The Lore of the Eternal West: Chapter 3 'Pleased To Meet You'

 

Chapter III: 'Pleased To Meet You!'

The Show is over.

That much is obvious: the banjo-hungry crowd who wouldn’t stop coercing you into more and more… now seems satiated with the amount of music provided, as though filled up on an exquisite but heavy dinner. You can tell they hardly have room for dessert, actually. In fact, some of them have already started dozing off on the spot, whether they be standing or sitting. You don’t know whether to take that as a compliment…

But Samantha doesn’t give you any more time to think about that. Acting as an officer of the intuition police, she senses whenever you are on the brink of a breakthrough, and seizes you by the hand, literally or figuratively, to bring your attention to the here and now. The Present.

And present you she does with her left hand, which you have learnt to obey without question by now, prompting you to place the banjo on the floor, its headstock leaning against the wall by the corner of the ‘stage’. Not ideal, but it will have to do for the time being. Although you hadn’t even known you had that in you, you already feel a yearning to touch it again and get lost in its torrential tales of infinite bliss, forsaking time and space, transported into another dimension.

Yet, you know you have no say in the matter. Who does, in this place, for that matter?

All around you, all the patrons of the cantina are in a semi-comatose state now, as if they have served their purpose for the night and are now excused to retreat to the deepest level of the pit of their subconscious, to… give you and the dinner vulture some privacy.

One of those intrusive thoughts, again!

The kind that seems to pop up in your head as if channeled by someone or… something else.

Oh yes, you do need some privacy now, for you are summoned to the vulture’s table. Samantha escorts you there, and that feeling of being protected fills you up with a profound warmth, conveyed through the subtle but adequate friction that transpires between your clasped palms as you trudge to the table where you are expected. You sense that warmth engulf you and bestow confidence upon you, but you there is also an aspect of it that makes you feel uncomfortable. For some reason, it makes you think of the womb. A mother’s womb. And protective though it is, you have always associated it with confinement. And right now, you feel both spurred on and oppressed simultaneously.

As always, you won’t be allowed the luxury of dwelling on that thought for too long.

The table has been reached, the only empty chair around it has been dragged back, and you have been motioned to sit. There is an equally empty shot glass on your side of the table, and you turn to Samantha intending to order something to fortify yourself and calm your nerves even further. You don’t have to utter a single word. She knows, and she starts for the bar immediately.

The bar…

Inhabited by the bartender…

The one with those red eyes!

The red eyes that have always followed you since birth!

Sometimes on a little innocent looking hare that chases you in your dreams, sometimes on very dangerous men who hunt you in your waking life.

[GLASS SHATTERS]

What was that?

You hear glass break and the dark train of thought you had been journeying on has just gotten off the rails and crashed on a very thick assembly of trees, the cloud of your daydream deflated like the last balloon in the aftermath of a birthday party.

 

The man on the opposite side of the table lifts his freshly bloodied punch from the… shattered remains of his beer glass, mangled and wet with varying hues and shades of red and burgundy, and looks at you.

Have I got your attention now?

It takes a few fractions of a second to realize that the man never used his vocal chords in order to speak. Pretty much like Samantha just a minute ago, he appears to be able to communicate with you via… waves. Yes, that’s the term he lends you for now. You can call them waves. Instead of talking, he can project the essence of what he wants to convey to you in a mixture of imagery, emotion and vibration.

A… low vibration at that.

Again, this is a sudden insight that wormed its way into your brain from somewhere.

You turn to him and try to look him in the eye, but something makes you wince, as though someone had poured a few drops of lemon on the corners of your eyes. It’s better that way. You have suddenly developed an irrational fear that everybody’s eyes will turn red any minute now, so it’s just as well.

The man doesn’t seem to take offense at that. Nor does he seem to mind that his left hand is in such a mangled state, as though it had been mauled by a beast!

He is sending you another… wave now, letting you know that you certainly have his attention with what you played earlier. You bow your head slightly to the fore, in gratitude of this indirect compliment. He grins.

You don’t need me to compliment you, he conveys, you know you have it in you. You’ve always had it in you.

He goes on to say or… think, how liberated you must be feeling now that you have started embracing yourself. How renewed and excited you must feel at this new chapter that is being written in the book of your life, wide open before you, brimming with opportunity and potential.

You don’t know what to make of this, but you certainly don’t like the way his son is looking at you now. Or his daughter. For, although his wife keeps on staring far off into the distance vacantly as before, his children have fixed their eyes upon you and are smirking craftily at your sight.

The man, ever intuitive, intercepts this… wave of yours and fixes your problem instantly!

He snaps his fingers

 

And his children (if that’s what they are to him, you’re not sure) lose their irises all of a sudden!

Indeed, their eyes are all-white now, and they look stunned, unable to see and, most importantly, meddle with their father’s affairs. And yours…

At this very moment, you hear another sound that startles you, but its source is much more benevolent this time.

Your drink has arrived!

There, all better now, the man affirms.

He chuckles audibly and his belly jives to the rhythm of his laughter as he does. Without knowing why, you start to get a little nauseous. But this too shall pass, another wave intervenes.

Look, he projects telepathically, I have an offer to make.

He remarks how you can easily hold your own on the ole 5-stringer, as he calls it. Would you be interested in a banjo made of gold? Even if you don’t intend to stick to it, and grow sick and tired of it eventually, worst case scenario you can resell it to a more dedicated artist of the strings later.

You think about it…

All of a sudden, you just want all of this to end.

The only reason why you were out treading the treacherous expanse of the canyon and its creeks long after the sun had set, was to escape them. The red eyes. Not to find yourself in a weird saloon that seems to have been built in the middle of nowhere, full of zombie-like characters inside, puppets to the whims of the painted lady (Samantha, she corrects, never having left your side, really)… You didn’t leave the comfort of that cave you had found where you spent a couple of nights before setting out, all to end up in front of this strange fellow making even stranger propositions.

Still…

Being under that spell again, the one that seems to permeate this enchanted establishment, you feel your curiosity kindled and you take the bait.

I’m game, you send his way.

Do you just have it to give?

He explodes in a hearty guffaw now, beholding you as he would an imbecile.

Not to give away, no. You have to earn it, he says, playing some sort of air guitar or banjo to illustrate what he is suggesting.

He invites you to a duel.

It just so happens that he is not half bad at it himself. He will use his banjo made of gold and you will use yours. You can each play a tune of your choosing in front of an impartial audience (you really have your doubts about how impartial they are but… you let that slide), and let them decide who the winner is.

If you win, the banjo made of gold will change owners.

What if I lose, you think.

What happens then?

His guffaw subsides and he motions you to come closer and lend him your ear, ready to impart a little secret.

If you lose, you only have to give him your… soul.

Now it’s your turn to burst into a fit of laughter that you didn’t know had been residing in your guts all the while.

Of course, now it’s all starting to make sense, you think. This is all a sham. This man, the painted lady, the bartender… the patrons. Everyone in this place must be out of their minds. It’s either that or you are the crazy one. You don’t think so.

You take a moment to compose yourself and are lucky enough to observe that the dinner vulture hasn’t taken any offence at your reaction.

I accept, you declare, using your actual voice. All this telepathy mumbo jumbo must have been all in your head anyway.

Very well, the man declares, also using his voice, this time.

You are welcome to stay the night, then. It’s on the house. Drink as much as you want, and eat to your heart’s content. Have your fill. And have some rest tonight.

You are going to need it, for what’s coming tomorrow.

With that thought, Samantha touches your right shoulder and beckons to you that it’s time to go upstairs where your room is waiting for you. You stand up, curtsy to the man at the table, and start following Samantha to the foot of the staircase leading to the second floor, not neglecting to stop at the bar for a last nightcap. Oh, the bartender’s eyes are a boring shade of brown, now. No red there.

As you make your way upstairs though, there is a nagging thought that comes and goes, burrowing its way into your head and only leaving after much insistence.

Try as you might, you can’t help but face it:

At the very moment you accepted the invitation to a ‘duel’ with the strange fellow; the moment you picked up the gauntlet, so to speak, you felt a strange ‘oozing’ sensation at the center of your chest. Maybe oozing is not quite the right word. You felt as though something had been… suctioned from you.

You felt as though your soul had been… put on hold.

Yeah right, as if that’s possible!