
I gave the old man a struck look, “What do you know of women? I’m sure that chair can’t make your pecker work anymore than a wish could at your age.”
“Son, I’ve forgotten more about love-making than you have learned in your short years.” He snickered, shaking his head. “Regardless, take the song like you should take a woman. Take consideration of their shape. Let your mind trace each turn and contour. Let your mind absorb the song with tenderness, even when the song calls for brashness, you should always appreciate what each bend brings. Map every inch along the way, so that you may find your way back in your dreams.” The man’s voice grew frail.
“Please. Take your time. You know not what you have.”He looked lost in nostalgia. He took a long drag of his pipe. “A good song and a great woman are two things you never will want to let go of.”
I let the man swim through his thoughts and pipe smoke as I immersed myself in the guitar again. I began playing, letting Bosck’s words soak in.
My fingers once again dancing over a fret board, seemingly to lean into each touch. I let my focus restrict the flow of feelings, distilling only the most potent emotions. I was closing in on the feeling weighing heaviest on my spirit. I tore away layer after layer until I had found the greatest ache I had buried, the greatest emptiness was filled with loss. I poured these intense feelings through my fingers. I felt each note swell, bend, sway, shaping those I had lost among the years, their faces, their words, I could nearly hear the voices of my mother, my master, friends I had lost along the way. While the tempo of this song was a bit more subdued, it cut me deep, and opened to stunningly painful elements of my boyhood. It painted my past beautifully, and I saw the indisputable value in the old man’s words. I was regaining myself. I continued to play until tears fell and breath caught in my chest. I was weeping, quietly, and I felt a hand rest upon my shoulder. I stopped playing suddenly, setting the guitar aside. It had become too intense to carry on. I closed my eyes and my heart nearly stopped. Could it be? My eyes shot open and I saw the fading ghosts of an image, my memory painted into vision. For the first time in 12 years… I saw my dead mother’s face. I was paralyzed with fear. My head felt as if a knife had dug into the back of skull. I could feel my hands grow hot and the wind gust violently. I fell from the table to the sandy courtyard floor. It felt as if the dust rose up to catch me.
“Bosck…” I croaked and faded from this world.