He could see the evening moon through the branches above him as he made his way down the ridge, gripping his walking stick tightly, looking forward to the moments ahead.
The air was cool but not chilly, the darkening sky not quite clear, harboring a handful of cloud wisps. The moon was almost full; the clearing would be filled with light, enough to read by (as he often had), and hopefully well-populated.
He arrived, his knees mildly complaining as he settled into the wooden chair that awaited him at the woods’ edge ahead of the clearing. He gave himself a moment to ache, breathing in the twilight air, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a remote.
Browsing the library he’d painstakingly built – thousands, now – he made a handful of selections and pressed play.
Ever so gently, from the forest all around and throughout the clearing, a soft string melody trickled into the cool air, repeating - joined by an oboe, then a piccolo; again the melody swayed, this time with strings in harmony, building and building until the tempo doubled and jubilant brass joined in. He closed his eyes, enraptured as always, and let the music wash over him.
Stravinsky. The 1919 revision.
Opening his eyes, he was greeted by other eyes.
Across the glen, he saw two orange orbs – one of the wolves – glowing from within the darkness of the trees. He smiled, then looked around. Far to his left, lower to the ground, the red eyes of a pair of rabbits. Then the yellow-white of the bobcat. The blue-green of a fox. A flutter high and to the right, and the yellow gaze of an owl.
A pause as Firebird ceased, followed by another chorus of strings – these more contemplative, but then eager and energetic, more suited to morning than the night. More suited to springtime than to the autumn soon to come. Copland.
The first few times he’d come here with his tunes, he’d brought his rifle. After several months, he’d chanced leaving it behind, taking instead a bag of culinary offerings – which he’d had to toss far into the woods, as none of his companions would venture into the open. Eventually, he realized that all he needed to bring them to him was the music.
It had been a way to reassure himself that there were other living beings in the world, with no other people in the region and the nearest town seven hours’ drive distant. Three times that many years since he’d left behind his career, his wife’s grave, his daughter’s disdain, settling on the ridge and living out of his truck as he’d built his cabin with two hands.
The forest glen. The music. Her music, which he'd brought with him. A momentary pause in bottomless loneliness.
And grief. And guilt.
His audience patiently listened as he offered up several more, content to relax along with him in the nightly truce among them that his presence assured. When the final notes of the Papageno Duet subsided, he clicked the music off and rose, his back protesting, depending too much on his walking stick.
The eyes of the forest followed him as he hobbled down the path, then disappeared themselves, two by two.
Two thousand-something twilights. He’d stopped counting in the low hundreds, and had only missed his appointment with his friends the barest handful of times. The fever. The bender(s). The time he fell.
Sharp twinge in his hip as he took his place, taking out the remote and mindfully gathering songs not only to reflect his mood, but to share something of his kind with theirs.
...the moody strings of Metamorphosen, Strauss, the weep of strings in deepening anguish, building into thrashing crescendos of pain and lamentation. This is what happened to us. This is what I fled...
...and Winterreise, the anguish and pain and lamentation from within himself. When she had been taken from him so suddenly. When his daughter had raged against him so venomously. Anguish and pain that had driven him far from anyone, everyone, into their shadowy company.
Their eyes glowed out at him, glistening in the dewey moonlight air. He had exhausted his wondering over what emotions the music stirred in them. It was enough for him, after all this time, that it inspired their presence.
A greater gathering of clouds accompanied a mildly dimmer moon as he paused, wincing, as the pain drifted through and finally out of his arm, before he sat. He took a few minutes to just breathe before reaching into his pocket.
He didn’t know how many more nights there would be.
He didn’t know, and so he selected what he felt would be some doozies.
He bumped up the volume before he hit play.
Deep down in Looziana, close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode...
They appeared in no time, a larger group than usual. On the ground and in the air. Fur of every variety, even a reptile or two.
He smiled to himself, feeling for the first time in years the Disney-esque absurdity of the impossible ritual. He was tempted to give Chuck Berry an encore, but having their rapt attention, he pressed on...
...the transcendent “Kyrie” from Missa Papae Marcelli – Palestrina? - ...the breathtaking prelude of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde...
...and, finally, the Ode... Ludwig... and as his five glorious notes paraded up and down, the man allowed himself an indulgent vocal...
Joyful, joyful, we adore thee...
He would need to check the hardware, especially the solar panels. The box would keep everything dry; it could conceivably all run on its own for many years. He’d already written a routine to pick some songs and start everything up a measure of minutes past sundown, which the box could track, and even get right when it was cloudy.
When he was younger, he’d felt professional pride in those skills – pride long since faded along with the satellite chatter that he’d intercepted for many of his years here, as he’d hoped against all hope...
Satellites now long silent.
I’m all there is, he thought out to his quiet neighbors.
But I can leave you a little something...
With great effort, he crossed the cabin floor and poured himself a bourbon. Pappy Van Winkle, saved for just this occasion. He picked up his only picture, the one of the three of them, so long ago, and looked at it for a long moment. He shuffled back to his reading chair, set aside the tattered Tragic Sense of Life – Unamuno – and sat down heavily.
He spoke a request to the air, and it filled with Duane Allman, singing B.B. King. His heart filled up with bliss and melancholy, even as tightness and fire finally consumed it, and he was fleetingly amused that the universe had conspired to leave him for last...
...and not far away, the box came to life as the moon lit the glen. A soft guitar began to play, sweet high melody joined by a lower one in perfect counterpoint, recalling Bourrée. Two by two, eyes glowed on the forest’s edge as the joyous phrase basked in celestial glow.
He hadn’t needed the gun; they hadn’t needed his food.
Turned out they didn’t even need him. They only needed the music.
And as they silently absorbed the gentle guitar, a voice joined in:
Blackbird, singing in the dead of night...
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