Like Music

As the music started, everyone stopped doing whatever it was they were doing, as if enchanted by the violent, but at the same time miraculously delicate notes the piano sang under his command. No one noticed him coming, but to be honest it was rather dark in this pub. Most of the light bulbs had gone out a while ago, but the pubkeeper was not too keen on facultyworks, which added it's own character to this particular pub. Floorboards creaked, faucets kept running and there was a probable mould damage in progress.

But now the place was lit by thundering music, the air was thick with tension and pure electricity. Customer's hair could have as well jumped and tried to reach the roof, they felt constant shivers going down their spine with almost every new note.

And the man playing the music? He was a suit-full of devil and blues poured into a form of a man, he was like river, scary, terrifying force of nature. His fingers kept hitting the notes out of the worn out machinery of the instrument. He made it sing songs of mortality and dying, of longing and joy, of love and trust. His foot kept the rhythm going even when he played the most silent and almost non-existent notes.

People could do nothing but sit there, staring at the back of his brown coat. The beers went warm, meals went cold, bees could have built hives and have colonies in those open mouths that were pointed towards this man, who played for good twenty minutes without a pause. Then, after the last note was followed by silence that seemed to go on forever, he slowly turned around, accompanied only by the slightly reluctant creak from his bench.

No one said a word, but now they could all see the player himself. He was an older black man, probably in his late sixties or early seventies, his short beard had gone gray long ago. He had long, bony fingers and the widest of all smiles. His smile would have looked warm and embracing, if there wasn't something in his eyes. His eyes made that smile look cunning and somewhat malicious, those eyes made all the people in the pub feel uneasy.

The man rose from his bench with one sudden, slender and light move, walked up to the counter, turned to the bartender and ordered a beer with a deep, resonating voice. It took the tender a whil to realize this weird man was talking to him, and when he did, he coughed to clear his throat. "Sure, sure.. It's on the house.." He muttered to his beard. "Well ain't that something!" The stranger replied loudly, with a slightly higher tone than before. "You walk into a small shithole of a bar like this, ruin everyone's evening and get a free drink for it!" His honesty about his own position made the bartender feel himself even more uneasy. "it's been our common habbit, and all that......" he continued muttering, keeping his eyes on the counter instead of those dreadfully burning eyes. Man grinned and clapped his hands, took his pint and walked slowly to one of the dark cornertables.

People started to recover from this strange and unexpected incident, and began to drink and talk as if the spell would have been broken. Something had changed though. Everyone was on their feet, cautious like a fox that's being hunted. Some would give the odd player suspicious but hidden looks, and when recalling that night afterwards, all these people would sweat they saw his eyes glowing in the dark corner.

Eventually everything was as it used to be, people forgot all about the shadow in the corner, and although he had no intention to leave, and he knew what impression he had left to their minds, people tried to reject that uncomfortable feeling in the back of their heads, the lump in their throats. And death looked at all he had created, and he saw that it was all good.

At the Platform

The voice announces another train. She sounds weary, tired of her job. How long has the tape repeated these same trains, same metal boxes travellin on these same iron rails? How long have these trains sailed back and forth on these same rails, looking for a place where they can finally stop?

I sit on the Cardiff Central station, watching these behemoths devour people on their daily commuter-communion. Sacrificing another day for their jobs, to support their families, to pay off mortgages, to live their boxed-up lives.

I sit on the pavement, leaning on to a cold stone wall. People give me odd stares, but I don't mind. I'm used to odd stares. Too young men are discussing about the trains always being late. Just when they get heated up, the train arrives in schedule and leaves their complaints lingering in the air as they both get in. Personnel blows the whistle and the iron behemoth growls before setting off.

Sun colors every surface, wind blows used train tickets and receipts back and forth. It's almost cold. But my train is yet to come. I sit here, listening to Tom Waits sing a song about Singapore.

People gather around as another one of these monsters approaches. I'd like to yell at them. "DON'T GO IN! CAN'T YOU SEE IT'S A TRAP?!" But I don't. I know that in due time I'll be trapped, just like them. Just like yesterday. Just like today. Just like tomorrow.

This next monster is about to swallow this exceptionally beautiful young black girl. She has curly hair, which the wind keeps constantly throwing at her face until she ties it with a purple bandana. I realize I'm staring when she suddenly looks into my eyes. I turn my eyes away, pretending to be really interested in the rails. When I try to look at her one more time in all the secrecy the crowded and busy station platform provides, I find her eyes still looking into mine, capturing my sight. This was unexpected. She smiles at me lightly. That smile touches something inside of me. i'm not sure what it is, but while my mind is still thinking about what it might be, my body decides to panic and turns my head away.

The voice in my head shouts "No! No! No! You fucking moron, smile back!" I turn back at her, but she's already about to board the screetching monster. I feel stupid, but on the inside I'm smiling. Her smile is drawn into my soul, and the memory of this short incident I shall carry to my grave, where I'll place it delicately, carefully between all those traumas and rejections that I have faced, and that are yet to come.

Reflections

Train trembles and moans unsteadily as it plunges into the darkening night. Outside the flourishing, green woods pass by, but as the darkness weaves it's web around the world, I am left to stare at my own reflection in the window. It is like some dirty and scratched mirror, that breaks at every station and shows me another bit of the real world and other people, who watch me watch back at them, tired, uninterested.

Their world is the world of social interaction, polite questions and even more polite, or in some case clever and witty answers. I could play that game too. I know. I just played it for the last six hours, and it wore me off. My thoughts are drifting and slowly sinking, like some recently dead animal on the surface of a small swampy pond. Probably some careless mammal who got too confident and just a bit too far from the shore.

Another station, some middle-aged, balding man is walking back and forth restlessly, talking intensively to his cellphone, carrying a backbag on his right shoulder. The light at the station blinks. My reflection breaks and comes back again. I stare into my own eyes and feel uneasy. This is what working does to my mind. I cook soup from 6 to 8 hours and keep on singing to drown my concern about the fact that I have way too much soup brewing. Then I pour it all over these pages. Color white with tomato-red and pepper-orange.

The train plunges into a tunnel like some childish movie-metaphor, and the pressure starts fucking my ears. Ever since the first time I sat in an airplane, pressure's changes have felt just rough and violent. Especially when I feel tired and uninterested. Like now. It's like a puppy that wants to play with you, although you don't throw the ball. It throws it itself and returns the ball to you, wiggling it's tail.

Another stop. I am far too bored to watch out of the window anymore. I just sit, let my mind fill these empty seats with people who don't exist. There's the local vet, Mr. Hannigan, sitting next to the butcher, Mr. Flay. They're holding hands at smiling at each other. They won't notice us, no matter how we try to break their eyecontact or shout at them. Right in front of me sits the sweetest old couple imaginable. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. At nights they like to gag and bound eachother and play all kinds of sadistic games that would make any of us younger passangers flinch. I smile at them and they smile back, simultaneously. Like some old, perverted sex-robots.

I start staring out again. Darkness is pierced by these small boxes of light. Windows. Train goes by these big element barracks, and I see dozens of people living their lives, doing their evening routines. Twenty, thirty little rats in their boxes, unaware of eachother, performing exactly same tasks. It makes me shiver, and I try to concentrate on my reflection. But the city is too bright. I can see only these people, rats in their tiny boxes, rats in their daily grind, rats living their predetermined lives... Rats everywhere!

They are always victims of their circumstances, victims without crimes. It's not their fault they're disgusting. As an individuals, they're probably not. It is just the image they draw as a whole. The image of mankind today, that is what sickens me. Self-conscious? Closer to self-almost-aware. And definately not conscious of it's self and what that "self" is capable of. or then I'm an optimist. Doesn't sound like it? Sounds more like Schopenhauer? I think he was misunderstood, but that does not matter now. I believe that human beings are beautiful, interesting and capable of pretty much anything. The sad part is how we want to be lead, how we don't trust in ourselves but rely on the thought that someone will work things out for us. Instead of being there first, we wait for someone to build us an escalator all the way to the top. I don't quite see the point of freedom if you are not free to exist as to express that freedom. It is our right as human beings. To discover the world as it is, instead of struggling on a short leash, watching our own reflections in the train windows.