Dazephyr

The scene begins with a wide shot of the stage, an empty jazz and blues bar with a few patrons sitting on the wooden chairs placed around wooden tables, arranged in a random fashion. It is late in the evening, and the bar tender is wiping the counter. The patrons are casually chatting, beer in their hands, with an occasional glance at the stage performance. On the stage, a band is playing a slow and melodious tune. The crew that forms the band is a motley one, each sporting a different look and a different style. The only thing they have in common is their eerie smile and their relaxed stance as they play on easily, oblivious to the lack of attention to their music.

The scene slowly zooms in while tilting upwards slightly at the same time, adopting a first person view of the entire stage. The band continues to play on in their nonchalant manner, and the scene zooms to a close up on the right of the stage.

A guitarist stands there, his black leather punk-rock attire a total mismatch with the gentle music emanating from the stage. His rock guitar is slung low onto his hips, as his hands strum a few lazy strokes across his strings, strokes that don’t even seem to touch the guitar. Yet the strings continue to vibrate, and you wonder if they are somehow plucked by an invisible force. At this point, you realize the guitar is not what it seems to be. The strings continue to shift and shimmer, and it becomes difficult to count if there are more than six strings or none at all. Not all of them run to the head of the guitar, but some to the side, some around, some zigzag. Then the hand that strums the guitar catches your attention, as the rings on them shine and sparkle despite the dim bar light. They seem to twinkle in a rhythmic motion, almost as if they were dancing to the music. One two three… nine ten. Ten rings counted in all, one on each finger. Wait. One on each finger? You realized to your surprise that the guitarist is strumming the guitar with lazy sweeps from BOTH hands. How do the notes change with no fingers on the fret board? It is a mystery that perhaps no one will decipher. Your eyes gradually trail upwards and take in more details of the guitarist. He wears a leather vest that shows off his thin and hardened muscles, muscles that seem to tense and relax alternately with the music. His face is sharp and angular; his short, spiky hair a screaming yellow with thin multi-colored streaks interweaved between. His grinning lips seem to whisper and mumble ceaselessly, but it is the eyes that draw the most attention. They seem to whirl in all directions at once, and suddenly focus sharply again on a distant object, before wandering off randomly again. Whether this man is truly insane or not is anyone’s guess.

The scene shifts to the centre, and a drummer sits there, drumsticks skillfully twisting and twirling as they make contact with – what? There are no drums in front of him, and yet, each strike of the drumstick seems to hit something hard and true, for the loud boom is definitely no trick of the mind. What curious sorcery is this? He drums on casually with one hand, as the other shifts to adjust his chair. This is when you notice he is actually sitting in mid-air! His hand seems to reach an invisible object, and grasps on firmly to it, while he shifts his position slightly. His long bony fingers return to the drumstick, and he plays on with little pause in his speed. The drummer’s feet tap gently to the rhythm, and you become hypnotized by them. Each tap of his feet coincide with the loud boom of the bass drum, and you begin to think that this is no mere coincidence. It soon becomes apparent that his feet are not tapping to the rhythm, but are actually creating the rhythm! The hypnotism is broken with this realization, and your eyes trail upwards once more towards the face of this mysterious drummer. As your gaze travels, you observe the white singlet he wears, hanging loosely over his long and scrawny frame. He seems to be made almost of bones. The sleeves of his white singlet join into his long and scraggly white hair, which seems to cover his entire face. You are unable to make out the features clearly but two things stand out as clear as a star in the night sky. His crescent smile and his shining eyes pierce right through his hair and into the back of your mind.

The scene now shifts to the left. On the left of the stage is the pianist, his eyes half-closed as his fingers trail playfully along the keys of his keyboard. His purple bowler hat sits on his head with a slight tilt to the front, casting a shadow over his face. His attire is that of a pin-striped suit, a purple base with black stripes, and an accompanying coat tail. The pianist sits on a black stool that seems connected to his keyboard, and your eyes trace the outlines of his magnificently huge instrument. The long, rectangular beauty has two rows of keys, and a black lid on the top that lifts up, as though it were imitating that of a grand piano. Amazingly, the music from the keyboard sounds nowhere electronic, and each note seems to drift out of the lid opening in the richest possible timbre. This heavy beast sits on two thin metal legs that look too flimsy to support it, yet it holds firm against the pianist’s rapid finger movements along its keys. The fingers dance faster and faster along the rows of keys, and your eyes are now mesmerized by it. The keyboard seems to melt into the shadows, and your entire vision is now filled by his dancing fingers. You can feel it dancing across your back, up and down, in a fast rhythmic motion. The massage of his fingers are euphoric, orgasmic, and your whole body relaxes under his touch. Suddenly, the music pauses, and his fingers disappear off your back, your eyes whip open and the pianist is in front of you again, playing on as though nothing had happened. Your find yourself gasping, wanting more, unable to comprehend the magic that just passed. Your sight is drawn to his face, eyes still half-closed, and a smirk at the corner of his mouth, blended into a smile.

Suddenly, the eyes open, revealing an eerie yellow that bore right into your skull, and his smirk transitions smoothly into a confident smile. He looks right through you with his eyes that smiled and cried, his rich voice whispers in a melodious manner, “There you are.”

There is a slight sound of movement, and the scene whips around to face the audience floor. A young girl dressed in a long, flowing dress is casually making her way towards the stage. She merely smiles a polite smile at the pianist, who nods at her, as she takes a place on the right of the guitarist. You wonder who the newcomer is, and in what way could this girl who looks barely fifteen be related to this curious and peculiar band. Then she puts her hand to what you previously thought was a gold pendant around her neck, and pulls it towards her lips. As she does so, it gradually lengthens into the shape of a flute, and you question your eyes if there was a pendant in the first place.

The entire band halts their performance, as they shift their sights expectantly towards the girl. The guitarist’s wild eyes seem in sharp focus on her golden flute, and his mumbling ceases, his lips pressed into a thin grin instead. The drummer leans forward, his arms resting on an invisible table in front of him, the sharp glint of his eyes still visible, and his crescent smile shining through his hair. The pianist’s face still remains partly covered by the shadow of his bowler hat, but now his yellow eyes that smiled and cried seem to glow excitedly, impatiently even, yet his smile remains cool and confident, his face an unnatural expression of calm mixed with delight.

The girl begins to blow gently into the flute, and a shrill note pierces the now silent air. All around the bar, attention shifts to the stage. You feel the intense gaze of all eyes present on her, waiting, expecting, anticipating for something to happen. Her long fingers begin to move along the flute, covering and releasing holes that seem to appear and disappear as whimsically as her capricious music changes. The tune she plays is one that is light and cheerful, sweet and clear, slow and soothing, heavy and dark, old and nostalgic, fierce and furious, ecstatic and pleasurable, all at once. Each note pulls you into a sea of emotions that constantly shift and change as sharp and sudden as it was gradual and gentle before. And just as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped. The music fades slowly to the background, or has it disappeared completely? You find yourself confused as to the pace of the music. A sense of complete and desolate emptiness replaces the crescendo of emotions moments ago, and you feel as though you had lost every single meaning in life.

When you look up at the girl again, she holds no flute, but a gold pendant that looks suspiciously familiar is hanging around her neck, glistening in the pale yellow stage light. Her expression is unreadable, save for the polite smile on her face. The other band members resume their original positions and their music begins playing again. If their smiles could possibly smile any more intensely, you could swear that they were now smiling broadly in sheer jubilation, for reasons you cannot fathom except perhaps the sweet melody of the girl’s music. The patrons in the bar resume their business as though nothing happened. You can’t help but wonder if the spectacle moments ago was merely a fantasy.

Then suddenly, the music of the band begins to change its form. No longer a slow and gentle tune, it begins to grow in stature, threatening to fill up the entire room, almost as if it was given a physical body. The band members look as though they have entered a trance, each playing his own instrument with a frenzy of passion, oblivious to the cacophony of sounds created. The music evolves into something twisted and wild, and you cringe as an ugly medley of rock, classic, jazz, metal, country, and pop wrestle their way out from the instruments and struggle for supremacy. It presses down on you, squeezing the breath out of your lungs. And just as abruptly, the music drops, plunging into a bottomless chasm, and you find yourself falling with it, screaming, thrashing out wildly to find some sort of salvation. A soft chorus of a thousand voices rises from below, slowly cushioning your fall, and lifting you up gently. The effect is calming, and you feel at ease once more. The chorus continues, pushing away the music of the instruments, wrapping them under its folds, muffling their presence. Images flood your mind. The lives of a thousand musicians come rushing into your senses, as you feel each life passing by, the pain, the agony, the suffering, the passion, the love, the exhilaration, the jubilation and the hope contained within, as each one makes a bid for greatness and fame. You cannot make out the strange words of the chorus, as they sound hauntingly beautiful but equally undecipherable.

The band on the stage remains deep within a trance, their frenzied playing now comparatively calmer. The girl however, has her attention fixed on the centre of the stage, her polite smile belying a slight tremble. Right in the middle of the stage, a box stands on a stool. You are surprised you didn’t notice it before. The chorus seems to pour out from the box to envelope the entire bar, and faint, almost visible strands of sound seem to wrap themselves around the girl. She stiffens.

Again, the chorus changes, and wails of despair, desolation, and hatred fill the room. You feel tears welling in your eyes, and yet you see the clear smiles of every member of the band in the room, cold and unflinching, filling your vision. The chorus suddenly stops, and is sucked back into the box, wrenching your breathe along with it. The girl’s head whips back as though something was pulled out of her body, and she crumples to the stage floor, unconscious.

The show is over, you think to yourself, as the drummer tucks his drumsticks into his back pocket, grabbing the box from the centre of the stage and wrapping it under his arms. The guitarist holds his guitar by the neck in one hand, while he lifts the girl up from the floor with the other, his eyes shifting wildly around. The pianist slings the keyboard easily over his shoulders, steps forward to the centre of the stage, and takes a slow and deep bow to the sparse audience. And the three step behind the curtains, disappearing like a wisp of smoke into the night.

The barman clears the mugs from the tables, and chases the last of the patrons out as the bar closes. You try to linger a little longer, for you know the next morning when you wake, you will wonder if this was all just a strange dream.