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A melody stirred in the echoes. Among the stretching shadows along the graffiti’d stone walls of the tenement a block down stood a tall man with an old hat and a saxophone. He could see the muddled gleam and although it shown tarnished, the sight stilled his breath. The color of it… a deep brassy yellow underneath the layer of grime that coated everything in the great maze of the city burned in his eyes. A color more vibrant than anything he’d seen in as long as he could bother remembering. He pulled the prowler over and got out. The music was soft and thick, the horn so bright and powerful under the streetlamp that he swore the notes drew shadows as they ran away on the player’s breath. He approached the man, listened. As the song drew out, he felt threads of reality strip away. When the musician finished, he dropped a twenty in the open case, two shades away from hypnotized.

“Thanks man,” the corner-man said.

“Your horn, is it magic?” he asked slowly.

“Some say so,” the musician replied. “But I never gave much thought to the idea myself. I just lay my hands on it, blow, and see what comes out.”

“Why’s it so bright?” he muttered.

“Bright? Must be the glare off that streetlight, man.”

“It’s so… much,” he managed.

“A girl I once knew used to say the ‘zact same thing mister.”

“A girl?”

“Yeah… she don’t come ‘round anymore, but she was comin’ by every night for a stretch. She’d say it was almost too much. She called it Swanky,” the player said, looking down as his dirty horn with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. “Say… for a tip like that... Anything you like to hear?” he asked.

He stood for a moment, motionless; his thoughts bounced around inside him instead of slipping out into the air. Why does this feel right? Do I know this man? How can I see his horn that way? Am I supposed to see something in it? “Something Swanky” he replied and leaned against the wall next to him.

-

On that fateful last day during that last fateful lull before the last hunger and that last moment of free will, Susan found herself thinking about Floater. Floater was a street musician who claimed the devil gave him a saxophone that could never play a wrong note. Neither the instrument nor the man looked much, but to Susan’s surprise the music to come out of the two seduced her like a sixth grade teacher. Once upon a time, when she was wagging the tail (instead of the other way around as it was now), she made a point to go listen to Floater every day. He was on the way to Rod’s place and was always there. They never talked but for a few words in between songs. He’d thank a passerby for whatever change they’d dropped him, look at his saxophone for a moment, then tell Susan “This one’s called… Funnybones And Lazylegs” then start belting out the fattest sound she could handle.

Susan thought about Floater, and decided that she should start visiting him again. After all it wasn’t too far away, and she really should get out at least once a day. In fact, maybe she’ll get up and have a look out the window right now…

-

After several years on his own, Cole felt that he had things under his control. His neighborhood had grown accustomed to his presence there, absorbing the darkness of each night until it seemed to grow its own gloom every day. His neighbors had either been killed or sufficiently conditioned, and so far as he could tell, no one was the wiser. To tell the truth, Cole was becoming bored with life. With no master to teach him, study was long and arduous, drawing all but the slightest shiver of his willpower for days, weeks at a time with the smallest gift of advancement in return. Small things such as being unseen and controlling the weak were child’s play to him now, but the mountainside had grown steep, and each step was now long and hard. He hadn’t encountered a Sighted in the longest time, and the last to go against him disappointed Cole with pitiful ease. He had snapped his neck with a click of his long spindly fingers and spent the evening preying on bystanders to assuage the rage in him from such an anticlimactic battle. To yearn for danger violated one of his earliest lessons learned, but he could not turn away the spark of excitement, purpose, and yes… pleasure in a worthy adversary. It was in his nature to slide around life’s conflicts, but this last run-in forced Cole to realize his audacious nature. After a night of running away from his thoughts and feelings, he returned to his home, the man’s corpse still crumpled in the corner, and made a choice to embrace them. Although he’d only seen three men who had the power of Sight (two went up against Friedrich, each valiant and adept, much too skilled for Cole at the time, and this malleable third), but he knew there were more out there. Ultimately, these hidden citizens represented Cole’s last chance of self-actualization. He would become a hunter.

-

“What’s wrong with naked?” the woman on the screen said.

The theater seat felt old and ratty underneath him, saturated with the sweat and offing of previous audience members. A large rip on the screen outfitted the amateur actress playing the tawdry FBI Agent with a static scar across her bare left shoulder, not moving with the rhythmic motion of her actions.

How did I get here?

He looked behind him. Sporadic pallid faces shined back, the flickering light of flesh gleaming off cheeks and foreheads.

Have I slept? Am I sleeping?

The FBI Agent moaned as her interrogation continued. For a moment he thought Susan was in the eyes behind those mirror shades, and could watch no further. He stood up to leave and caught a glimmer in the corner; a spot not reflected by the lascivious luminosity of adult cinema. He kept his head low but tried for a closer look as he walked up the aisle.

It was nothing.

-

As gusts of wind whistled through her dirty hair, as the very ground itself raced up to meet her, Susan had a moment of sudden terror. She could not localize it or identify it in any specificity, and unfortunately the tool she used to accomplish such tasks would soon be congealing on the pavement below, but the moment was real and frightened her out of whatever stupor had held her for the previous few months. Like she’d yearned to do for so long but never quite could, Susan exorcised her anger and panic and sadness in a soul-relieving scream.





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©2002 Brian Miller