Resonance
Reds, greens, blues—every color in the whole fucking rainbow and then a few—swirl before my eyes. They flow, curling into themselves and then spreading out like a spastic wave. The colors don’t flash like the violent sounds of rock or metal, but blend into and branch out of each other. They pulse to my beat, flickering slightly at the edges like a fire. A coppery red hums about my fingertips as a golden thread crawls from the mouth of the guitar. An invisible brush carries it behind my eyes, curling like vines over all the other colors.
Very pretty.
Plucking the strings now, little fireworks of color sprout here and there against the black and white city. The crowd holds its breath, eyes frozen in snapshots wide and clear. They’re not even listening to the music anymore, just watching the colors dance, even though, and they don’t know, it’s really one and the same.
The colors give an echo-like effect to my song, like a call and repeat, a round in a fraction of a microsecond. But maybe I’m the only one who can see the music and hear the colors all at once. Poor suckers, some of them can’t see it at all. And they hate it, or me, because of it. Hate the game, not the player. The message, not the messenger. But what about the art and the artist?
They might as well be deaf and blind, the fuckers.
I strum out my last chord nice and slow, and the color thins out like a grey sunset. The last blip of light from a dying television set.
Then it’s all gone grey. Everyone’s falling through the silence and clap they hit reality, hard. As the applause grows, the other sounds of this world fall back into place—cars vroom by in unseen streets, shop bells riiing, civilians pulse through a late 20th century sky-scraping city. I observe my audience as they disperse, and I’m not surprised to see that they all look like they belong in this time, give or take a few decades of fashion. However, to my right there’s a serf who claps his hands, looking dazed and a little nauseous from the culture shock.
That’s sort of how it is around here. You either face the raw shock of realizing that all of history has fallen around your front steps, or sleepwalk through a few months of your life on repeat. The world’s messed up…I know. But even so, in one motion I set down my darling guitar, sweep off my hat, and bend down in a low bow. Then I snap up my head and give them a wink, one hand still clamped behind my back. I offer the hat to the audience.
“Any spare change for a starving musician?”
As my hat grows heavy I hear a laugh. A voice behind me says, “Musician? More like painter.”
My senses freak. I freeze as the last of my audience drops their pocket’s-worth in my hat, momentarily blinded by a flash of deep purple. The voice belongs to a girl, but how old I can’t quite tell. I rub my eyes… the purple is still ringing in my ears, the slight taunt in her singsong perfect voice. She’s a musician of course– I know this even before I turn around and see the small harp in her hands, hands with long fingers and spatula tips that she taps on the edge of the wooden instrument, perfect for playing the piano and covered with calluses like mine, like that of a guitarist…
I smile, a social gesture I know must look out of practice. But I seize the moment to imprint her face in my memory, not knowing that there is no need, that her face will haunt me for year to come. She could be 12 or 21; I’m not quite sure— her face is one of tired youth. The few blemishes on her white skin are confidently unmasked by any makeup. She cocks her head to the side, and I see earrings dangle by her too-long neck. Her hair is tangled under her cap, cut short and light colored or, rather, not-colored. The girl is wearing a one-piece with tights and long sleeves, all covered in a diamond patter. A harlequin pattern, I realize. Probably a street performer, or a court fool from the 16th century.
She steps forward and greets my smile, lips parted. I see that one of her teeth is chipped and now she’s very close to me—my breath catches—not touching but mere inches from my face, and holding my gaze without any shame.
I feel my cheeks heat. I don’t dare look down to see what she places in my hat. There’s something off with her, uncanny, attractive, wrong. Her eyes spark with almost colors, and she speaks again.
“Take care of yourself, friend.”
“Thanks, uh—“
“Jess. Nice to see you—“
“Jack,” I say quickly. She laughs. Bells jingle. For a moment, everything is alive with color and the world sings, blasting melody on my eyes, and I start to laugh too. Maybe the bells grow more distant. Dizziness comes over me.
Suddenly the flash of color is gone, gone violently, and the world around me is so much greyer than it’s ever been before.
I sit back down, trying to calm my dizzy mind before it takes me away from lucidity. I count my earnings: a few dollars, a nickel, quarters, silver, bronze coins, a used toothpick, and a small white card. I lift the card between two fingers and hold it up to get a better look. The words shine in fresh ink as I read,
The Resonance
1-231-1999
The Resonance. My heart nearly bursts. I look up, but the girl Jess is long gone. Is this it? After so many months of searching, is this finally the real deal? I flipped the card over. Scrawled in pencil on the back is my only connection to the strange girl Jess.
Meet me in 1783.