In a fit of flying fingers over steeled strings, it starts.
The ringing ostinato on the wrong side, the simple melody, the master and music inseperable. My eyes close, ringing fills my mind, first the brown colored experience, then a fit of desert sand.
The first drop, a low note on the bottom string, I know this part, I can play it. It pushes me, "Further, it whispers." Further into an abyssal darkness, a kind of quiet world. There is no fear in this abyss, it’s not an angry world like advertised by some minds, but rather a kind of sleeping dark, a place of pure thought. I will into this world a dream, a star, a string — the cosmic kind — nothing escapes the faculties of my mind and reason.
The triplets — Oh the Triplets! The former ostinato becomes a rolling hill. Verdant, the sand sprung to life, trees and birds — yellow and blue, finches and larks. High notes, deep drummed notes, the strum. The master’s hands crash against the strings in a fit of thunderous fury. The storm breaks over the quiet hills, lightning and thunder, rain and sleet over the trees, the birds are silent now, the crashes and the howling wind. The sky dark as a dagger splits into furious factions — on my right hand twisted armies of grotesque, beautiful demons roar; a legion against the storm. On my left the lightning, furies of gods older than I, the rain — washing as a flood — the hail and the sleet, cutting as thrown knives do. Then the calm.
The calm, quiet prelude to the war to end all things, an apocolypse contained in eight steps. The bloodied mouths of the demon horde drool with ravenous anticipation, the bright white lightning ceases for a moment on the side of Titans, the din is gone, the battle looms.
One man — I — stands in the middle, I become the master, I feel my fingers morphing and bending to the shape of the note. The first melody returns. The demons driven back by the sweet sound of a single bird echoing those sounds. The titans realize their folly and retreat; I am not the master, but I seem to inhabit him. His music fills my ears and my music fills the air’s, the demons vanish, the storm lifts, all that is left is wet grass. The strum flashes again, a last aftershock of a forgotten almost-war. Mean-whiles and never-weres and all manner of monster lost to time. All disapear, all burnt before the fury of a single melody. The wet grass lay beneath my feet, the cooled air drifts across my fingers, the melody again, the trees again, the flowers and the fields and the birds — oh the birds!
A ringing ostinato on the wrong side, the melody fades into a final, quiet strum. Another story told, another legend ended, and the old world fades back into view.