This story is completely true, and we all have one. More to come...
When I was 12 years old, my family visited Greece. The original plan was to leave me there, to make my life among the clamdiggers and farmers. But, a few days before their departure, we took a hike up Mt. Olympus. It was there that I met Lao Tzu's envoy to Zeus, and escaped a fate of clamdiggery.
I was walking up the path, when I heard a voice say, "Kindly remove your foot from my face."
The holy man looked like a hillock of mud when I first stumbled upon him, for he had been sitting in the same place for so long that flowers sprouted from his wrinkles and his skin had turned to soil.
For three hours he talked at me of his beliefs and adventures. Before becoming a monk, he had been the greatest trumpet player in Bollywood, rivaling Miles Davis in vision, and Cootie Williams in soul. He played with The Beatles, and opened their minds. He claimed to be the only player ever to hit the quadruple C.
Being a polite person, I believed every word he said, though I knew he was lying. Sensing my doubt, he reached into the earth and uprooted a trumpet. I was blinded. The sun glinted off its surface, and diamonds spilled out of its bell. He placed the mouthpiece to his lips, and a single golden tone echoed from the mountainside. It was heard as far away as Tripoli, and began the second Renaissance. Deafened and blind, I groped for the instrument. Though I couldn't see my fingers, nor could I hear the sound, I smelled the most beautiful melody since Henry Longbutter played for the King of France in 1776. When I regained my senses, the holy man had disappeared, morphosed back into dirt. But in my hand I held the monk's trumpet, a hammer made of brass.
And thusly went going just so did the story go, and so it is today.
No comments:
Post a Comment