SUMMER
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JUNMER
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JULUMNER
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AUGUSTOX
JUNMER
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JULUMNER
...
AUGUSTOX
Black and White
Vvp his thumb slides down the edge of the taut chord, and twang he pinches two fingers together and twists. With a snap another string snaps the wooden neck and Ahh… he lets out a sigh. A grin of satisfaction splits his boyish face as the strings buzz under his fingers, and he thinks Yes, that just feels right. How could something as simple as a few plucked strings grow into something so beautiful and complete? Sometimes he wonders. But maybe that’s all we are, he distantly thinks— strings humming to different frequencies. Threads so small that they’re close to nothing, but when plucked they buzz, the vibrations pulsing across all eternity, crossing and crashing into others in a burst of white noise, until we can find another note to harmonize with, and then Yes, that just feels right.
And slap the strings are silenced under his hand and he tap-taps his foot against the concrete sidewalk before taking up the position of the chord. And then there is music.
This scene is familiar to him, the set the usual box crate at the corner of an intersection. He plays the old tune, sliding up and down the neck of the worn guitar. He doesn’t have to look in order to play—his hands know the way—but he likes to watch them dance. Spindly spider fingers, weaving; it’s as though his fingers are attached to invisible strings and the puppeteer is sitting on his shoulder, humming the tune in his ear. He has no control. It’s the music that plays him.
It’s uncommon to see musicians playing on street corners in this part of town, and yet no one stares. They pass in a haze, walking forever to destinations that maybe never existed. The musician has never played on this street before, but it’s just the same as the others in this District, every person like an extra in a movie with no life in their eyes. Fucking zombies, he thinks, and plays louder.
Eventually the song reaches their ears, sparks a bit of lucidity in their eyes. An older man actually turns on his heels, and heads back towards the musician. A little girl paws on the hem of her mother’s dress with Mommy, mommy look! but the mother hushes her child with a harsh shhh! She’s stopped to listen too. A young man, not part of the crowd, leans against the alleyway wall, eyes closed, just listening.
As more people pass, they pause, and join the small crowd circling the musician. A few peer over heads, trying to get a better look, because although the serenade of the guitar sounds sweet, it’s what they’re seeing that’s truly mesmerizing.
He grins upon hearing the oohs and ahhs and one loud wow! He grins the smile of the all-knowing Cheshire Cat as what seems like smoke rises from the body of the guitar. But this smoke is different from the waft of grey air coming from the guitarist’s cigarette. This substance is thicker, almost fleshy. It doesn’t rise and disperse like smoke usually does, but whirls around, curling like waves and spreading out. Expanding. It seems to shimmer before the audience, but no—a boy reaches out but never touches it. It’s behind their eyes, on top of the foreground of their minds and beneath the backdrop of what they’re seeing, but what are they seeing?
The hovering mist changes, and through the illusion they can still see the young musician, but now he’s changed too. His form is distorted slightly through the smoke, as if from the heat of a fire or the flicker of light on water. But it’s not just him, inside the outline of this… this music, everything changes. They know it does, but they can’t put a name on it, no matter how hard they try.
The crowd is growing by the measure. Someone from the building above opens up their window and leans out as the music drifts up to her. The guitarist laughs, because all these people know is that it’s beautiful.
What they don’t know is that it’s color.