Busk

Something musk have happened....

“Really don’t give two shits, mate,” the scraggly busker blurted, interrupting me. “You need to fuckin leave. Or catch a face full of acid.” These last words he mumbled almost inaudibly.

I took a step backward. “Easy, fella. I wasn’t planning on setting up in your tunnel, promise. Just bein’ neighborly, that’s all—”

“Listen, fucker: I only give two warnings. This is the second one. Now scram.” Holding the guitar by its neck with one hand, he was reaching with the other into an inside pocket of his trench coat.

I backed away further, hands raised. “Okay, okay. You do you, buddy.”

The man’s gaze seemed utterly devoid of any emotion as I put more distance between us. Only once I was a full third of the way along the underpass did he reposition his guitar and resume the raucous banging and bellowing he’d been doing when I’d arrived. The accent sounded Welsh.

Bit of a psychopath, I decided. Importantly, though, I hadn’t sensed even the slightest hint of current in him. Just another sleeper, apparently.

I turned and made my way to the far end of the tunnel, heading left up a broad flight of stairs and emerging into sunshine. The smoggy mid-morning din of bumper-to-bumper cars, motorbikes, and pedestrian-crammed, betel-splotched sidewalks hit me like a blast from the ass of someone who’d spent all night consuming way too much a-gei and grilled squid and kaoliang liquor. I’d been here long enough to have gotten almost used to it. Almost.

The city was endless. Hot, stinky, humid, noisy. Fragments of emotions drifted past on the breeze, all vague and unvoiced and difficult to pinpoint, like smudges of color seeping from the minds of seven million oblivious humans. Any attempt to shut the colors out was even more exhausting, so I just let them buffet and envelop me, as I’d been doing since I was ten years old.

She should have been here by now. Actually, by two weeks ago today, to be exact. It made no sense; I’d never known Opheria to be tardy, let alone flake out. I was trying not to jump to conclusions, but my imagination just wouldn’t let it go. The woman was punctual to a fault.

Something must have happened.

Which meant… I was alone.

She was gone.

At least for now.

And that meant a whole shit-ton of somethings were about to happen….

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The above is a sneak peek, part of a chapter of a novel I’m slowly working on. It’s a fantasy, with weird, music-based magic, and will be called Busk, and will hopefully be finished next year sometime. First priority is of course to finish writing the next couple books of The Odyssea Transmortem! But after that… Busk.

What instruments would you like to see in Busk? Note: Some instruments are weapons…. ;-)

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