luni, 30 martie 2009
The music box started a grave, unearthly tune once it was opened by the man with the Armani suit. ‘This is interesting’, he thought, trying to remember why he found the song familiar.
‘How much is this?’
‘Oh, that is not for sale,’ said the merchant, ‘this is a family legacy, so I will not give it away’.
‘Hm... Are you sure? I can pay you good money for it.’
‘Yes, I am sure, sir. Do you think you can just walk in here and buy me? Look at the sign outside. It says “Luke’s Antique’s”, so I guess that makes me the owner and the one who decides what is and is not for sale. Get it?’
‘Ok, no need to get temperamental with me. And you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance. Do you know why I want to buy this old thing? Because I think I know the song from somewhere. I wouldn’t have been interested in it otherwise.’
‘Great excuse!! You find the song familiar. Ha! ... Go fool somebody else with that. Please get out of here!’ said the angry salesman, with a strange look on his face, a look the man knew he was seeing for the second time.
The street was empty. Only a few trees stopped the cheeky sun to show its face and teeth properly. Pete kept walking and walking, thinking a lot about what had happened the past days. He got fired, his wife dumped him, his mother was in the hospital -car accident- and now this. Suddenly, a thought stroke his mind as if it was the most obvious thought ever. ‘What if…? No, it couldn’t..’ He remembered that at his father’s funeral, the song from the music box was played, and it was actually played by the same man who owned the antique store.
As Pete was returning to the store, his mind was creating a plot he began to believe in more and more. Luke had to be connected somehow with his family, and actually with his father, because his last wish was that this particular song to be played. And also, as a child, he must have heard this song somewhere. So, it was beyond any shadow of a doubt that there was something fishy going on.
Although the heat didn’t strike him as a particular good thing, there was another strange coincidence he hadn’t thought of. The weather was the same as when his father died. Passing by the same places he had known as a kid on his way back to the store, he also realized that he was in the neighborhood he grew up in. ‘No, this can’t be the same place I grew up in, because I’m in New York now, not Massachusetts’, thought Pete.
‘Calm down now, Pete. Please stay still because we are going to make you this injection.’
‘What injection? Where am I? Who am I? What are you doing to me? Stop it right now.’
‘Pete, if you don’t cooperate, you will make our job harder. Calm down.’
Eventually, the nurse tied him up and gave him the shot that made him fall asleep. Pete actually was a patient in a hospital for mental cases, because he never got over the death of his father about 3 years ago. Traumatized, he started fantasizing about a small, peaceful city called
The song from the music box was his favorite song from the time when he was still healthy and his wife brought him a cassette every time she visited him, hoping that it would somehow make Pete better. But apparently, it only made his condition worse.
After a few years of ‘living’ in his city, Pete became more and more disconnected to reality and so, everyone lost any hope of getting him on the right track. His wife divorced and moved on with her life, all his friends stopped visiting, and so he was lost forever in
