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Loath to leave the cool grass that carpeted the shade of the oak, Seth threw his arms wide and stretched and watched as the final flares of red died. Eyes weighted down by heat, he lay against the rough bark of the tree before finally pulling himself to his feet. His destination was still a few miles distant so with an owlish blink he hefted his guitar case and set out down the highway. The heat rising up from the strip of black pavement faded into the teasing winds of cool night. This nocturnal union was no strange thing to Seth. Most nights found him reveling in their marriage with his instrument on his back listening to the music of crickets and frogs. A smile teased the corners of Seth's mouth and sun leathered skin wrinkled slightly. A thousand such nights couldn't dim their beauty in his mind. They reminded him of days untold years earlier when he had been an apprentice to an older musician. He had shown him the mysteries of the world and the grace of music. He remembered the man fondly, his black skin wrinkled with laugh lines, not age and his crown of curly peppered hair. The dark man's southern drawl and lyrical voice saying to him, �Boy, there are few white men that have true soul, but you have it in you and I won't let you squander it.� Smiling broadly know, he readjusted the straps of his guitar case. The instrument was a parting present of a man who entered his life and disappeared like smoke. He left behind no note, as he couldn't write. In fact, Seth didn't even know his name, for the brief years they shared, he was �Sir.� �Sir� would have soundly berated him for losing himself in the past when the present was so richly spread before him. Warm yellow fell in puddles at Seth's feet as he made his way through the small town. From up ahead in the velvet of the night a jukebox sang amid the carousing of the town's inhabitants. Smiling like a fox in a henhouse, Seth walked up to the door of the hopping establishment and sat down at the crowded bar. He caught the barkeep's attention through streamers of blue smoke and asked for permission to perform. The man behind the counter lifted an eyebrow and appraised Seth skeptically. �It'll cost ya,� he said. �Of course,� replied Seth, �why don't we close our deal after the performance. The show should have an effect on the cost.� The barkeep exhaled sharply and said, �I doubt it� Let's see what you got boy.� Then he turned to the crowded room and yelled, �Hey y'all this boy here is gonna play for ya.� The keep pulled the plug on the jukebox and pointed to a small stage for karaoke that he could play on. Seth set his case on the cusp of the stage and lovingly lifted his guitar out. He perched on a stool and began to tune, plucking strings and turning pegs that glittered. When he was satisfied with the pitch he slowly stroked down and let out a single chord. The crowded taproom responded with a whispered silence and a turning of heads. His fingers moved in a quick flash, summoning a mercurial run. Seth looked up, �We'll get to that part in a bit, let's start with something you'll know.� His face matched his voice of smiles and without further ado he began to play. The familiar opening riff of �Sweet Home Alabama� rang throughout the muffled quiet of the bar. When Seth began to sing, the majority of the patrons began to drag spouses onto the dance floor to carouse. Seth kept the music flowing, not for a moment allowing the torrent of sound to be diminished. The songs he played were songs the entire gathering knew. Every person went to the floor to dance and he flashed smiles and broadly winked at enthusiastic young men who held the hands of smiling women. Seth's eyes played over the crowd until a single anomaly held his glance. At a corner table a woman sat and rejected all suitors. Her blonde highlighted hair hung around her round soft features and accentuated emerald eyes. The anomaly was not her rejection of the men. Instead it was the frown that played on her full lips and the hardness of the eyes of a depth more potent than any gem. Seth gave a smile that reflected all the joy of his music and there was no stirring in her distant eyes. His interest was piqued, but his roving eyes saw that the crowd's endurance was flagging. He ended the song with a plucked arpeggio and a carefully placed hand to muffle the song into silence. Seth gulped down water from the glass that the kindly barkeep had left during the performance. All were tired, but none seemed content that the music had stopped. Seth smiled with the joy that his playing brought them and began to play his own music. The notes were coaxed from the strings in a mercurial flow that stung with sorrow and eased pain like the most compassionate touch. While most couples went back to their seats, a few held each other close and swayed on the dance floor. Everyone else's eyes were fixed on Seth and his dancing fingers. Including the hard glint of emerald. Seth lifted his face and his eyes of cobalt and dusky green met hers. Their gazes locked and his eyes warmed until he could feel the ice in her stare melting. Seth sighed as the woman in the corner booth snapped up her defenses again, a sullen frown on her face. Seth gave her a look filled with regret and then he drove himself into his music, his cheek falling until it rested on the unvarnished mahogany of the guitar. The notes fell like rain now, liquid and filled with poignant emotion. The emerald-eyed woman found herself listening intently. The melody wound about her in a fluid grace of notes. The music embraced her, spiraling down into sorrow and pain. The woman winced in pain and her eyes hazed with tears, but the music did not relent. It grew stronger and wrenched her tears out in strangled sobs. She lay her head in her arms and cried until it seemed that she possessed no more tears to summon. When her pain was purged and it seemed that to feel anything at all would be utter pain, Seth's guitar slowly began to paint a new scene. The melody ran pure and strong. Pure unadulterated joy was summoned from his lithe fingers. The woman blinked back new tears now, but not for her pain. The song Seth played wove itself around her, resonating with the fabric of her being. This music was the very image of her! The auditory vision of her true self knocked her flat as she felt the doors of her pain and fear banged open. The rush of her true identity was enough to send her back to crying again for joy. She had been the prisoner of her mind for far too long and being bereft of her wall was new for her. When the woman finally had the strength to lift her head and take stock of her surroundings the crowd was slowly dispersing. No one was taking notice of her except for the lean figure of the musician; his guitar in his hand. Her red rim eyes betrayed her outburst of silent emotion. Seth's unabashed gaze was all comforting compassion as she stumbled after words. �I know you,� she whispered, her own words a shock. Seth's smile flashed like a sunset of red and near incandescent white. He bowed slightly, gently taking hold of her hand and kissing the back, �I know you too� I knew you from the moment you held my gaze.� She watched him as he put her hand down, his smile undaunted by her silence. Such an old fashioned act would have just moments earlier earned her scorn, but seemed now to be heartfelt tenderness. �How,� she said softly, her amazement strangled her ability to form coherent thoughts. �Quite obviously, lady, I know you too,� his even timbre soothed as he continued, �Don't worry, and just look into my eyes, deep within.� Hesitant and frightened she turned her eyes down into her hands, but she could feel the gentleness of his eyes on her. Eventually she lifted her gaze upwards and met his shining eyes. She didn't even notice Seth's fingers playing across the strings as she drowned in the mingled blue green of his eyes. For a brief moment she saw him in his gaze; joy and devotion written on his features. The vision pleaded with her but as the words brushed the peripheral of her mind she crushed the sight. She blinked and the image of a lonely man burned like an afterimage and was gone. �Who are you?� the woman whispered in amazement. �It would be better to ask, what am I, and that you already know. I'm a musician; a Songweaver as they used to call me, though the word was different in the old language. Did you know that music is magic?� �Well, I knew that music could affect one's mood, I guess that's magical,� was her hesitant reply. �Oh, there is so much more to it than that, dear one, so much more! True musicians are hard to come by, the Songweavers, normal musicians are everywhere, but their talent is only a distant echo of ours. But there is magic, real magic in our works. It doesn't have the overwhelming impact of the grand conjurations of the Magi; its magic is subtle and less intrusive. It's personal.� Seth could see the disbelief in her eyes so he gave her his broadest smile and said, �Hear me out, my lady. There is nothing to lose, is there not? And you may come out on top. Music is the oldest of magics, old as man himself. The birds taught the earliest man music. Their songs brought great joy or gentle peace to those who listened. �Please don't think of a robin or a bluebird when I tell you this story. Their song is only a dim recollection of the glory of what birds once were. It seems that all of God's great creation is fading these days, but while there is life there is joy and I will pursue it. But I digress. �As man learned to play instruments and relied less and less upon his voice it became easier for anyone with agile fingers to pick up a gittern or a lute and fancy themselves a Songweaver. It takes more than just being able to play. More than skill and more than talent, it is something you can feel within you, primitive and wild�� The woman stirred then and interrupted, �Okay, what if I believe all your tales of magic? How does it relate to me, and how did you make me see that?� �Oh, I'm getting there, just have patience dear. I made you see it through the music, I played the very rhythms and beat that is my heart and blood. My very essence is what you saw. That's also how I got your attention in the corner, I saw your eyes, I glimpsed your soul, who you are and I played it. The beauty I saw sung from the string with very little encouragement from me. �Don't speak of the misery you feel, everyone has it, but it had not become the festering soul devouring disease it has for some. Yes part of the magic of music is understanding people and a gaze like yours tells all, it almost screams it.� �You expect me to believe all you had to do was gaze into my eyes and you'd know everything about me? This has got to be the worst way to pick up a woman I have seen yet� I'm not so stupid as to fall for pretty stories, though I will admit you are an excellent musician. I've wasted enough time. Excuse me� �Lysandra, please wait.� The woman came to a dead halt, she turned quickly ready to tear into a stalking pervert, but was stopped. Seth's face no longer held a smile, and now as she, Lysandra looked closer she saw the age on his features that was highlighted by pain and regret. She looked into those soft orbs again to find they had deepened to ageless pools and out of the loneliness of his gaze gleamed two tiny sparks. Lysandra's hands went to her mouth and she gasped as her eyes swallowed him. "Seth�." Almost immediately they all talked of the musician and his talent. Gossip put him in the limelight for a week and for much longer all music was compared to his. The musician had made his mark. It wasn't for several more days that the first person noticed that Lysandra was conspicuously missing. Her house was empty, but in order and her duffel of belongs was gone from the tiny cottage. The small town was raised in discord, but it's erratic beat settled woven again into complacency and tranquility. Miles away two travelers merged in joyous melody that twined in golden streamers of sunlight. � Copyright Abrahm Simons |