As Jonathan tried to make sense of how he received the instrument, Jonas sported an unyielding poker-face. Jonathan shook his head, dismissing the idea that the woman he’d killed had, indeed, been standing before him. At last he asked Jonas: “It seems improbable, doesn’t it?”
“Of course it’s improbable,” Jonas consoled. “You ran over the woman with your car. Your mind fabricated an elaborate dream in which she returned to you to issue a peace offering.” Rain fell hard outside the open window flooding the sill and moistening the carpet. “The mind is a creative organ, Jonathan. It’s most deceitful when you dream, telling you comforting lies to help cope you with awful situations. No doubt you’ve tried to trace the events. If you hadn’t heard the mysterious violin music that haunted you since childhood, you wouldn’t have been so obsessed with procuring the violin which led you to accidentally hitting her!” Jonathan, who had turned his eyes to the covers in contemplation, shifted his eyes back to Jonas. “Oh yes, Jonathan. I know about the violin music. I know that you heard it when you were a boy working your arithmetic. I know how you climbed up to the attic and found your father’s trumpet . . . and how shortly after you found the violin in a music store . . . and how after promising your parents you’d do better in school, your parents gave you lessons for the trumpet instead. And how, ever since, you’ve harbored a deep loathing. Then, many years later, you were given advice to buy the violin, which you did, only to have had it snatched from you when some twit of a housewife decided to dodge cars in front of the local library!”
Jonathan’s eyes were wide as Jonas recanted the trials of the violin music’s involvement in his affairs. “Who are you?” Jonathan asked him.
“Someone who’s been waiting far too long in the background, Jonathan. Someone who’s seen what tragedies were thrust on you. The original haunting music was never supposed to have entered your life from the beginning. Imagine, if you will, a life without the ghostly music tormenting you, causing such grief; a life unhindered by the obsession for the violin. A normal existence where you could chart your own path instead of having it dictated to you by echoes of an unnamed source.”
“That music was supposed to come to me,” Jonathan told Jonas. But even with these words Jonathan’s voice faltered.
“Or so you’ve raised yourself to believe.” Jonas put a comforting hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. As he did, Jonathan’s eyes went to Jonas’ hand, staring at it without reflex to pull away. “It was a terrible mistake that I’ve come to rectify. Remember the days when your children loved you, when you made your wife laugh, when you were in control of your own future. A future regretfully taken from you by the violin music. But I can give it back. I can make it happen where the violin music never came to you.”
Jonathan’s eyes suddenly swelled with tears.
Jonas, knowing full well of his magnetic effect, went on: “In place of sitting here in a motel room wishing for the things that could have been, I can make it so that you can actually live the future you’ve dreamed of. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Jonathan nodded slightly, a small movement heightened by a dramatic roll of thunder and a flash of lightning.
Jonas smiled. “Come with me, Jonathan. We can make everything right.”
It was during this conversation that the night manager, finishing his third cigarette under the aid of an umbrella, spotted the dismantled violin and bow from below Jonathan’s window. The night manager scratched his head in confusion, picked up the instrument and carried it inside, setting its pieces behind the check-in counter.
Jonathan, now dressed, crossed through the lobby with Jonas. The night manager hadn’t seen Jonas come in or out that day and certainly didn’t remember him checking in. He watched Jonas closely with suspicion.
The manager’s troubles were truly exacerbated when Jonas told Jonathan: “Wait here.” Jonas then crossed to the night manager at the front desk.
As Jonas approached, the manager felt a sickening feeling creep upon him, which only worsened as Jonas handed him a violet envelope with the number “6” scrawled on the back.
“Do you see this envelope?” Jonas asked.
The night manager nodded.
“In three days time,” Jonas turned his eyes to a wall calendar which read March 22nd, “a woman named Annette Redmond will be here looking for me. She’ll have many questions, I’m sure. You won’t answer her questions. You’ll hand her this envelope. Understand?”
The night manager nodded even though something inside of him urged against it.
“If you open the envelope before she gets here,” Jonas’ gray eyes bore holes into the eyes of the night manager like a crazed wolf staring at its prey, “I’ll know. And trust me, you don’t want that to happen. Do as you’re told. Give her the envelope and we shouldn’t have any problems, yes?”
Again, the night manager nodded.
Jonas reached into the jacket pocket of his suit. As he did, the night manager could detect a key dangling from a silver chain on the outside of his dress shirt. Jonas handed the night manager a hefty roll of tightened dollars bound by a rubber band.
“For your troubles,” Jonas told him and was out the door with Jonathan.
The night manager stepped to the glass of the front door. He watched as the two men disappeared into the night, into the squall, which seemed to accept them both graciously under its silk waterfall-threaded cloak. The storm, seemingly satisfied with its entertainment, continued on its path looking for other random moments in history to feast its yearning eyes and steadfast appetite.
CHAPTER 8: PATERNAL RATIONALITY
There was a sense of comfort that Nathaniel felt in the Nine Greatest Muses under one roof. It was something akin to a parent having all of his grown up children back in his supervision, if merely for a short holiday, and those children having two distinct identities: who they had been, and who they would eventually grow to be. Nathaniel had never been a father but he entertained the idea on occasion.
He predicted the kind of dad he would have been. Nathaniel would have been the parent who would sit on metal bleachers during his son’s Little League games or would dote on his daughter by attempting high-quality sales during Girl Scout Cookie season. He would have participated in impromptu tea parties, Pine Wood Derby contests, parent-teacher conferences, attended ballet recitals, stared through amateur-crafted telescopes beneath starry skies, created misshapen snowmen and extra events that real parents had experienced with their children. He would have been proud of any endeavor his children would have tried, at any age or phase in their life, so long as they were following their dreams, however fleeting or long-lasting.
In all probability, Nathaniel would not have been physically affectionate toward them, save for a kiss on the forehead after bedtime stories or an occasional congratulatory embrace. Not because he would have loved them any less than they had deserved, but largely due to his not being a demonstrative type in any of the seven lives led. Nathaniel would have been more like a grandfather clock, wisely witnessing the events that occurred in the time that he catalogued.
In the department he was able to explore the notion of parenthood in some capacity. He felt protective of his people, proudly gauging an employee’s spiritual growth, ending in a swelling pride as the muses retired to their chosen destinations. He did not mourn when each muse passed on. Nathaniel felt satisfied with each retirement knowing that he accomplished the missions per capita. Nathaniel moreover practiced his paternal prudence when he rotated colored pegs clockwise and counter-clockwise, reviewing relationships of other fathers who blossom in the sordid lives of their transitory clients.
It was a circulated belief among Nathaniel’s progenies that, when a colored peg was rotated counter-clockwise, a muse could appraise a client’s life from the moment of birth leading to the moment of inspiration. If the corresponding peg was rotated clockwise, the muse was given the option to watch a client’s life subsequent to the motivation.
In t
he past, Seventh Generation muse Lucas Richardson had known this feature better than anyone. In his former role as a regular muse, Lucas had taken on the added responsibility of the department’s “welcome wagon” for new hires. While he had taken strides to make his coworkers feel at home, Lucas gave special interest to an anti-social Ninth Generation muse, Annette Slocum, who had recently begun her tenure.
By that time, Annette had not even begun to scratch the surface of her initial employment, timidly branching out from her anti-social behaviors. Though Annette had been placed into an employment forcing her to interact with strangers, it was Lucas whom she attached to fairly quickly. They had formed a unique bond. What made their friendship exceptional had been a simple aspect: Lucas had liked to talk and Annette had not; but, if Annette did have something to say, Lucas would have listened intently, earnestly engaging himself on her every word.
Though Nathaniel’s interactions in the department had been brief in that time period, he overheard a conversation between Lucas and Annette regarding the eventuality of peg-rotations. The conversation had taken place well before they had developed into two of the Nine Greatest Muses in history.
Nathaniel had heard Annette speak. “Someday I hope to actually meet this Cauliflower guy to get his recipes.”
Nathaniel, who had entered the department to deliver more envelopes to postboxes, and to clear the dishes from a meal, lingered by the door, eavesdropping. At this point in history, Annette had not yet inspired Nathaniel in the root cellar. But to Nathaniel, the memory had been fresh in his mind, as it already happened to him.
“I know, right?” Lucas had answered her. “Fiona said that when she visited his office, she found an entire gourmet kitchen which spanned for half a mile! Imagine the amount of counter space and storage! She said he had at least a hundred rolling pins, and five times as many pots and pans. She didn’t see any cookbooks, though. He must have them all memorized.”
“Every recipe?” Annette had scoffed. “Memorized?”
There had been silence between them. Nathaniel had assumed that either one, or both of them, had been distracted by a memory. He had turned to go but heard Lucas say, “Anyway. I only have one peg left.”
“One peg?” Annette had asked.
“Only one, and you know what that means. I’ll be out of here: long gone. Vamoose. Finito. No more.”
“Lucas?” she had asked him. “What memories come back to you?”
“All sorts of memories, really,” he had told her thoughtfully.
“I didn’t mean to pry.” There had come a sound which had spurred Nathaniel. He had assumed, from the noise, that Annette had been guided from her swivel chair. Nathaniel’s assumptions had been confirmed as she had asked Lucas, “Where are we going?”
Nathaniel had rushed down the hallway to the conference room where he stood with his back against the wall. As Nathaniel had ducked into the conference room, Annette and her companion had crossed from her office into his. Their voices had been slightly muffled but Nathaniel had been able to make them out.
“The first day I got here, Annette,” Lucas had explained, “the very first day, Fiona showed me the instructional video in the conference room and then led me to my office, where I found the Lite-Brite board. You’ll see, Annette. At the end of every employment, Fiona empties the Lite-Brite board, sweeps the office of any personal belongings, and prepares for the next muse. But mine wasn’t empty, Annette! There, in the face of my Lite-Brite board, was a colored peg: one harmless little green peg. At first I didn’t think anything of it and figured it was left over from the previous muse, right? But no, this peg was different.”
Nathaniel had remembered how Lucas’ peg had found itself there in the Lite-Brite. But Nathaniel had thought to himself, “Another memory for another time, Nathaniel.”
Annette had asked Lucas “This is your peg?”
“Spectacular, isn’t it? What it was doing in my Lite-Brite, I’ll never know, but the point is this: after Fiona helped with my first inspiration, I twisted it counter-clockwise.”
“What did it show you?”
Lucas had rushed out from his office, jogging down the end of the hall to Annette’s workplace.
Nathaniel had peeked around the corner watching as Annette had trailed behind her friend. After they had disappeared into Annette’s office, Nathaniel had taken a few steps down the hall to listen more closely. He had watched from the office door as Lucas had inserted the peg into a random spot on Annette’s Lite-Brite grid. Lucas had tightened his grip on Annette’s hand and, with the fingers of his spare hand, rotated the peg counter-clockwise. Annette’s office had folded and unfolded taking the two muses backwards into Lucas’ timeline and leaving Nathaniel to stare at her empty office.
The first half of Lucas’ life had started before Lucas was born. Even when Lucas had been inside his mother’s belly, and all through his childhood years, his father had played the guitar to sooth Lucas’ anxiety. Lucas had only been in the sixth grade when his father had died of cancer, and the only respite Lucas found was the sound of someone else’s guitar playing in the distance.
Lucas had soon ascertained that the owner of the guitar had been a young man named Gabriel: a boy in his English class. Their heartfelt friendship had been fueled by Lucas’ desire to learn the instrument that Gabriel had easily strummed. There had been an intimate moment that Nathaniel had never forgotten upon preliminary examination of Lucas’ peg after inspiring him: Gabriel had placed his hands on Lucas’ while having tried to form chords. It had been obvious that they had shared an unspoken, requited love for one another that was severed when, one day, Gabriel and his family had moved without providing a forwarding address.
Many years later, after Lucas had become an adult and an established music teacher in Portland, Oregon, he found Gabriel on the internet. Gabriel had been living in New York at the time working in the World Trade Center. Lucas had been determined to keep his friend close. Gabriel had written saying that he felt the same. They had plans to reconnect in person and it seemed that, in their adult world, nothing could break their attachment.
Lucas had awoken one September morning in 2001 to news of the terrorist attacks. Nathaniel had remembered seeing Lucas’ heartbreak, feeling empathy for his client, understanding that kind of anguish himself due to his own loss with Evangeline. How he had wanted to be there for Lucas, to tell him that he was not alone! Perhaps, Nathaniel had considered, they may have been able to grieve together!
Lucas’ peg had one final scene in the first act in which Lucas had been sorting music in his classroom. Second Generation muse Nathaniel J. Cauliflower had appeared in his classroom doorway. Nathaniel had remembered this remote moment fondly. Lucas had asked if he could help the stranger, to which Nathaniel had said to him, “I sure hope so.” Nathaniel had handed Lucas a violet envelope. Inside had been a guitar pick. With that, it had been the end of Lucas’ first half of his green-colored peg.
“Wait, that’s it?” Annette had asked as they had been brought back to her office. Nathaniel had been outside of her office door listening to the exchange.
“No, there’s more. There are just too many memories, you know?” Lucas had told her.
“Nathaniel J. Cauliflower was your muse,” Annette had pondered out loud.
Nathaniel had stopped listening, getting to the business of the dishes and delivering envelopes. Nathaniel had hated himself for not coming forward. There had been a reason for his avoidance. It had been an excuse that he had intended to resolve someday. But that “someday” had not been that day, nor would it be anywhere in Lucas earliest employment. Nathaniel had even shied from telling Lucas during his former client’s retirement party.
*
Nowadays, as Nathaniel delivered the envelopes to the post boxes of his Nine Greatest Muses, he stopped by Lucas’ office. What had once been made up to be a starlit cedar balcony perpetually caught in a mid-spring evening was replaced by the Hall of Thunderstorms, with its nine bl
ack-stained wooden archways. Lucas stood contemplating an approaching thunderstorm. There was a short-lived look in Lucas eyes that reminded Nathaniel of Jonas. The stare was broken as Lucas looked toward Nathaniel. Lucas smiled.
“Mr. Cauliflower,” he said. “Welcome to my new office. I have to admit that, even though it’s not the balcony that I had before, I kind of like it. Thunderstorms are soothing, you know?” Lucas brought his eyes to the archway.
“Yes,” Nathaniel looked upon the thunderstorm, “I suppose they are.”
“I hear that Annette’s back,” Lucas went on. “Well, I mean she’s been here since we all got here, but in a different form . . . as Miss Redmond, you know? I hear she remembers being her old self again, before she was reincarnated. Rumor has it she remembers everything from being Annette Slocum: of the people she knew while she was alive, of her clients, even the muses that she worked with. I drop by her office on occasion but she’s away on envelopes. She hasn’t said hello, but I’m sure she’ll be in eventually.” Lucas was saddened about this but brushed it aside with a single word: “Anyway!”
“It’s my fault, Mr. Richardson,” Nathaniel told him. “There was a slight hiatus in her work. She has to catch up with the rest of you.”
Lucas shrugged his shoulders, turning from the archway to his desk and swivel chairs. “So what brings you into my office today? Normally you leave the envelopes in my postbox before I even see you!” Lucas sat in the swivel chair behind the desk.
“Well,” Nathaniel started.
“Please, Mr. Cauliflower, have a seat.”
Nathaniel sat in one of the swivel chairs. “I know it’s a bit late for this, really, but I wanted to tell you something.”
“Oh?”
“About . . .” Nathaniel took a pause, “. . . about why I had never introduced myself after having been your muse.”
Asphodel: The Second Volume of the Muse Chronicles Page 12
