PROLOGUE
I leaned back in my chair, tired and annoyed. My entire night has been spent listening to the worst musicians this side of damnation, on this godforsaken island of Balann. A worldwide search for the best of the best indie musicians? I've heard monkeys with better ears for tone than some of these hicks.
A surreptitious glance at my roster informs me that this little stint in purgatory is almost over. I'll come back to Twilight Town for the sights, not the sounds.
"Okay, last gentleperson up on the stage please… yeah, 'kay, kid, what's your name?"
"Hayner Deen."
"Ah-hm." He looks not a day over fifteen. "Age, and, uh, how long you been playin'?"
"I'm seventeen, and I've been playing for about a year."
Shit. No wonder his little acoustic no-name looks so new. There's naught but a scratch on the sucker.
"What are you gonna play for us tonight?" I try my utmost to sound as harried as humanly possible. A newbie like this means death to one's tympanums, or at least one's sanity. I'd sacrifice the latter, personally. Even crazies and loonies can appreciate good music. Hell, they've written some of the best.
The teenager's hands are convulsing nervously on the stem of his guitar.. One finger is plucking lightly at the A string. His hair is some travesty of an attempt at controlling some serious perpetual bedhead. He'd get more girls if he'd let it down. Girls like that these days, don't they? Anyway, the rest of him looks pretty damn normal. A regular army brat. Camo shorts, black pullover, and dogtags that clatter softly as he speaks and gestures. I can't see his shoes. I don't make a point of looking at other people's footwear. It's boring. I'd much rather look at a face than laces, and when the kid finally meets my eyes I notice an immediate decrease in my anxiety to return to my hotel room. His brown eyes are unnaturally clear and bright with a spunk and spontaneity that's infectious. His right eyebrow quirks on and off, a darker shade than his hair style and oddly refined. On the whole, he captures your attention with that deep brown gaze and boyish voice.
Maybe when I come back to this place for a visit I'll search for this Deen kid, musical or not. He looks like a loud-mouth. Loud-mouths're rather interesting.
He's saying: "I'm going to sing an older piece, written by a female artist named Yulya about two thousand years back. Uh, I found the translation one day and wrote music to it - what I thought might go best with the weight of the language used in the song and what-not. So, uh, should I start now?"
"Sure, kid." Two-thousand-year-old chicks. Wowee. Blowin' my socks off here. I have to lean forward to hear him clearly. His voice isn't the best: sweet, but a bit dry. Not bad. But it's the song and the music that get me going.
Whenever I sang my songs…
On the stage, on my own
Whenever I said my words…
Wishing they would be heard
I saw you smiling at me;
Was it real, or just my fantasy?
You'd always be there in the corner
Of this tiny little bar…
And I hardly notice it when he's done.
Regretfully, I say, "Good try, man, but I can't send you off to the actual competition." He looks down, obviously bummed. "Come back when you've got more to offer. I'm fallin' asleep here."
"Thanks for havin' me," says Hayner Deen, and he leaves the stage. When I look up at the clock, half an hour has passed since he'd ascended the steps into the stage lights.