Author: Timothy Goss
He was sitting in a wet towel when the phone bleeped. It was late, too late for good news.
Poullis’ voice cracked as she spoke, “They’re asking for you.” she said and fell silent.
His calender was cleared. His diary emptied. A damp towel lay on the floor where it dropped. His apartment looked the same, but things were missing, important things, things he cared about. He was prepared.
“He was warned.” They chimed.
Poullis was called in and questioned. She denied knowledge, but there were transcripts revealing her treachery acquired through sorcerous means. Poullis claimed fakery and forgery, and then she claimed skulduggery. But she had passed before the day was through.
The world turned cold. He burned incense and made an offering of blood in her name. It would please the Gods, he hoped, and he would see her in the next world. They would search for him, he knew that. They would find him, he knew that too. They had sentries everywhere, people he knew and strangers alike, equally committed to their barbaric cause.
Something saw him in the market. He heard his name, a name he hadn’t heard in years, and stopped and turned. They were fast, like a jaguar with claws to match. He suffered lacerations as he fled, and wondered if everybody heard them growl?
Hiding in trash cans and back alley’s, behind restaurants with the homeless who asked no questions, he nursed his wounds. It was a shadow world, unseen, a place where people look but rarely see. His absence had upset chronology. It was his time, his turn and things could not continue until it was resolved. It was as old as the time itself, with harmonic lines that stretched back aeons. He knew the songs by heart, although he denied it and heard them day and night. They found him alone in a crowd.
The next time he would be prepared. He needed a twin to double his chances and searched amongst is fellows, the dirty and under-trodden, the stinky and forgotten. He needed a twin to substitute, to take up the fight and pay the ultimate price, transition was assured with a placed marked in the stars.
Someone his size turned up in the river. Dressed up and animated they were inseparable and content.
When they came, they came in droves, all claws and teeth, and fur and teeth. They were marked by their origin, every place represented. They would take him without asking, or extinguish his influence. He was prepared and cowered somewhere safe. Like his ancestors he had lines to compose, lines to recall and lines to arouse the vibrations around us and ring out existence over and over and over again.
In the melee the rhythm was heard in a thousand thunderous voices and pounding limbs. He became one amongst many while his twin took full force. Then his voice rose above it and the heavens rang with every word, every vibration of energy spilling colour into material existence. The harmonics of the universe are so tightly woven, only the song, the vibration itself, caused movement and change, and change is the chaos that keeps it all together.
At the end he closed his eyes and held his breath. There was nothing more to sing, no more time to sing it. His time was done. His twin was done. The song man’s journey ended here and the next singer was unfurled.