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Please support education and information access where you can in addition to these charities:

Not a charity per se, but a conglomeration of charities all under one donation window roof. A means by which registered charities may host online donation programs to reach a greater audience of supporters. Each entry includes a lot of information about the charity in question, including a short description of their mission, their tax status, how they keep their books and what not and certainly a means by which to support them. A great resource and living proof that CanadaHelps.

Sick Kids Foundation
Help research that provides cures and support treatment for sick children.

Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital

Creating a world of possibility for kids and youth with disabilities.

The Cancer Research Institute
The Princess Margaret Foundation
Cancer Research organizations that combine the expertise of many different research firms and Universities to find innovative treatments and cures for Cancer.

United Nations Fund
United Way Worldwide

Two organizations whose contribution of expertise, human and financial resources and volunteer efforts provide humanitarian solutions to real world problems the entire world over. These charities operate worldwide. The United Nations Fund supports the various programs part of the United Nations' global mandate, as much a foundation as it is a roof around the world.

World Veterans Federation
The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.

I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.

"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."

Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950

The Dana And Christopher Reeve Foundation

The Reeve Foundation provides programs for research, uniting Scientists and Specialists from many different fields to find treatments for spinal cord injury translating them into therapies and support programs.

The Heart And Stroke Foundation

For over 60 years, Heart & Stroke has been dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. Our work has saved thousands of lives and improved the lives of millions of others.

The ALS Society Of BC
ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) is a progressive neuromuscular disease in which nerve cells die and leave voluntary muscles paralyzed. The ALS society provides a variety of programs to combat this disease and help those with it to survive.

Muscular Dystrophy Canada
Muscular Dystrophy Canada’s mission is to enhance the lives of those affected by neuromuscular disorders by continually working to provide ongoing support and resources while relentlessly searching for a cure through well-funded research.

Humane Society International
The Humane Society protects the health, lives and rights of animals the world over, ensuring that they too have a voice in this world. We are interdependent upon the complex web of life this entire planet over for our mutual survival. This is a world wide charity.

The Global Foodbanking Network
Ensuring that people the world over have enough food day to day in order to survive and lead healthy lives. In this challenging day and age services like this are becoming more and more essential. This is a world wide charity.

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!

In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.

Wikipedia
The model for what may become the Encyclopedia Galactica, a complete reference and record of history, events and knowledge of humanity and its journey beyond. It is the encyclopedia of all that we know, what we surmise that we've known and will learn in the future. Yes, Wikipedia is a charitable organization of great importance. If you enjoy what I am doing here then please take the time to donate to Wikipedia. Surprisingly only 1% of Wikipedia's users donate yet the site serves pages to millions every day.

Humble Bundle
A video gaming storefront benefiting a vast variety of different Charities in the United States and United Kingdom (hopefully soon to be expanded to include other areas of the world?). By software their software bundles and choose which Charity your money benefits and how much of your money benefits that Charity. See? Gamers can do their part too.

Multiple Sclerosis Society Of Canada

Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative disease currently affecting an estimated 2.3 million world wide. By donating you are contributing to effective research in finding a cure and tipping the scales of MS research to change lives forever.

If you're a resident of Ontario then please consider supporting Building Better Schools.

Other Ways To Help Using Your Computer

Donate your idle computer time to science! Join the World Community Grid by clicking on one of the links below and follow the instructions for how to participate:

Join World Community Grid

Join BOINC

Thank you for your support

Shhhh! Digital Media

Brian Joseph Johns

Introduction

Some of us were driven by something we identified early on. Something that kept us in pursuit of a goal of some kind, from our earliest years crawling on all fours, right until our last moments on a rocking chair. That thing that drives us forward.

This story isn't in the slightest about those of us who are like that at all, because the protagonist of this story only discovered himself and his passion for life much later than most of us. While most are already experts (with some being masters) of their plied trade or even their hobby, the protagonist of this tale has barely explored the surface of their own whims when it comes to self improvement or pursuit of that thing, whatever it might be.

However, that is not the most intriguing point of this story. Its the fact that someone else from a different time was also, driven, even obsessed in pursuit of such a seemingly life defining idea...

Disclaimer: I myself am not a guitarist, but I am very well versed in music theory. So if you're a guitarist, and you read things within the context of this story that are innaccurate about guitars or the skill to play them, remember that I'm trying to empathize. I'll hit a few bumps on the road ahead but I'll do my best to avoid them altogether.

Please Support Shhhh! Digital Media

Here's The Proof Why You Should

"Hi. I'm Barris Windsor. You might remember me from some of Shhhh! Digital Media's greatest works of literature. Greater in fact, than... other literature, that of which we're still in the process of evaluating. However, I'm here speaking to you with regard to a very serious and urgent matter. And that is, that reading this story, might be harmful to your person. In all honesty, it might actually kill you in the most horrendous way possible. However, if it doesn't, you might also become the richest person alive. How's that for a risky gamble and some click bait?"

Yours truly,

Phineas P. Phart.

A very rude and obviousl play on the name of a character from a Jules Verne novel. And the name of countless pet rocks from the 1980s.

Lost Riff

Deck Party, Skydiving And Lemon-Lime Spritzer

[ MILA'S MODEST MANOR, ALIVALE, SUMMER 2024]

The orchard under the middle afternoon sun was lined with trees and shadows alike, each bearing fruit of their own. Some ripe with flavour and hanging from the boughs amidst the flowering cherry blossoms, and others fallen to turf and roots, rotten with the very essence of fertility.

Just off of the back deck, some of their guests had gathered. Xenshi and Xuxu performed before a group of youths, presumably the adolescent children of other members of the Sanctum. The watched as Xenshi and Xuxu performed martial arts acrobatics for the guests. They did so out of their own interest in a such pursuit, and for the joy of laughter and the screams of terror it often brought from their audience.

Beside the performance of these Eastern spirits, the children played out in the grass enjoying their host's hospitality while the adults played on the deck, mostly speaking of their work at the Sanctum and its politics between sips of wine or tankards of ale, and shoving hors d'ouevres into their gullets.

Out a distance from where the children were playing, another group played, adults who watched as Kensai demonstrated various techniques with a bokken he'd brought with him for such purposes, while a with another group, Sir Manfred demonstrated his Knightly techniques with a practice blade crafted of dried birch.

Watchful eyes fell upon all of the aforementioned, with ever so much interest, intensity and a hint of envy.

Eyes watched as Kenshi demonstrated the principles and practice of Iaido to his audience. To all outside appearances, it appeared as if Kenshi did not even need to think about what he did. He simply did it.

The same eyes watched as Xenshi and Xuxu acted without thought.

Those eyes watched them all until they were clouded by tears.

"...and so Yirfir steps forward to address this new proposal, and of course it is met with the usual round of applause and angry fervor..." Jasmer, already a few sheets to the wind was cut off by Yirfir, his wife.

"...let me honey... and Jasmer steps forward and says: This isn't an unprincipled rant! This is actual due process! Treat it that way! We need you to be active in keeping this Sanctum Seclorum going! You vote counts! ...he says!" Yirfir explained to their audience before Jasmer interrupted her.

"We discussed the issue the night before, Yirfir and I, and she literally said the same thing... I was literally copying my own wife... and it was a damned good choice!" Jasmer slurred slightly as Lannay, Jexelen and Thara were audience to their shop talk.

"Funny isn't it?" a soft and seductive female voice interrupted Barris as he watched everything around him.

"I beg your pardon oh wondrous saint of all I see when I see you," Barris responded, turning to Mila.

Mila giggled at him, pulling her chair closer to his at the table, and then wandering her hand secretly up his leg.

"You need to be social with your friends too..." Mila pointed out to Barris.

"Yes... I know... but how can I..." Barris began what he hoped was going to be an in depth conversation with his wife to be, before it was cut off by one of their guests.

"...and what have you been working on Mila... We're ever so curious about what it might be that's on your canvas..." Feylachar approached the two of them with her date, and a few of her other friends from the Sanctum.

"...I can show you? I think Shaela and Nelony are down in the studio right now if you'll follow me..." Mila stood, Barris first admiring the curve of her lips as she spoke, and then the curvature of her body when she stood.

"Don't worry Barris... We'll be back with your fiancé when we're done..." Feylachar assured him as they all left, stepping into the house through the double sliding doors.

A distance over and away from where Barris suddenly found himself alone, Mishima Sato approached from where he'd been a student of Kenshi. He walked casually along the grass towards the table at which Barris was seated, when a miss-thrown frisbee flew towards Sato. He moved quickly and without thought, dodged the disc with quickly executed ukemi. By the time he was back up and upon his feet, he caught the disc with his far hand, and then swiftly threw it back to its sender, who caught the perfect throw Sato had delivered.

"My friend, why is it that you're here all by your lonesome, when you've riches in the count of your wife to be, family and friends?" Sato sat down beside Barris, barely out of breath from his recent exertion despite being decades older than Barris.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm just indept? Incapable..." Barris responded, obviously having given it some thought previous to Sato's arrival.

"I see. You know Barris, a great warrior once said that a warrior never gives ammunition to their enemies that might be used against them, except that which they express in the honour of truth's sake," Sato elicited to Barris, whose left eyebrow raised significantly upon pondering such a thought.

"Makes sense. I guess I was being honest," Barris thought about Sato's statement.

"You're saying that you're inept?" asked Sato.

"Well look at me Sato! I can't actually do anything... except deliver tours at an Alivale historical site..." Barris responded.

"A tour guide..." Sato echoed.

"I mow the lawn occasionally too..." Barris added.

"Ahhhh, that's good. A lawn mower. Very useful, especially if you don't like lawns with long grass..." Sato replied.

"Cleaning the kitchen and loading the dishwasher at home occasionally too..." Barris continued the sum of his worth.

"Good. Dishes definitely need to be loaded. That's what separated the neanderthals from the rest! One side of humanity loaded dishwashers, the other didn't and went extinct! You're on the winning side of history Barris, that's no small accomplishment my friend," Sato for a change tried lifting Barris' spirits.

"Its no use. I simply can't really do anything... but babble. I mean, even our neighbours a quarter of a kilometer from us on either side are computer experts or something like that. Bigwigs with MindSpice or one of those companies. Yup-Yup-Yuppies..." Barris told Sato.

"I'm sorry my friend, but I think that you've developed a stutter..." Sato responded.

Barris rolled his eyes.

"No, I meant Yuppies two decades removed from the first generation of Yuppies..." Barris responded in a frustrated tone.

"I think they called that generation the grunge generation? So technically it would be Grun-Grun-Grungers...?" Sato corrected his friend.

"Or grungies... You see? I can't even come up with accurate anachronistic terms! They're all tardy by a generation or two! Tardinistic! I'm litterally destined to be a tour guide!" Barris exclaimed to his friend.

"You know what I think Barris?" asked Sato of his friend.

"No. Because if I did, then I'd be working in a booth beside Bella as a psychic, you nitwit!" Barris replied.

"I think that you need a habit," Sato responded.

"A hobbit? What in the world would I do with a hobbit? Send them on a quest? Maybe to remind me to bring Mila's wedding ring when that time comes?" asked Barris sarcastically.

"I meant hobby, Barris," Sato replied.

"Like what kind of a hobby?" asked Barris.

"What have you always wanted to do, but never did?" asked Sato.

"Hmmmm... besides nude sky diving into a pool full of hard ale and lemon-lime spritzer in the middle of an Oasis/Coldplay concert? I've never really given it much thought," Barris put his hand to his chin, pondering all of his missed chances in developing a meaningful hobby.

He delved into the thought further, examining it from the safety of a sudden daydream. He leapt from the cargo-bay door of a C-130 Hercules troop carrier, entirely nude, with nothing but his parachute and bodily hair between him and the air around him.

He was ten years younger, perhaps just having arrived at the doorstep of twenty years old. A healthy young man falling from the sky, screaming as he dove headfirst towards the stadium. London's Wembley Arena? Ontario Place Budweiser Stage? Barrie Molson Park? Who knew where he was, he was just living the moment as the air screamed past him.

As he got closer to the ground, he felt the pounding beat of the bass and drums from gargantuan speakers as the concert started, though if it was Oasis or Coldplay, it was a song he'd never heard before in his life. Perhaps something new both of them were putting together Barris surmised?

[Coldplay - In My Place]

He flattened out from his full on dive, slowing him to terminal velocity as he readied himself to pull the release on his chute while still five hundred meters above his target. His entire body was jarred as the pilot chute emerged from his pack, pulling the rest of the chute with it. It opened up, revealing a pseudo paisley-grunge pattern across its surface as the crowd cheered for both the musical intro, and presumably Barris alike. Barris, feeling very inspired, aimed for the pool beneath him, which at this point was still just a tiny rectangle three hundred meters beneath him.

At this point, Barris could hear a catchy musical motif, as it slowly emerged in volume from the midst of the rhythm. The motif was a simple phrase, derived from a patterned melody, that yet remained distinct enough through its entirety so as not to become dull or repetitive. In fact, it was tricky enough that it wasn't quite predictable, even the second or third time after hearing it. It was in essence, a very well crafted phrase, not unlike the works of Mozart or Brahms. Except it was all played on a guitar.

When finally that last repetition of the motif had come to a close, it expertly bridged the musical piece into a guitar riff that Barris, let alone anyone had never heard before. It was so simple, and yet mind bogglingly complex at the same time. It integrated several different styles of musical performance, the most prominent of which was definitely rock. When everyone heard the riff, their first thought was they'd heard it before, and yet it was so unfamiliar.

It did not simply rely upon the foundation of most rock, the one-four and five chordal positions from the modal scale, it went beyond that familiar, tried but true foundation of the musical style, instead integrating creative use of the chordal tonic, to make such a simply riff sound so familiar and yet completely new. It was as if someone had thrown the works of Jeff Healey, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Pete Townsend, Roy Orbison, Mark Knopfler, Chet Atkins, Eddie Van Halen and a slew of the greatest composers of all time into a blender, mixed it on high speed and then poured the results onto a musical staff.

Barris heard it clearly in his ears and felt it throughout his entire body as he lined up his landing into the pool. It was pure aural heaven. It was the musical perfection of the instrument kithara in its modern form: the guitar.

Barris heard, rather felt the music of the most prolific guitar riff as the scent of hard ale and lemon-lime spritzer hit his nose. He arrived at the surface of the pool with a fizzy splash and as he did, he screamed:

"Yessssssss!" at the top of his lungs.

...

As he fell beneath the surface of the tasty alcohol beverage, the world spun and inverted itself. The surface of the drink had now become the bottom of another pool towards whose surface he swam. When he emerged, he gasped for air but his lungs only tasted hot air and sulphur.

A large hand reached into the pool and grabbed Barris, wrenching him from it and placing him onto the deck around it.

Barris could feel the heat of the primordial furnaces from what he assumed to be the interior of the planet. It was in fact so hot that his body was no longer dripping, but was sticky with beer and lemon-lime spritzer.

"The riff! THE RIFF! Did you bring the riff with you?!!!" the voice was deep and forboding, its heat exceding the air around it.

Barris stood to see a tall man, taller than himself by a margin, wearing a black button-down designer suit and with long nineteen-seventies rocker hair. His face was hidden behind a veil of shadows, and the bangs of his hair.

"Lemmy, I presume?" Barris responded.

The tall man stood silently for a moment before speaking.

"I'm afraid not. He's in another section you see, which is in the deepest and darkest depths of this place!" the man said to Barris.

...

A few kilometers from where Barris and the tall man were speaking, Lemmy walked to the front door of his posh suburban bungalow and picked up the morning paper in his silk bathrobe and slippers.

[Motorhead - Shine]

"G'morning George. A lovely morning, isn't it?" Lemmy greeted his neighbour, Mr. Harrison.

"I've seen few better in my time. How's things?" asked George.

"The bass is in the shop, getting a new bridge installed," Lemmy replied.

"The Fender or the Gibson?" asked George.

"Actually, the Rickenbacker. How's yours?" asked Lemmy.

"Well, she's still gently weeping... so the pun goes," George responded, grabbing his paper and morning milk.

[George Harrison - While My Guitar Gently Weeps]

"Have a good one. Come for tea at three if you'd like," Lemmy grabbed his paper and took a moment to peer at the front page.

"Damn! Its still 1975! Disco's still at the top of the charts!" Lemmy steamed upon reading the headlines.

"I heard that Lemmy! Read 'em and weep!" Maurice Gibb opened the front door of his neighbouring home and responded to Lemmy.

[Bee Gees - You Should Be Dancin']

and

[Foo Fighters - You Should Be Dancin']

...

"Where am I...?" Barris asked the tall man.

"Where do you think you are, Barris?!!!" asked the tall man of Barris.

"Uhhhh... Yellowstone Park, during a dangerous geiser activity advisory maybe?" Barris replied, at the very extent of his YouTube obtained knowledge of geology.

"Close... but you'll figure it out soon enough. You see, I brought you here because you're the only one who's ever heard it..." the tall man addressed Barris.

"I think I have it! This is your place, and you're Joey Ramone, right?" Barris found a little bit of courage for sarcasm towards his host.

[The Ramones - Something To Believe In]

"Not quite. However, you could say that I'm a surgeon of sorts, and there's something in your head that I need. You heard it and don't deny that you did. Now, I'll just take what is rightfully mine whether you like it or not..." the tall man reached out towards Barris, who stood rooted to the spot in sheer terror.

Then something in him sparked him back to life. It was the riff he'd heard at the concert, its melodic tenure flowing through his mind and memory. At that point, he remembered the concert and how he'd arrived.

Barris quickly dove into the pool of ale and lemon-lime spritzer and began swimming towards the bottom, taking a few healthy sips along the way. He felt a large hand close in around his ankle and he struggled to get away, diving deeper into the pool. With one final thrust of all his energy, he broke free, and pierced the bottom of the pool...

The world suddenly inverted itself again as his face crested the surface of the pool, the concert still going and the crowd still cheering. And then he awoke.

...

"...you could collect hockey cards... there's also basket weaving? Macromé? This world is full of things you can do to kill time... in a meaningful way... to keep that ticker of yours from being idle for too long," Sato tapped Barris' head lightly.

Barris suddenly sat up in his chair, clearly alarmed.

"Sato!???" asked Barris, looking to Sato with wild eyes.

Barris jumped when he felt a pair of warm hands caress his shoulders.

"Its only me honey..." Mila leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of Barris' thinning crown of hair.

"I was somewhere else... it was like a dream... but it was real!" Barris exclaimed, looking to Sato and then to Mila, who sat down beside him in the neighbouring chair.

"A daydream perhaps?" asked Mila.

"A delusion more likely..." Sato responded.

"No! It was real, as if I was there. I literally parachuted from an airplane..." Barris began.

"...you can barely step off of a curb without experiencing acrophobia, never mind an airplane..." Sato responded.

"You're referring to my bathmophobia, and I'm mostly cured of that my friend. Living in a manor with four floors and a scrumptous wife to be, does that for you. The best cure I'd say," Barris quickly responded.

"Continue... about your dream honey," Mila encouraged Barris to talk about it rather than to bottle it up.

"I leapt from the plane... naked..." Barris continued.

"With a parachute I'm hoping...?" Mila interjected.

"...of course. I had a parachute and was diving into a pool full of ale spritzer... at a concert... and when I landed, I was in a warm place that smelled like sulphur..." Barris paused.

"Uhhhhh... Mexico? Bahamas maybe?" suggested Mila.

"Could have been, but I don't think it was..." Barris thought about it for a moment.

"Florida? Its definitely warm most of the year. It is a place many people go to retire, an early possibility for you maybe...?" Sato insinuated sarcastically that Barris should just give it up.

"...true, and that would also explain the smell of sulfur, as many seniors contend with a problem of flatulence you know. Not unlike your bad case of flatulence of the mouth...!" Barris responded to Sato as Mila struggled to contain her laughter at their antics.

"...or yours of flatulence of the cranium!" Sato responded.

"I would have guessed the same of you given the rapid retreat of your hair..." Barris replied.

"Ok. You two forget this. Honey, go on with your story..." Mila wanted to hear what had excited Barris so much.

"...well... I heard music... from the concert but it was like nothing I've ever heard before! It was not of this Aerth... it was beyond!" Barris tried to explain to Mila how the music he'd heard had impacted him.

"What kind of music?" Mila asked him.

"It was from... a guitar," Barris said to her as he suddenly realized what he must do.

"That's it! Mila, you're a genius!" Barris laid a hurried but tender kiss on her lips.

"Thank you, though I'd be even more grateful if I knew what I did," Mila blushed.

"You helped me to find my purpose in life! ...Uhhhhh my other purpose next to our purpose of exploring all the different ways we can be affectionate to one another..." Barris quickly corrected himself.

"Speaking of, I think I'll go pursue my purpose of escaping every moment you to smatter each other in affection..." Sato stood up and left the table, seeing Nelony in the distance who appeared an enticing target of his crass humour as she had been many times before.

With that, Sato was over to her side where he immediately began mocking her.

"What do we need to get you going on your purpose?" Mila asked Barris, standing from her chair and then sitting in his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck during their moment alone on the deck.

"I just need one thing... a guitar," Barris explained to her.

"A guitar? But you don't play, do you?" asked Mila.

"Not yet. But I have to find that riff... I have to!" Barris said to Mila with a look of obsession in his eyes.

[John Paul Young And The Cardboard Brains - Ceasar Drives A Fast Car]

Machinehead Mastery

[MILA AND BARRIS' BEDROOM, SUMMER 2024]

Barris woke up to Mila's soft touch and the fragrant scent of her perfume the following morning, the sun streaming in through the curtains.

"Barris honey? Wakey wakey..." Mila coaxed him as she sat on the edge of the bed closest to Barris.

A devious smile crept across his face as his eyes opened and he spied his wife to be seated on the bed next to him.

"Well look at this... a flower just happened to bloom next to me in bed... I'd better partake of that irresistable fragrance right now...!" Barris quickly leaned up and began nibbling on her chin, pulling her down into the bed with him as she giggled, struggling against him.

"I don't have time!" Mila urged him, struggling to contain herself.

"Oh, it can't be that late..." Barris maintained his seduction.

"Its ten already, and Nelony, Shaela and I are going to pick the bridesmaid dresses..." Mila struggled to speak as Barris' mouth slowly found its way to her lips.

"...ten o'clock?!!!" Barris suddenly retreated from her, leaving Mila's hanging lips just before they touched.

He quickly got out of bed and ran for the closet to grab his trousers.

"Where are you going?" she asked him.

"I'm late for work!" Barris skipped his undergarments altogether, going right for the pants, shirt and shoes.

"Honey, its Sunday... relax..." Mila said to him reassuringly.

"It is?" he confirmed.

"Yes...!" she replied, still laying on the bed very invitingly.

Barris immediately dove into bed with her and resumed from where they'd left off.

[Oasis - Morning Glory]

...

"She's been up there twenty minutes already. How long does it take to deliver a see you later today kiss?" asked Nelony politely, yet impatiently.

"There's only one way to find out. Wait here...." Shaela stood up to her full six foot height and marched up the stairs, her red hair trailing her step.

"Don't you disappear too..." Nelony said as she took the last sip of her tea.

Just as Shaela arrived at the bedroom door, ready to knock, Mila opened it and stepped out into the hall, her complexion glowing as she smiled.

"Yirfir and Jasmer took Sato with them to the Belleville flea market. They should be back around the same time as us. Don't forget that you said you were going to work on your vows today..." Mila said to Barris as she left.

"Don't worry honey, I'll have them done in time. Miss you, kiss you, with you..." Barris said to Mila as she closed the door.

"Miss you, kiss you, with you too...!" she blew him a kiss and closed the door as Shaela mimed gagging herself.

[The Guess Who - No Time]

"That was a long goodbye..." Shaela said to Mila suspiciously.

"...he wasn't feeling too well, so I had to comfort him..." Mila responded innocently but Shaela saw through her alibi.

"I'm sure. Come on, you can fix your make-up in the car," Shaela responded as they returned to the kitchen to get Nelony.

"Finally. Is Barris feeling better?" Nelony asked, assuming that he was ill.

"Much better, thanks for your concern," Mila responded.

"I tried to tell him last night not to eat barbecue and veggies at the same time, especially when you're drinking. Its either one or the other, and as you know, I don't eat meat and know all about this topic, but he just went ahead anyway and ate like there was no tomorrow..." Nelony began, speaking as if deflecting the blame for Barris' malady.

"What did you think of the bird feeders Barris installed around the deck?" asked Mila, quickly changing the topic to something Nelony liked.

"They were just lovely! Saw a few warblers with enough courage to take a few bites, but most of the other birds refrained from using them for some odd reason..." Nelony observed, suddenly joyed to be talking about nature again.

"I wonder why? Perhaps they should rightfully be called cat feeders..." Shaela noted Mila's three cats seated on the window sill staring intensely at the bird feeders, though more focused on the birds themselves.

"We're all ready then? Let's go, I'm sooo excited to see the dresses they put aside for us..." Mila said as she coaxed them out the door.

A few moments later and they were out the door, while Barris had stepped into the shower.

...

Ten minutes later and after several horrible and cringe worthy renditions of This is Love, Barris stepped out of the shower dripping wet and raring to go.

[PJ Harvey - This Is Love] (Much, much better than Barris' version. Believe me).

"I have a feeling that this is going to be a..." Barris said as he stepped out of the master bathroom, coming to a discrete halt in his statement when he spied something standing in the middle of the bedroom floor.

It was upright, reaching for the sky if not the stars or at least Mila's and Barris' master bedroom skylight. It had a long and slender neck that connected to a solid body whose curves were as nearly immeasurable as those of a woman's body. Subtle where need be, and pronounced when called for, while still being sharp enough in some places to reminded onlookers that they'd be proceeding at their own peril. It was something definitely produced by masters of their craft.

It wasn't quite a Fender Mustang, but it had hints of a similar oval near its base. It wasn't quite a Gibson Maestro Vibrola, but it appeared to have similar horns, though it favoured the Fender Strat's configuration in that manner, with one horn being longer than the other. It wasn't quite a Gretsch Jet, but it did have a similar pick guard, and dials on the horns. It wasn't quite a PRS Classic or a Schecter Sunset Extreme, but it did have similarly finely crafted machine heads and an ornate tuning-locked tremolo bar.

It was, in its stand, the most finely crafted of guitars. A carbon shaded solid body appearing much like the Clarke/Kubrick monolith from the film A Space Odyssey, and much the same, it had made its entry into their bedroom completely in silence.

Barris knew nothing about guitars, or any instrument for that matter, but he intuitively knew that this was not your average run of the mill guitar.

He stood there gawking at it, his hair dripping onto the carpet, still berobed in his favourite bath towel.

"Hello? Anyone else in here? Maybe an Amazon courier? Purolator perhaps? Fed-Ex I'd bet? DHL perchance?" Barris looked around the room, his eyes shifting from side to side for any signs that a courier had been in the room.

The silence responded deafeningly, while the guitar spoke in the language of possibility. Potential.

What could come to be.

Barris stood his ground fast, his feet still rooted to that same position while the urge grew within him.

He stared at the guitar, while it looked back at him, seeing his entire soul through and through in the blink of an eye. It knew. Barris knew, and yet Barris held his place.

That was, until he could no longer forstay the urge.

He moved upon the guitar, reaching for it and plucking it from the stand, and then immediately going over to the edge of the bed and seating himself there. He then lifted the guitar to his lap and assumed the position he'd seen on so many music videos, shifting it until it felt right.

And then...

He struggled to play: Stairway To Heaven...

[Led Zeppelin (from Led Zeppelin IV) - Stairway To Heaven]

and

[Heart And Friends - Stairway To Heaven]

Despite the fact that this electric guitar was not plugged in, it sounded amazing to Barris. He was actually playing a piece of music, which was actually just a jumble of barely discernable notes, almost random at that, all emanating from his already painfully blistered fingertips.

When he'd finished with Stairway, he then struggled amidst stage fright to come up with another song to play.

"Wait!" he said to an imaginary audience as he struggled with his first bout of stagefright.

"Uhhhhh???" he followed.

"I know!" he added before he continued playing again.

It was a loving (horrible) rendition of I Can't Get No Satisfaction. Monotone and all played on one string. In fact, that was the pure genius of the song. The fact that it was a catchy linear melody that could be entirely played on one string, hence securing it as the second most played first song on a guitar.

[Rolling Stones - I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)]

In Barris' perception of the situation, he'd just performed like a master of the guitar before an audience of tens of thousands of fans. Perhaps even more, and yet, he was simply seated on the side of his bed with a wet towel wrapped around his waist, and a guitar (of supernatural origins) on his lap.

At that moment, Barris felt a sense of elation that went beyond measure (musical pun intended), for he'd just lived a dream. An imaginary one, albeit, and one that many, many other potential guitarists had lived.

At least once.

Barris watched the room around illuminate, but not with the light of day, but the fires of obsession.

An intense reddish-orange glow engulfed him, streaming in from all of the windows and any other entry-point into the master bedroom, until a group of five figures stood before him in the center of the carpeted floor.

"Spinal Tap I presume?" Barris responded without pause, perhaps sarcastically even.

[Spinal Tap - Stonehenge]

The dry-ice smoke continued to fill the bedroom floor, feeling cold to Barris' feet as it engulfed the room from wall to wall. The lighting behind the quintet of silhouettes shifted through a variety of colours, accented by the recently dispersed pyrotechnic effects.

"Barris!" one of the silhouettes spoke, his voice washed heavily with reverb, analog delay and a bit of chorus.

Barris looked around too see if there might be a scapegoat in his midst. Much to his chagrin, there were none.

"Uhhh... I've heard that word before a few times. Are you Barristers or Soliciters?" he responded.

One of the silhouettes lifted its hand to slap its forehead, dragging the hand down across his face.

"Oh lord please... not another one..." the very same silhouette responded.

"You're referring to the smoke, aren't you?" asked the silhouette in the center position.

"You mean this isn't my concert?" asked Barris, suddenly caught off guard by the main attraction.

"I'm afraid not, but we've been chosen to express the fact that you've graduated to a higher level of ascendancy..." the same central silhouette responded.

"So... why the grand entrance?" asked Barris the most obvious question, if it wasn't all for him in his own bedroom.

"Its in our contract. Under page twenty, paragraph five, clause two, that we - referring to said performing act defined on page two, paragraph six, clause eighteen, must always be preceded in terms of entry to a performance, speech or simply a public appearance, by the sudden emission of visual effects smoke of the dry-ice variety... end clause," that silhouette surmised for Barris.

"So you're silhouette lawyers?" confirmed Barris, now completely confounded.

All five of the silhouettes slapped their foreheads, exclaiming: not again.

It was silent again until one of them took the initiative to speak.

"Barris, we are in fact every single quintet and quartet and trio and duo and solo act that has ever existed since the beginning of time... so long as they wielded a guitar, or any variant thereof..." that central silhouette explained to Barris, who seemed suddenly dumbfounded.

"Sorry, I know what a trio is... but a quartet? a quintet?" Barris held onto the guitar protectively.

There was some more slapping of foreheads and a few oh goshes and oh dears, before the quintet resumed.

"Quite simply put... four members in a band and five members in a band..." the central silhouette explained.

"Ohhhhh... I see now. QUIN sounds so much like FIVE and QUAR sound so much like... hmmm quar and four do sound alike. So who came up with QUIN meaning five? An idiot perhaps? Ha! That's so funny I almost forgot to breath!" Barris defied them, thoroughly empowered by his recent (illusive) performance.

[The Pink Floyd - Breathe]

"Are we even right for this job? I mean he has a point, even if his meter's off tempo..." the drummer silhouette responded, already creating divisions amongst them.

The bass player silhouette suddenly found himself in a conundrum, torn between the drummer and the rest of the band. In the end, he sided with rhythm.

"I'm with the drummer," the bass player silhouette added predictably.

"Want some kick with that?" the guitarist silhouette kicked the bass player silhouette's ass.

The keyboardist was ready to step in, readying himself for conflict.

"I heard that this is exactly how the Beatles broke up..." the bass player added, trying to calm things down before the vocalist silhouette intervened.

"Barris, you've suddenly graduated into a world that you did not know existed. You are now the member of a brother and sisterhood that spans..." the central silhouette raised his hands as he delivered a rousing speech.

There was a pause.

"Decades. At least four. Wait, let me do the math..." the central silhouette struggled with even the simplest numbers, unless those numbers involved booking times or money.

"Five point two nine decades for crying out loud! I mean its all there in black and white!" the keyboardist responded.

"Yeah? Well I can play sixteenth note triplets at one eighty beats per minute you damned glorified button presser!" the guitarist smirked at the keyboardist.

[Rush - La Villa Strangiato]

and

[Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force]

"And to think, I wasn't even trying to press yours..." the keyboardist silhouette responded.

"Don't you dare talk to a guitarist that way!" Barris replied, already feeling a kinship to the silhouette guitarist.

There was another moment of silence. A long one, where the vocalist didn't even feel like they had to tell the rest of the band what to do.

It was a rare moment of understanding.

"Barris Windsor?" the central silhouette addressed the man on the edge of his bed.

"You have hencely graduated into a fraternity of unrealized power and potential. You, have become a member of those first time guitarists whose first time playing, tried to perform Stairway To Heaven and I Can't Get No Satisfaction! You are amongst millions, perhaps billions of other guitarists (or beellions and beellions as Carl Sagan would have put it) who've all found their way onto the path of guitar perfection!" the central silhouette addressed Barris.

"I am?" confirmed Barris.

"You are. You've stepped into the realm from which we can guide you (according to page one hundred and seventeen, paragraph six, clause nine)" the central silhouette replied.

"And you are?" asked Barris, suddenly intuitively understanding his signing powers as a sought after artist (of very, very common proportions).

"We are the legendary band CADENCE, and we are going to guide you towards your pursuit of the one and only... LOST RIFF" the central silhouette responded.

"And even from here, sitting in nothing but a towel, I assume that I'm going to be famous? Like Eddie Van Halen?" Barris responded.

"Barris, if you can find the LOST RIFF, you will be the most highly regarded guitar player in all of history! You'll have women. Fame. More women. More fame, and..." the vocalist silhouette began.

"...even more women? But I'm about to be married! I am already with the woman of my dreams!" Barris responded, very unimpressed by the prospect of what they were offering, for he was for Mila and as much so as she was for him.

"Forgive me, I come from the nineteen sixties and a lot of things have changed since then. So no, you won't be getting even more women. You'll be getting a shrink. A full-time in-house psychiatric professional to deal with your ego problems, and there will be many. All singers have them, though few admit that they need them," the vocalist silhouette replied.

"But I'm a striving guitarist, not a singer!" Barris responded.

"Denial. That's the first sign you have a problem, Barris. So said Peter Frampton, and look at him now. Trust us and you'll be the singer of the millennium," the vocalist silhouette told Barris.

[Peter Frampton - Baby, I Love Your Way]

"But I don't want to be the singer! I want to be the guitarist, or if that fails... the drummer!" Barris replied.

"Barris my dear friend, everybody wants to be the drummer but there can only be one, or two if you're Genesis from back in the day," the vocalist silhouette replied.

[Genesis - Horizons]

[Genesis - Can-Utility and the Coastliners]

Cadence

[A BIG CITY, NORTH AMERICA, SUMMER 1967]

[The Turtles - Happy Together] (In The top ten from 1967)

It was 1967.

Well, back when it actually was 1967, but I'm sure you get the drift.

Actually, if you understood the term: get the drift, then obviously, there's no need for clarification. You were there in 1967 in one form or another.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, I remember.

It was 1967.

In fact, 1967 was the very same year that Cletus Bart Addersin, a (local) guitarist of some reknown in northern Ontario, had formally founded a band with four other musicians. John Clarkies, the drummer. Dan Drogen, the bass player. Paul Sholtz, the keyboardist and Felix Smith, the vocalist.

They started out gigging under the name In Formation, playing two sets of their own homegrown original rock and roll music, throwing in the occasional cover tune to fill a third and final set. They changed their name to Steady Sound a year later, which their management felt would help their audience identify them with rock music. They grew their audience under that second name to a considerable size before changing their name one last time. From that point on they were known as Cadence.

By nineteen-seventy they put together their first album Go The Distance, which was an enticing mix of original progressive rock. Upon its release it was praised by the critics and fans alike, not to mention it landed them their first number one hit: Freight Train. The album eventually went platinum (one million units in sales), solidifying Cadence's fame.

Cletus had by that time become a guitarist of reknown, highly respected amongst other musicians for his skill and ability as a player. He even developed his own progression, which utilized his three initials: Cmaj, Bbmaj and Amin7, in the key of F (or C mixolydian), taking the rock genre away from its adherence to the often used one four five progression and entering into a new and refreshing territory of five, four, three. This progression was even named after Cletus, other musicians calling it the Cletus Slide, which began a trend in his career that put him in competition with himself. With every new release, he was competing with his own past and as time went on, it became harder and harder for him to outdo himself. What he reckoned he needed, was something of epic proportions. Something that would put him at the top, and keep him there for good, and that's when he discovered the existence of the lost riff, or rather, when it discovered him.

[April Wine - Roller]

Cadence was on tour and at that time in the city of Seattle. They'd finished their show for that night and by two o'clock in the morning, they had already turned in. Everyone that is, except for Cletus, who sat up with a bottle of whiskey, trying to write something new with his twelve string acoustic. He was four fingers from the bottom of the bottle when he passed out in the chair, his guitar still on his lap. And that's when the dream began.

It was a distant and tight echo at first, which most musicians and studio engineers knew as the early reflection component of reverberation, for from where ever it originated, the floors and walls were as solid and immovable as stone. The sound bounced around between these surfaces until it was a mixture of aural ripples splashing into his ears like the waters of a healthy tide and a sound like the flavour of the whiskey he'd consumed earlier. A serene texture, but with one heck of a bite.

Playing music for a living as did Cletus in the band Cadence, one got to know music so well that eventually one could merely hear a tune and just as easily play it. Playing by ear, as most musicians referred to the technique. A handy skill to have if you were working playing covers of other musician's songs and audience requests, or if you were collaborating with a music writer who communicated their ideas without sheet music. The performance experience of one's playing eventually led one to the point where if they could hear it, they could play it. However, for some reason, with the motif Cletus was hearing in his whiskey induced stupor, he could not piece it together at all. Like seeing a face right in front of you, and then drawing a blank when asked to describe it.

This was music that could not be captured and transcripted by ear and hand alone, for it went well beyond copying and reproducing what was heard. This music wasn't sound alone, all by its lonesome. In fact, what could be heard of it was actually the least of it, for this lost riff went well beyond that concept alone. Like the tip of an iceberg, the sound only made up one percent of the sum, the rest of it hidden well beneath the waves.

Cletus began to feel the music, through his body, in timing with the beating of his ever thrashing heart. The thump in his ears became like the kick-drum, and the reverberation in his auditory canal the low frequency sound of the bass.

The tempo of the lost riff picked up (accelerando as it was so called), and Cletus' heart followed in suit, beating faster and faster in order to keep up. Cletus did his best to remain focused on the music, the sweat now dripping from his eyebrows by way of his drenched forehead. At that moment, he felt a sharp pain in his chest.

"You're not gettin' away from me that easy!" Cletus exclaimed from the midst of his waking dream, the mumbling from his lips barely coherent.

"You're a strong one, aren't you?" a voice replied to Cletus, though he couldn't tell if it was real or simply another role in his dream.

"Am I dead?" asked Cletus, suddenly recalling the pain in his chest from moments earlier.

"If you were, you'd be the first to speak about it with your own voice. Most dead people speak to the living in a multitude of ways except through their own lips," a tall man with long seventies hair in a stylish rock and roll suit looked back at Cletus from his shadow obscured face.

"Are you the good one, or the bad one?" Cletus clarified with the mysterious figure.

"Now that's the second most common question I've been asked upon a first meeting. Its your first question that's at the top of the charts so to speak, which means our conversation so far is exactly the same as with all of the others I've met. Am I being a little presumptuous in expecting more from someone like you? Make it a little more interesting than routine, Cletus. After all, you and your band mates have written a lot of music that treads that line perfectly. Too avante gard and progressive, and few people will be able to relate. Too routine and predictable, and there's nothing to challenge them as an audience. So here I am Cletus, an audience of sorts. Impress me and don't alienate me, or I'm libel to get bored and abandon you altogether," asked the man seated across from him.

"I just want to know if I'm dealing with a devil or an angel?" Cletus pushed the issue, not truly having understood or considered the man's previous statement.

"That's twice you've imposed concepts into a situation that don't fit. An oversimplification as it were. Would I be the good one if I were a devil? Would I be the bad one if I was an angel? Would you prefer a devil in heaven or an angel in hell? Would I be lying to you if I revealed myself as either one of those stigmatic archetypes? You see, those ideas come with their own history and baggage and we're way beyond that, Cletus. Let me ask you a rhetorical question: If I wanted ignorance and to keep my road as the most prevalent in the world, then wouldn't I be the one putting dead-end signs on every other road that wasn't mine?" the man responded, quickly dispatching ideas that imposed any kind of preconceived structure onto their conversation.

"This is a trick. You're my audience then..." the concepts once again escaped Cletus, to whom the man's words meant something very different than what he'd intended.

"No, Cletus. I'm not Cadence's entire audience embodied as one man, but I am an audience of sorts, and you still have one more chance. You've stumbled onto a road less traveled, and as such, you were within earshot of what it has to offer. You were curious enough to begin down that road but when confronted by me, someone who is essentially a lost hitchhiker on the road of otherworldly life, you panicked. You became afraid of the road ahead, Cletus. Its your biggest fear in life. Commitment. You heard... no. You felt what was in store on this road by way of that riff, and you turned, ready to take a safer path. A predictable one that has never asked you any questions that you couldn't answer. The same bologna steak, eggs and bourbon for breakfast that you've been eating since your first real tour rider from ten years ago. You see Cletus, the moment that you got yourself into a predictable routine, was the moment that you sold your own soul, though I'm only speaking in the language of ideas that you presented. Ideas that basically say: don't think about anything that might change you, and don't take risks. The riff. That lost riff lies somewhere down this road of what you aren't familiar with, Cletus. If you want it, you're going to have to get out of your comfort zone, the same as when you and your band mates had formed Cadence," the man explained to Cletus, who for the first time in their conversation really listened, and more importantly, heard.

Cletus' saw the last ten years play out before him, from the comfort of his own memory. Cadence's first real deal, signing with a major label. Cadence was given two hundred thousand dollars up front, and five years to produce three albums, between the legs of a North American tour, and finally a World tour, and all before the 1980s were officially born. Cadence had become a world phenomenon and it was as the man had said, that Cletus had given up his own soul when he opted to have every moment of his waking life planned for him from that moment onward.

What the man had said to him appealed to his artistic - rather than his business sense. Two ideas that had found opposition in one another amongst the ignorance of those who'd never really considered them thoroughly. That to embrace a good business sense was to sell out, or to embrace one's artistic sense was the front door of virtuosity. Simple ideas easy enough for someone like Cletus to wrap his head around. He'd always been about the art of playing, of creating, and saw the business side of art as the flip side of the coin. No matter what, heads and tails would never see eye to eye as Cletus saw it, and so long as he stuck to that idea and gave others the impression that it meant everything to him, they'd continue selling records to those who'd subscribed to the same perspective. The truth was that Cletus did see things that way, and was under the option that it was all part of a bigger picture. It was the struggle of the artist, and he never realized that the two sides of that coin were always in the hand of one person. No coin in history had turned up all heads or all tails when flipped.

Cletus had somewhere along the way abandoned his art, instead having jumped into bed with the label as he saw it. He had sold out. He had become everything that he'd wanted his music to oppose.

Now here was a mysterious man, who'd committed no crime other than to open Cletus' eyes at the lowest point in his height of heights.

The lost riff had once been Cletus' for the taking, but when he'd signed that deal, he'd sold his soul for the price of predictability and the guarantee of a routine. Ever since, he'd lost the trail of the lost riff. Every moment from that point, whether Cletus realized it or not, he'd struggled to find that spark in the band and himself that ignited their passion for music, and not simply a spark that enticed them into making a cookie cutter they could use to make the same music over and over again.

"Its way different when you do music because you couldn't not do it if you tried, than it is to do music when someone else tells you to do it! That's when art dies..." Cletus finally broke the silence, grabbing the bottle of whiskey and guzzling the last four fingers.

The man sat silently in his seat across from Cletus.

"Impressive Cletus. You didn't let me down, either. I was worried for a moment there, but I never doubted you. You think you know someone until they surprise you, and then you come to the realization that you never really knew them at all," the man responded, suddenly realizing that he was as lost as he'd always been and alone as he'd ever be.

He may have found another hitchhiker on his eternal journey, but ultimately he knew that hitchhikers were all thumbs, while guitarists and the lost rift required fingers to play.

What Cletus didn't see was that every argument he'd put forth in protection of his art, could just as easily apply to someone else's sense of business and ethics, and that it was the driving passion itself that motivated some people to become artists, and others to become entrepreneurs and business managers.

"I'm doing this for the art! For my fans!" Cletus leaned forward in his chair, holding his guitar firmly as he began to write what would become the most important song the band Cadence had ever written.

The very same song that Barris, more than fifty years later and already two songs into his first time playing, would attempt with his new guitar.

In Fame Me Or Infamy?

[MILA AND BARRIS' BEDROOM, SUMMER 2024]

Barris sat there on the bed in his towel, a supernatural guitar on his lap as he hmmmed and haaaed over what to play next.

"Any requests?" Barris asked the members of Cadence.

"Silence?" ⃰ the drummer responded jokingly, causing the other members of the band to break out laughing.

Barris sat as they stretched out their laugh at his expense, with even some indignant knee slapping occurring. However, this was Barris' moment, especially having that guitar on his lap, and he wasn't going to let a bunch of force ghost rockstars upstage him.

So he did what he was good at, and as a result of many years of practice with his cantankerous friend Mishima Sato. He used his wit.

"Silence? Sure, I could play that. Could you hum a few bars?" ⃰ ⃰ responded Barris, having the last laugh.

"Whoooooaaa! He got ya there!" the bass player responded, the only one laughing.

"He's right. Barris is ready for the stage. If that was a heckler, he'd have handled it superbly," the singer pointed out.

"But for the love of Stevie Ray Vaughan, he can't play!" Cletus replied.

"Can you sing Barris?" asked the vocalist silhouette.

"Sure... Cletus mentioned..." Barris responded, taking in a gulp of air.

[Stevie Ray Vaughan - Pride And Joy]

Well you've heard about love givin' sight to the blind
My baby's lovin' cause the sun to shine
She's my sweet little thang, she's my pride and joy

She's my sweet little baby, I'm her little lover boy

It sounded as a field of steerage who'd all simultaneously stubbed their toes... uhhhh hooves! Off tune and poorly timed, as if he simply could not hear his own voice.

"Whoooooaaa! Heel! Cease at once, please! Show us some mercy!" the bass player grasped at his ears, writhing as if he was in a great deal of pain.

There was a moment of silence as they realized that they were stuck, with nowhere to go from there.

"Sounds like when someone turns down the vocal monitor on poor Felix during a show..." the bass player said, referring to the vocalist who eyed him scathingly.

"On those shows? It wasn't his voice. It was yours!" the keyboardist responded.

"Button presser! Button presser!" the bass player responded insultingly.

"He's not ready..." the singer looked down in disappointment.

"We could lend him a little... you know. Of the humph to be a musician. He did handle that heckling quite well," the drummer suggested.

"And he isn't lacking confidence... even if it is a bit misplaced..." the bass player added.

"Thanks. I think," Barris responded to the bass player.

"He needs the chops and vox. Without it, he's just a guy on a bed in a wet towel with a bad voice playing an electric guitar without an amp, and that's just not that impressive. Have you seen the kinds of shows they're doing in stadiums now? Taylor Swift? or... Lady Gaga? Billie Elish? Beaches? He's got to be able to put on a real live show!" Cletus explained to his fellow band members.

[Beaches - Everything Is Boring]

"He can handle a crowd and he's got confidence, in kind of a foolish and awkward way, but he can't sing or play. Two out of three ain't bad though," the drummer added thoughtfully.

[Meat Loaf - Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad]

"Wait! We could... noooo. We couldn't..." the keyboardist began, before vetoing his own idea.

"For crying out loud, don't leave us hanging. At least spit it out!" the bass player urged the keyboardist.

"We could use... you know... the song. That song," the keyboardist finally laid his idea out for them.

"Could he withstand it though? That's some pretty bad mojo!" the bass player asked.

"Ask Cletus. Felix. They'd know," the keyboardist came back.

"We could try. It wouldn't hurt..." Cletus looked to Felix.

"Really Cletus? Are you that certain that you know that with which you dabble?" Felix asked Cletus, as if there had been an episode earlier that had resulted in their current caution.

"Barris? I think that you're ready for the next level, but we can't wait for years while you practice up enough to level up your skills to make you the next thing to rock the world..." Cletus said to Barris

"Wait a second. What was that other stuff about dabbling with that with which your certain with... which you dabble?" Barris responded, looking somewhat worried.

"Ahhhh its nothing. Don't worry about a thing. Unless you don't want to be a..." the bass player began.

"A what? A party pooper? I'm nothing of the sort!" Barris became frantic.

"All the fans screaming... All the press writing about you... All the money... All the parties... All the temptation..." the bass player played up as much as he could.

"And that's what I'd be having...?" asked Barris, suddenly looking much more optimistic.

"All that and much, much more..." the singer enticed Barris.

"I'll do it!" Barris responded without hesitation - or thought.

The members of the band looked to each other and then to Barris.

"Barris, do you know the song Life In A Moment?" the singer asked Barris.

"I recall that it was quite popular in the 1970s. It was by that rock band..." Barris put his hand on his chin as he pondered.

"Yoohoo... hello?" the singer spread his arms, as if presenting the band.

"Yes! It was a five piece band! Uhhhhh... Five Man Electric Band?" Barris replied.

[Five Man Electric Band - Signs]

The members of the band all slapped their foreheads, shaking their heads in disbelief.

"Oh! I remember! It was the band Cadence!" Barris suddenly remembered.

"Exactly. It was us," the singer replied.

"You're that Cadence?!!!" Barris said in sudden surprise.

"Look Barris, do you remember the damned song or not!" Cletus' patience was wearing thin.

"And you were the guitar player! Uhhhh yes! I remember the song quite well!" Barris said to Cletus confidently.

"Look Barris, we've in the years since our having come and gone, we've lost something that we're desperately trying to find again... We can't ever go back to when we first discovered that spark, but we can help you to find it and maybe in doing so, help ourselves..." the singer explained to Barris.

"Barris? Take a deep breath, and begin strumming the guitar, slowly at first then speed it up every so little by the moment..." Cletus instructed Barris.

"Accelerando..." the keyboardist added.

"Yessss.... Alright Mr. Music Theory! Accelerando..."

"And a slow crescendo too..." the keyboardist continued.

"And that too Barris. So you want to strum slowly at first, and then pick up the pace ever so slowly, while getting louder and louder a little bit at a time... And keep going with that, pretending your fingering chords with your left hand," Cletus instructed Barris.

Barris performance of the opening to the Cadence song Opus: Life In A Moment began. He strummed ever so quietly and slowly, as if it were an ancient ritual of some form. Like a meditation or prayer. He was envisioning the introduction of the song, hearing it in its full glory in his head.

The singer at this point, raised his hands into the air, as the other members of the band approached Barris until all five of them stood before him, glowing and illuminating the room. Then the drummer sat on the bed beside Barris, and shifted over to merge with Barris' body. The two became one, and Barris' sense of timing and rhythm became legendary. He suddenly understood timing, the beat, the push, the swing, accentuation, syncopation, anticipation - all of it. His meter was now perfect.

The bass player then did the same. Seating himself beside Barris and sliding over to merge with Barris. Barris suddenly had a rudimentary understanding of the notation aspect of music, and the bass component of rhythm. He understood the concept of the tonic, without yet even knowing what a chord was. He understood that the bass worked with the drummer, and the two often became a unit.

Then the keyboardist sat on the bed, and slid over towards Barris, before merging with him. Barris suddenly understood music theory. He understood harmony, and how it tied in with rhythm and melody to become music. He understood the scales, and their major and minor modes. He understood the difference between melodic and harmonic minor, and that harmonic minor had its own super modes, which included chords found in no other mode such as the diminished, while major modes contained the half-dimished, also called the minor seventh flat fifth.

He understood triads, sevenths, ninths, elevenths and thirteenths, tri-tone substitutes and how they all formed the basis for harmony in the equal temperament scale. How understanding the connection between scales, modes and harmony would open doors of understanding, improving the ability to improvise in nearly any situation, where you weren't doing it solely by experimentation, so long as your heart was in it. Knowing all of this, Barris suddenly found it frustrating that he couldn't simply take those skills and apply them instantly to the guitar, but that required technique and work of the muscles in his hands and arms. Something that needed to be developed over time no matter how well versed in music theory one was.

That's when Cletus sat on the bed, he too sliding over like the rest had. When they merged, Barris' hands, which had been pretending to finger chords on the fretboard suddenly came to life. All of the previous knowledge he'd suddenly acquired integrated with knowledge of the guitar. He was now playing the exact opening phrase to the song, as it slowly picked up tempo. His chord changes were perfect and with ease, almost as if his hands and arms had a memory of their own (and they did), leaving him to think freely about any riffs of fills he could slip in, between the chord changes.

He tried one such riff, pulling it off perfectly and in timing with the song, though he was the only instrumentalist in the room now, and what he played sounded as if it was coming from a man who'd been playing for sixty years.

"We're almost at the first verse Barris. Are you ready?" asked Felix, the singer of Barris.

"As I'll ever be," Barris spoke with a confidence and surety he'd never possessed before.

The singer sat on the bed, and slid over, merging into Barris' body with the other four band members, and now all five of them were within, becoming a sixth person. The new Barris.

As he picked up the tempo and volume, he arrived at the hook line, the memorable part of a song that allowed listeners to recognize the songs they like and know. His heart pumped faster and faster as they approached the verse. And then Barris began to sing, except he was no longer on the bed in his favourite shower towel. He was on stage in front of tens of thousands of people, all screaming fans as he began singing the first verse of Life In A Moment.

He was on stage with Cadence and it was 1973.

The Guilded Stage

[DOWNTOWN ALIVALE, SUMMER 2024]

Mila followed the clerk into the change room area of the store Alival Formal Fun, Nelony and Shaela trailing behind her.

"Oh that one's so pretty!" Mila stopped when she spotted a day dress that caught her eye.

"Look at this one. I just need an occasion to wear it," Nelony held it up to her figure, stopping to admire it in the mirror.

"Oh puh-lease! How can you two spend all day going ga-ga over...! I can't believe it. Its a gothic evening dress with lace frills!" even Shaela stopped to admire a few of the dresses when she spotted the section dedicated to dark evening wear.

"Excuse me? This way if you'd like to see your selection of bridesmades dresses?" asked the clerk.

"So sorry," Mila responded, taking the dress she'd found with her to follow the clerk.

Nelony and Shaela both did the same, each grabbing up their own favourites to try on after they'd modeled the bridesmaid dresses.

The clerk waited for them in the dressing room area, which had a large open area with numerous mirrors and climate control lighting, even with different scenes and moods, while the four dressing rooms surrounded them, one at each corner.

"You can control the lighting with the wand here, which also controls the stereo and television, though I don't think you'll be needing those. Some clients like to have them however, I guess if you want to see how your dresses look during the reception lighting experience for instance?" the clerk explained to them.

"Oh that'd be wonderful," Mila agreed, still admiring the dress she'd picked.

"Your bridesmaid dresses are right here. We selected six different styles for you to pick from. Your bridesmaids can try them on and you can then choose what you like, and we'll have them ready for you. I'm Darcy if you need anything else, I'll be at the counter," the clerk explained to Mila.

"Drcy? Thank you ever so much," Mila waved with her fingers as Darcy left them to try on the bridesmaid dresses.

"So how about you two each take three bridesmaid dresses, and we'll see which ones we like?" asked Mila.

"That sounds like fun, though I think they already sorted them out by size, because Shaela and I are definitely different sizes. She's a full six inches taller than me," Nelony agreed.

"Are any of them gothic?" asked Shaela.

"No, but we might be able to work something out for you," Mila thought about the possibility of doing a special gothic dress for Shaela.

"Then mine will have birds and butterflies... I mean if she gets her own, then why can't I? I mean Mila, its supposed to be your day, not ours," Nelony brought up a point.

"I want it to be our day. This is just as much about my family and friends you know," Mila responded with her own validity.

"I thought that it was about celebrating your mutual committment to one another, with tradition, a ritual, some vows and then a party. We're still only in the preparatory part," Shaela reminded Mila.

"Good point. Alright you two. Scratch that idea," Mila responded, after which she made her way for one of the change rooms.

"Where are you going?" asked Nelony of Mila.

"To try on this dress. I want in on some of your bridesmaid fun too you know," Mila responded.

"Oh. Alright. See you in a bit," Nelony waved as she ducked into the change room with her three bridesmaid dresses.

"I guess I'll take these then," Shaela responded, grabbing the three remaining dresses and slipping into a change room.

...

Nelony and Shaela stood in front of Mila one last time, turning every so often to give her artist's eyes a full view of their bridesmaid dresses.

"Please don't tell me that you want to see us in another dress again..." Shaela said grumpily as she turned.

"So are these the ones? Please say yes!" Nelony asked excitedly.

"I don't know. I really liked the last ones but... I think these are the ones," Mila said, causing Nelony to jump with excitement.

"Yess! Good choice!" Nelony was ecstatic, which brought a smile to Mila's face.

"You think or you're sure. Let's at least get this to the point of certainty before we leave. I'd hate for Mila to suddenly have a change of heart halfway through our drive to the mall," Shaela brought up.

"Yes. I'm certain that these are the dresses, and I won't change my mind about it," Mila said, secretly crossing her fingers behind her back.

"Thank the shadows!" Shaela said as she and Nelony each returned to their change rooms.

"Oh, I'm just so happy," Mila smiled, picking up the remote wand and using it to dim the lighting.

Suddenly the stereo came on, blaring an old rock song from the 1970s. Beside it, the large screen television too came to life, playing a rock music video as a band strutted around across the stage with their guitars and big hair.

"Sorry! I'm trying to find the volume on this thing. I mean, I'm a Wytch and I don't even know how to use a wand yet," Mila tried waving the wand in many different ways until eventually she got the hang of it.

"You can sign up for that wand course with Yirfir or Jasmer by the way. Very popular amongst Harry Potter fans at the Sanctum," Shaela reminded Mila as she slipped into her own dress.

"This is a digital wand, like a remote for a television. This isn't so hard," Mila finally got the volume turned down with the wand and was trying some other tricks with it when everything in the change room area suddenly became different to what it had been.

...

Barris had just stepped off stage, and was once again seated on the bed in his favourite shower towel, with a supernatural guitar on his lap.

"Did I just dream that?" asked Barris of himself as he held the guitar.

"I could try playing again..." Barris thought out loud, fearful that his day dream might have ended.

He didn't think about any particular song, but he did manage to play one and rather well.

"So this is all real?" Barris said in disbelief.

Suddenly, the entire room's appearance changed.

...

Yirfir walked hand in hand with Jasmer, Sato close beside them as they examined the stalls at the Belleville Flea Market.

Yirfir already had a bag with a few trinkets she'd found appetizing to her tastes, ornaments of various kinds she'd use to decorate their home, while Jasmer had managed to find a new cane. One with an elaborate crystal head set with an ornate polished bronze bracket.

Sato had been thorough in examining the stalls at the flea market, and though he'd not yet found something to his liking, his eyes didn't miss a thing. After all, back home in Shepperton off the Thames, that was his life: the owner of a second hand shop.

Now here he was in Belleville, some five thousand kilometers (about three thousand miles) away from Shepperton, seeing things he'd not ever seen in his shop during his many years of selling knick knacks.

"You've been quiet, Sato," Yirfir remarked.

"Just caught up in all of the trinkets I'm seeing here I guess," Sato walked with his hands folded behind his back and chin high.

"I think Yirfir was just saying its unusal to find you in an instance without much to say," Jasmer added.

"I could just as easily say the same thing of you two from my perspective. Chemistry is about finding and mixing two complimentary substances," Sato returned.

"Are you saying that we don't compliment each other?" Yirfir asked Sato.

"Not at all. I'm saying that sometimes great mixtures require a third substance, when the two alone aren't enough. Look, the truth is that I don't know you as well as I do others in your circle, and so I can't take liberties with my sense of humour..." Sato added.

"Or ours. Well then, let me help you. Why is it that everywhere you go, you wear pajamas?" asked Jasmer a particularly ignorant and slightly indignant question.

Sato snickered slightly at Jasmer's statement.

"At my age, you have to be ready when the opportunity for a good nap arrives, and rarely such opportuunities appear with any form of convenience. That and what I am wearing aren't pajamas. They are sandals on my feet, a comfortable hakama for my legs and a gi for my upper body. Its just a coincidence that they're comfortable for galavanting around in a flea market as they are taking an afternoon nap," Sato responded.

"My turn. Why would a man whose legs function perfectly well, carry a cane? Are not form and function the same?" asked Sato of Jasmer.

"Where or rather when I come from Sato, canes aren't just used as walking sticks. They were a fashion statement, particularly by those well off, and I certainly was that, all those years ago. Let ignorance be the least of our barriers," Jasmer responded.

"Agreed," Sato returned.

There was an awkward silence between the three before Sato spoke again.

"Yirfir, may I ask you a question?" Sato asked of Yirfir.

"Certainly Sato. Ask as you will," Yirfir responded, her hand still tightly clenched around Jasmer's.

"Do you recall when we were back in 1654, and at the Haven Of The True. Why did you pick me to accompany you when we met to negotiate with the Army of the Strangers? You barely knew me. Do you remember that?" Sato asked Yirfir.

"Of course I remember. How could anyone forget such a moment? I think that it was by what you'd demonstrated to me thus far. It was Mila's obvious trust of you already, and she's a good judge of character. It was... intuition. I'm an instructor and a leader at the Sanctum, and sometimes you have to rely on choices that come without preconceptions or demonstration, by way of intuition. I trust Mila, and so that confirmed my intuition about you, and that's why I chose you," Yirfir explained to Sato.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence. I think that was the first time I felt like I was a part of your Sanctum, or welcome at the very least," Sato explained to them.

All around them, everything suddenly changed.

They were no longer walking around in a flea market in the year 2024. They were in a very different time, but in the exact same place.

...

Mila looked around in the change room area, and everything had changed around her. The walls were painted with a bland beige colour, while the previous colour wall paneling had all been replaced with stained wooden framing. The base board was bordered with a paisley line of wall paper.

"Alright. What happened?" Mila said, thinking aloud.

"I think someone sabotaged my dress! Must have been while I was modeling it for you, Mila!" Shaela exclaimed from her change room.

"I'd never wear a skirt this short! I think they sabotaged mine too!" Nelony added from her change room.

Mila suddenly got a look at her reflection in the mirror.

Her clothing and makeup had changed drastically as well.

Her thick eye lashes batted back at her from the mirror. She too was wearing a tight skirt, and much shorter than she normally would have otherwise, one hand span above the knee. Her lowrise heels were gone, and replaced by lowrise ankle strap shoes, while her top was a colourful white and black blouse filled with red polkadots, red frills on the sleeves and neckline. Her hair was much shorter, just slightly lower than her ears, her bangs a straight line across her forehead. Her lips were glossy and as red as rubies.

"What have I done?" asked Mila, in shock.

Nelony stepped out of her change room.

"Its a little revealing..." Nelony said as a man walked by the display area of the change rooms, getting a good glimpse of Nelony. He whistled at her and kept walking.

"That's kind of creepy! But maybe this dress isn't so bad after all," Nelony looked at it in the mirror, her heels slightly higher than Mila's.

She too had changed insofar as her fashion was concerned. Her blonde hair was tied in a single pony tail, with a large red bow. Her blouse was a loose pink button down, which she'd left opened slightly at her breast line. However, it was her horn-rimmed glasses that caught her attention.

"What are these? I don't even wear glasses, do I?" Nelony said, removing her glasses and finding that the world had become very blurry without them.

"What are you whining about now? Oh my!" Shaela stepped out of the change room, immediately getting a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors.

"I've turned into Morticia!" Shaela said, seeing her long black hair in the mirror, which spanned the back of her dress, stopping at the hem line of her short skirt.

Her face was a pale bed of foundation while her eyes were elaborately adorned with ornate eye liner designs. Her lips too, much like Mila's, were ochre red and shiny.

"Or Vampirella," Nelony remarked.

"That too!" Shaela added.

Mila looked around for the wand, now unable to find it.

"Lets go see if we can't find Darcy?" Mila suggested.

"Good idea. Do you want us to bring the dresses?" asked Nelony, who examined them and found that they hadn't changed at all.

"Yes. Lets," Mila stepped out of the change room area and into the store, which was decidedly crowded, even for a weekend.

As Mila passed two of the customers, who'd been going through a rack of dresses, they stopped and said something to one another:

"That's her. That's them! Its them! Its them!" she started quietly at first, becoming more ecstatic as she spoke.

Mila looked around her to see that everyone in the store was staring at Nelony, Shaela and her. Mila then saw Darcy behind the counter, an old cash register sat on the counter.

"Did you pick a bridesmaid dress yet?" asked Darcy, whose own fashion too had changed substantially.

Much like Nelony, she was wearing thick framed horn-rimmed glasses. Her hair a bob style cut.

"Uhhhh... yes. We found. I picked the dresses. Could you put it on my account and have them ready for me on the date on file?" asked Mila of Darcy.

"Sure, I'd be happy to do that. But before you leave, I didn't want to ask you this before, but I was wondering if I could have your autograph? All of you?" asked Darcy, now blushing furiously even through her makeup.

By that point, everyone in the store had stopped and was listening to them.

"Why ever would you want our autograph?" asked Mila, looking around the store, now quite frightened by the people around her.

"You're like number one on the billboard charts!" Darcy said to them, sliding a pen and paper across the counter towards them.

"Run for the car!" Mila yelled to Nelony and Shaela.

"Right behind you!" Shaela responded.

"Ditto!" Nelony added as all three of them ran for the door to the store.

Mila arrived, pushing her way out, Shaela and Nelony just behind her as the customers in the store ran for them all at once, screaming.

Mila ran for the driver's side of the car, while Shaela and Nelony got in the passenger's side, slamming the doors behind them.

"This car feels bigger than..." Shaela commented.

Mila got in the driver's side, and sat down, slamming the door.

"Is this even my car?" asked Mila, overwhelmed by the size and feel of the car.

The car had front and back bench seating. The seat belts were the old buckle style belts, with fasteners to tighten them.

For Mila, the steering wheel was enormous and she could barely see across the length of the enormous hood.

She looked through her keys for her remote key, not able to find it as the crowd hit her car. The car was suddenly enveloped by screaming and crying fans, all wanting their autographs. Mila tried each key one at a time in the older style ignition, when someone banged on her side window.

It was a man in his twenties, a handsome one at that. He was screaming, mouthing the words:

"I want you! I want you! I want you!" repeatedly.

He held up a note scrawled in markers on a piece of paper:

I want to marry you!

Pandemonium had broken out all around them.

Mila suddenly found the key that fit the ignition.

"Here goes nothing," she said as she turned it with all of her might.

The head of the key broke off in her fingers.

"You didn't just break the key?" Shaela exclaimed in shock.

"I'll fix! Don't worry!" Mila began waving her hands, moulding the weave into a solution to their dilemma.

"Nelony, can you distract them somehow? Discretely? Without hurting them?" Mila asked Nelony.

"I'm on it," Nelony said, using Shaela's long hair to cover her hands as she too wove her own spell.

"Done," Nelony responded.

"Nothing too drastic I hope?" Mila asked.

"You might need a car cleaning after this," Nelony replied as a large cloud of birds formed directly over the car.

Suddenly and without warning, it began to rain bird guano.

Many of their newfound obsessed fans fled immediately, while many others stayed, soon becoming covered in bird droppings.

By that point, Mila's weave had finished and she now held a golden car key in her hands, albeit an aetherial one. It passed into the ignition seamlessly and she turned the key, and the enormous eight cylinder engine came to life.

Meanwhile, the fans had withdrawn from the car, and the birds began dispersing despite the fact that the car was now covered in bird droppings.

Across the road, another crowd had gathered. They too screaming, but with no good intent for Mila, Nelony or Shaela:

KEEP IT SAFE!

KEEP IT GREEN!

DO AWAY WITH GASOLINE!

ELECTRIC CARS ARE HERE TO STAY!

KEEP IT MOTHER NATURE'S WAY!

With that, the crowd began charging at Mila's car.

"You see! Even the birds don't like you! Gas guzzlers! You're destroying the environment!" one of the protesters exclaimed, throwing a rotten egg at the car.

Mila put the car in gear, and then her foot on the accelerator.

The car sped backwards as she hit the gas pedal.

"Aaaaahhh! I don't know!" Mila screamed as she hit the brake, the car sliding to a stop in bird guano.

She then tried another gear, and the car moved forward and they sped away from downtown Alivale.

"I don't think it would be a good idea to go to Belleville Mall. We should get home and get our bearings," Shaela suggested.

"I agree. We need to find out what happened?" Nelony added.

"Alright. I'll drive home first and we'll link up with Barris, assuming that he's still my Barris," Mila agreed, driving the car out towards the highway.

As she left, she couldn't help but feel inspired by those people who'd taken the time and effort to speak out, as she drove a beast of a gas guzzling car, one that she didn't choose herself but rather seemed to be part of this transformed world.

Those who'd mistaken them for celebrities were simply obsessed with getting close to them. Obsessed with literally tearing off a pieces of them for their own keeping, while these others were out there trying to change the world.

One group wanted to tear them limb from limb so as to have trinkets and memorabilia with which to idolize them, while the other group wanted to rouse them to use their status for a greater purpose than themselves and their idolization alone.

...

At that moment that Mila had become aware of the two-sided nature of those who held interest in her, Nelony and Shaela, mistaking them for celebrities, Barris had an empathic moment with his wife to be and that was a moment he shared with the entire band Cadence that now inhabited him musicially.

Cletus in particular was affected by this, for since making his deal with the fateful hitchhiker, he'd been obsessed with the Lost Riff, spending more of his waking hours in pursuit of it, but never quite finding let alone, grasping it. The more he'd continued in pursuit of that obsession, the more distant he'd become from his his living essence, until he simply couldn't relate with anyone around him. Even his own band mates.

Cadence had faded into obscurity, as each of them disappeared into the search for their own version of the Lost Riff. The complete self indulgence of one's own pursuits to the point that nothing else mattered. Nothing.

Mila's memories ran through their heads. The protestors there out of their own comfort zone, in the streets, waving their signs and screaming their words:

KEEP IT SAFE!

KEEP IT GREEN!

DO AWAY WITH GASOLINE!

ELECTRIC CARS ARE HERE TO STAY!

KEEP IT MOTHER NATURE'S WAY!

Through Barris, Cletus saw her memories playback, and her realization of purpose and meaning.

The obsessed fans were just like Cletus, and the rest of the members of Cadence. They'd become so obsessed with the object of their idolization that they literally wanted pieces of it, of them as people. Pieces of them that those fans would keep in their homes, believing that it would bring them power. Bring them to the point of having whatever it was that made Mila, Nelony and Shaela what they were as stars, whether those pieces were alive or dead. As if in pursuit of such objectification of one's purely material desires, that they'd find their Lost Riff the more pieces of celebrities they acquired.

While those who'd been protesting, out for a cause higher than themselves alone, had liberated themselves and were calling out to Mila, Nelony and Shaela. Challenging them to do more than chase the fancy of their own self indulgence associated with their art.

Mila realized that art had life and a soul and that when it became so self effacing or indulging, that it lost any semblance of relevance or importance to others, that with which others could relate at some level, that it died, much the same as did people in one way or another to similar pursuits.

Cletus' moment of realization hit him, as it did the rest of the band, but by that time, Barris had already had far too much of a taste of the self indulgence that often begins most careers in the music business.

As Cadence had found their spark, they had to help Barris through this moment of his indulgence with Mila's Manor and wine cellar, that was as much an initiation into their profession as it was an experience that every musician has had at least once in their life.

The experience of a party gone too far.

A Drummer's Prerogative: By Way Of Contract

[BELLEVILLE FLEA MARKET, SUMMER 2024]

Yirfir examined the Spark Sieve, a small ceramic device that acted as the vessel for aluminum-magnesium based fireworks. A vessel of amusement, albeit one berift of the meditative benefits of insense. Replace the word insence with intense and you'd have the idea. Anything that was in fact a thrill of the senses rather than an anchor for the calming effect of predictability. Meditation versus instigation.

"That's quite a spark sieve," Jasmer responded to Yirfir's interest.

"Isn't it? Definitely not of this Aerth," Yirfir responded, examining its trap.

"Spark Sieves? A fashionable interest of the dynasty era in Gojoseon," Sato noted, examining the vessel.

"You have a way with history Sato," Yirfir responded, admiring his knowledge of the Sengoku period of his own country.

"And Spark Sieves! Amazing how something so miniscule could distract so many from the lure of war!" Jasmer agreed with Yirfir and Sato.

[Sadistic Mika Band - Time Machine]

"That's them!" a group of people near Yirfir, Jasmer and Sato suddenly exclaimed.

"You're the drummer!"a particularly young female approached Sato, touching the top of his bald head.

"No. You're the drummer and I'm obviously the drum," Sato responded to the girl, drawing laughter from both Yirfir and Jasmer.

[All men should be so cute and have no hair.]

"男はみんなこんなに可愛くて無毛であるべきだ" the young Japanese woman responded.

[Sadistic Mika Band - Typhoon]

"I'm sorry, but the drummer for who?" asked Jasmer.

"For whom?" Yirfir corrected her literate love.

"I stand corrected," Jasmer agreed.

"I am neither a drummer, but I have been the drummed. Recently even. Upon my head," Sato responded indignantly.

[John Paul Young And The Cardboard Brains - I'm Not Your Stepping Stone]

"So what spurred this whole drumming motif?" pleaded Sato as he tried to flee the sudden emersion of fans.

"Drums I'd imagine..." Yirfir exclaimed, as she too tried to flee.

"That begs the response that Jasmer too is running because of as much?" Sato responded, running as fast as he could, navigating the path between vendors.

"Not necessarily. I could be running in my spare time," Jasmer responded altering a quote by one of his favourite commedians.

[Monty Python - Argument Clinic]

"Then why are they chasing us?!!!" Sato responded, as more and more converged upon their trail.

"Why are we running again?" Jasmer said as he turned to see the ever growing crowd behind them in pursuit.

"Because they're chasing us!" Yirfir responded, now sprinting full tilt for their Alivale Motorpool rental car.

"You mean they don't actually like us?" asked Sato.

"No. They like us. Just not you," Jasmer responded, picking up his pace.

"Well in that damned case, I'd better run!" Sato replied, sprinting like there was no tomorrow.

"No. We'd better run!" Jasmer replied.

[The Pink Floyd - You'd Better Run]

As the fans converged on their position, Sato dove over the roof of the car, landing just outside of the driver's seat just as Yirfir and Jasmer found their way to the passenger seating.

He quickly threw the driver door open and used the automated key to prime and start the electric rental car.

The car quickly came to life and as Sato's foot applied pressure on the pedal, the car sped rather than fled, on the road ahead. No less dead and certainly red and racing towards his manor bed on Mila's stead.

"It seems that we've suddenly become very popular. Any ideas how that might have come to be?" asked Jasmer between attempts to catch his fleeing breath.

"We are in Alivale. Remember that almost four hundred years ago, this place was the site of a battle between Wytches and the Strangers," Yirfir reminded Jasmer and Sato, she too in pursuit of her own breath.

"Though it is true that according to traditions originating in the Osaka region of Honshu, geography and the places that people inhabit can become stained with the tribulations of the living. However, In this case, I wouldn't put anything of this nature past the clutches of that bumbling fool of a friend of mine..." Sato responded as he turned north onto Tatanka Avenue.

"If Barris were here, he'd certainly allude to the fact that you're referring to Happiu~Isuka ⃰ ⃰ ⃰, and in the dignity of his absence, I should as much assume the same," Jasmer defended Barris.

"I don't think that seeking one to blame will be as helpful as finding a resolute cause?" Yirfir reminded them.

"A hundred dollars Canadian says its Barris," Sato immediately responded.

"I'll take the odds that he's not the cause of this..." Jasmer replied, offering his hand in shake from the back seat of the rental car.

"Agreed. If its Barris, and it will be, I look forward to relieving you of your money," Sato smiled as he turned the car eastward along Beaujolais Street.

"...as do I look forward to relieving you of yours," Jasmer responded, patting Sato's shoulder.

"If valour is the better part of discretion, then I'd say that we're in short supply of either. If you do recall, we're still part of the Sanctum Seclorum, a responsibility that requires both?" Yirfir lectured them.

"The public discretion in relation to our being is clearly a casualty of this situation, but not so our valour. We'll get to the bottom of this. I must admit that I find your new attire rather enticing," Jasmer backed his wife's assertion, taking notice that her fashionable attire had suddenly changed.

She was now wearing a rather conservative and yet revealing suit by a French designer whose name she did not know. He hair had grown considerably as had her eyelashes.

Meanwhile, Jasmer's own grayish-white hair had also grown as well, along with a generous pair of sideburns which adorned the sides of his face.

"Mine? I was just going to say just how inviting you look," Yirfir remarked on Jasmer's change of fashion.

[David Bowie - She's Got Medals]

In the midst of the sudden silence, came a scream from the driver's seat as Sato caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror.

The car suddenly skidded to a stop just before the intersection from which they needed to take a left turn to make their way back to Mila's Manor.

Home Sweet Home. Sort Of...

[MILA'S MODEST MANOR, SUMMER 1969 - AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE]

Mila gasped as she approached the driveway from the road out front of her Manor. Out on the front lawn, a group of people she didn't recognize has setup lawn furniture from the back deck. Some were seated at one of her tables, drinking from the bottles that lined her wine cellar. Others danced freely on the lawn as the deck speakers blared the music of a past age.

[Mötley Crüe - Home Sweet Home]

"Where's my fiancé?" she asked herself aloud, accelerating the car and taking a left into the driveway.

She pressed the button for more wiper fluid, but nothing came out. The wiper blades instead squeaked dryly across the dirty windshield as she stopped the car.

"Looks like the crowd found us. Perhaps they never lost us..." Shaela remarked from the back seat.

"They appear a bit more docile than those we left back at the dress store..." Nelony remarked, Mila suddenly smirking at her as she pulled the key from the ignition.

"Marginally of course!" Nelony added defensively.

"That is my front lawn you know!" Mila responded, clearly flustered by the activities currently thereupon.

"They don't appear... aggressive," Shaela stated blandly, even yawning for effect.

"...And look! One or more of them are even wearing bell bottoms! How aggressive can that be?" Nelony suddenly found herself thinking of the sixties and tree huggers.

"You're both right. Only one way to find out," Mila said as she opened the driver's door.

"Whoa! Looks like the party isn't over! Its just getting started!" one of the men seated at the table on her front lawn exclaimed, holding a coffee cup full of Merlot, as if offering Mila a toast.

"That's her! Oh my gosh! That's sooo groovy!" a young woman beside him wearing a colourful paisley headband, a t-shirt with no bra beneath, and a pair of pink bell bottoms added.

"Well, at least they recognize you Mila. Its a start," Nelony said optimistically, even opening her own door and stepping out.

"I prefer to think that's Mila's wine talking for them. You know, the finest she has from her cellar reserves?" Shaela stepped out of the car and walked with Nelony around to the driver's side to take up Mila's side.

"Oh my gosh! She's sooo tall in real life!" the same girl with the pink bell bottoms remarked as Shaela stepped out from behind the car.

"Are you a Nun, or like rehearsing for membership to the clergy? If you are, you're like the hottest Nun I've ever seen!" a man wearing a peace symbol pendant around his neck asked Shaela, obviously referring to her black clothing and gothic makeup.

Nelony did her best to contain her sudden need to burst out laughing or at the very least, the urge to giggle profusely at the man's statement. However, Shaela's face remained as stern and intimidating as it had been when she'd first set foot outside of the car.

"I'm assuming that you meant none, as in absent thereof? If not, then I'm a Nun of the Temple Of Shadows, and demons from within, with which you'd best not tangle," Shaela took advantage of the opportunity to extend her own mystery.

"I like your makeup! Its sooo groovy! Like Runic or something! Are you like from Stonehenge?" the girl with the pink bell bottoms said cheerily and full of smiles.

"Judging by your current sense of fashion, I'm a decade or two ahead of my time, but that still doesn't answer why you've raided my friend's wine cellar?" Shaela challenged them.

A group of women and men dressed similarly to those who'd first addressed Mila responded in unison:

"We're with the band!" speaking as if it were special privilege.

"And whose band might that be?" asked Mila, now stepping forward and over to the table to examine one of the wine bottles.

"Yours, of course..." they responded.

Above them, the double doors to the master bedroom balcony swung open, and an intoxicated man with shoulder length hair stepped out and up onto the railing, precariously balancing as he wielded an electric guitar in his hands, ready to play.

"Remember this one?" he said from the railing, challenging time with his anachronism and yet somehow keeping his balance as he began riffing the first phrases of a song, the guitar screaming through his Marshall stack.

When he finished the guitar line, he began clapping with his hands to keep tempo, encouraging those out on the law to do the same.

He then began singing acapella the first lines and that was when Mila recognized that it Barris:

Late weekend night and I'm at the Bojar Grill
I got decisions to be made between lager and ale
When through the kitchen door come the dancing girl
Then everything on the menu mattered

[Kim Mitchell - Lager And Ale]

It wasn't her Barris, but a man in his form, with shoulder length hair and whom could, with appreciable skill, play electric guitar in front of an audience while balancing on the second floor railing of their Manor.

The audience on the front lawn sang the entire song with Barris, his guitar only jumping in with intense chunk and grind during the chorus. And then before Mila's sense of disbelief of the entire situation had dissipated, he was finished.

He stumbled on the railing a few times more, struggling to catch his balance, stepping from side to side and leaning forward and backward too.

"Barris!" Mila exclaimed.

Barris stopped, perfectly balanced as he smiled at his fiancé from the balcony.

"Mila?" he spoke suddenly and caught off guard, before he fell forward from the railing.

Mila acted quickly, drawing upon the weave to shape and extend the front walkway hedges a foot or two forward, enough so to catch Barris' sudden fall from grace.

He landed in the bushes softly, rolling off of them and onto the soil of the garden that surrounded them.

"...ooh, he just like landed on her begonias," the man with the peace pendant shook his head.

"I couldn't have put it better: begone yous!" Mila smirked at him, and the rest of the partiers on her front lawn.

Barris crawled on his front side to arrive at Mila's sandled feet, one of which he tenderly kissed in a bid to reduce his sentence as she folded her arms in scorn at him.

"Wow man! That was like the most lucky fall I've ever seen! You must be like a saint or something..." the man with the peace pennant remarked.

"Yes. This is the patron saint of separating one from the contents of their prized wine cellar. Wines that I was saving for our special occasion?!!!" Mila scolded Barris, who looked up at her from the ground, suddenly realizing that he'd also steamrolled her begonias with his guitar.

Barris struggled to his feet, stumbling to remain upon his treacherously traitorous soles.

"But you still have me?" Barris said, mustering all of the charm he could, Mila able to smell his alcohol stained breath an arm's length away.

The front door suddenly swung open and Kensai ran out, leaping over the hedge and landing just shy of Mila's crushed begonias.

His hand firmly gripped the Saya of his blade, as he interjected between Barris and Mila, giving Mila his left side and Barris his right.

"Are either of you injured? Let me see your hands Barris!" Kensai separated Mila and Barris before examining Barris' hands.

There were a few scratches and light cuts where he'd braced his fall, but for the most part, he was unscathed.

"A very capable landing, Barris. Next time you fall off stage, that's exactly how I want you to do it!" Kensai told him firmly.

"Alright then. Next time I fall, I'll aim for the foliage!" Barris responded, nearly intoxicating Kensai with his breath.

"Now Mila, how's your vocal chords? Let's see them!!!" Kensai ordered Mila, who looked at him perplexedly at first, and then opened her mouth so that he could examine the gold of their gig.

"Very good! No scars. No stretching and signs of strain. Are you up to tonight's gig? Just let me know, and we'll cancel, but don't whatever you do say no. In fact, say no to no," Kensai asked her as she closed her mouth.

"No! If a girl says no, she means no! Now what's this about a gig?!!!" Mila responded now entirely confused.

Athandra ran out of the front door, followed by Xenshi and Xushu, all three of whose clothing and fashion sense had been substantially altered.

Athandra held a large brick-like device to her ear, a pair of propellors fastened to a stylish headband she wore, with wires leading back to the device, the propellors seemingly providing wind power for it. She looked between Mila, Kensai and Barris while conversing with someone on the other end of her anachronistic cellular phone.

"Yes, it appears so. We're still on for the gig tonight?" Athandra confirmed with Kensai, who looked to Mila for a second and then nodded affirmatively to Athandra before Mila had any chance to oppose them.

"We'll be leaving directly from the gig for the next flight...?" Athandra continued speaking into the large brick-like device pressed to her ear, then looking to Xenshi to confirm their flight arrangements.

"Even if there is no flight, there is more than one way to fly..." Xenshi said menacingly, making a flicking motion with her fingers towards her brother Xushu, as if to flick a bug away from herself.

"If we must fly, we must fly without fear of harm," Xushu said poignantly.

"Don't forget, we're with the band!" the same group of people who'd insisted their association once again commented between sips of the finest offerings from Mila's cellar.

"Barris, who really are these people...?" asked Mila.

"Mila. They're with the band..." Barris responded, stumbling once again.

"And who are the band?" Mila challenged him.

"We are. We all are!" Barris grabbed one of the dancing groupies nearby, turning her to face Mila, after which he pointed confidently at her bra-less breasts.

"See?" Barris responded.

SMACK!

Barris was stunned by Mila's slap, while she had already reached her limit with his irresponsible foolishness.

"Are you fine for the gig? That was a magnitude eight or nine slap my friend! Potentially as damaging for the giver as it was the receiver... Also bar fare tradition back in Tokyo from where I come," Kensai examined Barris' face, and then Mila's hand for any signs of injury.

"She went too easy on him from my perspective!" Xenshi smirked at Barris, taking up Mila's side.

"No honey, I meant the art on her shirt... not her... Rocky Mountains..." Barris responded, rubbing his face as he once again tried to direct Mila's attention, hoping not to trigger her again with his improvised euphimism.

[Joe Walsh - Rocky Mountain Way]

This time, instead of focusing on the betrayal of her trust and resultant misdirection of her creative mind, Mila instead saw the artwork on the groupy's shirt.

It was a likeness. A likeness of all of them. She was in the front and center. Barris beside her and to her right with an electric guitar slung around his neck. Shaela was on Mila's left, a bass guitar on her's. Nelony on the other side, with a tambourine in hand. On the opposite side from her was...

A car suddenly skidded to a stop in the driveway, causing Mila, Nelony, Shaela and Barris to turn and face the new arrivals.

Jasmer and Yirfir had by this time stepped out of the car, looking at the scene with curious intensity.

"Mila?" asked Yirfir inquisitively.

"One and the same. Yirfir? Jasmer?" she responded.

"Its us... the real us believe it or not," Jasmer said, eyeing Barris in particular, suddenly having doubts about his bet.

Sato suddenly stepped out of the car to confront the group, taking up a position beside Yirfir and Jasmer.

"Jesus C...!" Nelony began, Sato suddenly cutting her off mid statement.

"DON'T EVER refer to me that way! I'm from a long family tradition of Shintoists, though I am far from devout, I still uphold the dignity of my family tradition!" Sato immediately responded, protecting his identity and cultural tradition.

"Sorry for the political incorrectness... I should know better, I mean with the Sanctum being secular and all," Nelony responded awkwardly.

"He does look a bit more Maharishi-Maharesh Yogi than not," Athandra noted.

"I'll second that, though he was a bit before my time," Shaela added.

"Sato! From this moment on my friend, you're our drummer, a hippy and playing a gig tonight with us!" Barris said to Sato, an ear to ear smile on his face.

"He's right. You, all five of you are," Kensai looked them over, making sure they were contractually fit for their upcoming show.

"Honey? You and I are going to have a much needed discussion right now! Inside!" Mila said to Barris with a piercingly intense gaze.

"Yes dear," Barris responded, already knowing that he was in deep.

What Dreams May

Mila stepped through the double doorway into the master bedroom, Barris stumbling as he followed behind her, measuring the perfection of every curve of her body with his eyes as he did, finding himself immediately reminded about his new found guitar. He shook his head in attempt to dissociate the two images in his mind, instead knowing that his attention should be entirely upon his wife to be.

Ironically, Mila was so caught up with the intensity of the situation, she didn't feel his eyes peering imaginatively through her dress. She instead turned around to face him directly, and when her eyes fell upon him, he folded backwards onto their bed in retreat.

"Have you anything to tell me? Something that you may have overlooked while struggling to keep your balance on the railing? Did anything happen while I was gone looking after the matters of our wedding?!!!" asked Mila, looking right through him as he leaned up on the bed to face her.

She folded her arms, tapping one of her sandaled feet expectantly, purposely out of rhythm with the music blaring on the front lawn of their manor.

"What's to tell? I mean honey, I thought you'd be elated that your hubsand to be finally found his calling!" Barris responded to her challenge.

Her eyes narrowed at him skeptically, though he couldn't tell if it was a smile or a frown upon her face.

If that moment had been a game of poker between the two, she'd have had the winning hand, whether it was simply a high card of six in a hand of two, three, four and five, or a Royal flush.

"When did you learn to play guitar? Have you been keeping something from me all this time?" asked Mila, now pacing the soft area rug upon which she was perched that separated the walk-in closet, her vanity, and the master bathroom.

Barris looked to her quizzically, as if trying to distinguish between her statement, and the sudden turn his situation had taken so recently.

"I've always wanted to play an instrument Mila, but when I met you, I knew there was only one star in my life and that as long as I was worthy of her, that she'd be the one who shines. Always. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to be a part of what you are. You're an enima Mila...!" Barris hiccuped, his poetic prose suddenly collapsing as if he'd hit a speed bump too fast.

She struggled to maintain her intensity, her eyebrows only slightly hinting at the fact that she'd nearly lost the edge of her confrontation of Barris to his levity, whether intentional or not.

"...enigma! You're an egnima! ...an endoplasmic reticulum..." Barris' speech slurred once again, as the vehicle of his prose crashed through the roadside barrier, skidding - before careening over the edge of a cliff.

"And this is how you show me how you feel about me? By inviting a bunch of people neither of us know to our house, give them the wine I was saving for our wedding, and then run away to join a band?" Mila placed her hands firmly on her hips.

"Tenichnally, I didn't run anywhere... It all came to us! Don't you see Mila? We're both in the spot light now! All of us! You see? Whenever I contribute something to our relationship <hic> you bring it all down... This is something we can truly share in <hic> at least give it a try...?" Barris' eyes glazed, as he looked to a point somewhere behind her, directing his words to her, but looking in another direction.

"There is a lot more to this than just you and I, Barris. The entire world has changed! Don't you realize that the lives of countless people have been altered to suit your fancy?!!! We have to put this right!" Mila scolded him, still feeling guilty that her use of the audio visual wand in the dress store might have triggered all of this.

"After..." Barris responded to her, sliding along the edge of the bed until her arrived where she stood in front of him.

He ran his hands up the back of her skirt and to her hips, pulling her forward onto the bed with him, where she reluctantly kissed him.

"After what?" she asked him, pulling her lips away from his for a moment.

"After our concert tonight. Then we'll solve this whole thing once and for all..." Barris urged her.

"But I don't even know how to sing..." Mila responded.

"What about your music class in college?" asked Barris of his wife to be.

"That was traditional classical singing... like Mozart... Verdi... Puccini... Yin Qing..." Mila responded, singing a short phrase in classical latin for Barris.

"If you can do that, you can definitely do three sets of our music... Its all from our first three albums!" Barris explained to her as he recalled their alternate history of the last decade, reaching across the bed to where three sealed vinyl copies of their first three albums lay.

He handed them to her and she rolled over onto her back beside to examine them each in turn.

"We did all of this?" asked Mila, examining the artwork for each cover, instantly recognizing it as her own.

[Jane's Addiction - Ocean Size]

"So? How about we live this dream out... at least for one night? Something we can both share in creatively. Kind of like our first child really, even though this isn't something that we lived and if we do manage to fix this, it will probably all be gone and I'll return to being a glorified tour guide in Alivale..." Barris rolled over onto his side, getting his face close to hers.

"...with a gorgeous artistic wife who is almost constantly enamoured with you..." Mila responded to him, turning to face him as she gently placed the albums on the night table.

"...a stunningly attractive and artistic wife..." Barris corrected her.

"We'll do it, but we have to solve this afterwards. Agreed?" Mila confirmed with him, running her nails up the side of his shirt to his neck and then his chin, provoking the growth of goose pimples along their path.

"Agreed..." Barris moved in for the kiss.

Mila suddenly stopped him when their lips were millimeters apart. She then shoved a breath mint she'd found in the breast pocket of her blouse into his mouth.

"You've got some sobering up to do if we're going to play this concert, and Nelony, Shaela, Sato and I have some practice ahead of us. Lets save this for after the concert," Mila halted his foreplay before it began, instead opting for the lure of impromptu.

"Hello? Uhhhh... is the coast clear yet?" the door to their master bathroom opened, and an arm bearing a white towel waved it as if in surrender, the voice of a European woman in her mid-twenties accompanying it.

"Who is that?!!!" Mila backed away from Barris.

"I don't know...?" Barris responded, completely caught off guard.

"Is this how our marriage is going to be?" Mila challenged him.

"Yes! Because I really don't know who she is or how she got in there because I've only ever had one woman on my mind since I met you, Mila!" Barris grabbed Mila's wrists and held her down as he got on top of her to deliver his assertion to her.

"Who?" she asked him, her eyes intensely upon his.

He looked at her for a moment, directly into her eyes and a thousand emotions were exchanged between them before he bore down upon her and their lips met.

"...Uhhhh... I'm just going to make a run for it. Great party by the way..." the woman suddenly ran out of the master bathroom with her boyfriend fleeing behind him.

When the two of them had made it to the hall just outside of the master bedroom door, the woman stopped and closed the door for Mila and Barris.

[Boston - Longtime/Foreplay] ⃰ ⃰ ⃰ ⃰

The Record Deal Signing

[RECORD COMPANY OFFICES, EARLIER IN SUMMER 1969]

The members of the band Cadence all sat in the reception area of the Warn-her Music Record And Publishing company waiting room, their attaché cases on the floor beside them, most of them seated comfortably there in the waiting area in one of the most powerful record companies and publishers in the world, during their time.

Trendy magazines like Billbored, Onme, Why Ired? (many years ahead of the computer revolution and certainly aware of how most people felt about their usability), Sigh-in-tific American (again, an appropriately titled science magazine that apparently knew its audience quite well) and Gnational Geocentric (a magazine catering to the Earth centered universe hypothesis, very popular among Gnat enthusiasts) were organized neatly on the coffee table as the musicians sat quietly reading, the sound of a Muzak version of Green Onions by Booker T. and the M.G.s, played calmingly in the background.

[Booker T. & The M.G.s - Green Onions]

The receptionist, a woman in her early twenties, with conservative glasses, her hair in a bun, her demeanor prim and proper sat behind the reception desk working hard on her thesis for her Bachelor's Degree in Music. She'd built up a rather convincing argument that the entire basis for what defined most popular music was an integral function of how quickly it could be spread.

She compared the times it took to notate some of Mozart's, Schumann's and Liszt's most intricate compositions, all of which spread to other regions only by their sheet music and other musicians who could read and play them, long before the existence of the radio.

She then compared those results to the spread of music via radio waves, proving that music was indeed elemental to musicians and those who could play it, notation being the most important aspect in the absence of modern commuincations and in the art and discipline of the interpretation of musical arrangements. She also argued a direct rate of production and consumption based upon the speed at which music could be spread and heard. This she argued would later become the core part of the market pressure upon composers and performers.

[Rush - Spirit Of Radio]

She stopped her writing, and signed her thesis as her employer stepped out of his office to check his next appointment.

"How are you Leslie, how's your thesis going?" asked Jerry Renowytch.

"Oh, hi Mr. Renowytch! Its going pretty good. Its great having this reference library of yours here for fact checking, but I have also been working on your scheduling for the week too," Leslie turned to face Jerry, who checked his inbox on her desk.

"Who's this? Bryan Adams?" Jerry read the name on his next appointment.

"Sorry Jerry, he snuck in. Says he wants to write and play music, but he's only like six years old..." Leslie told him, pointing to a child seated on the opposite end of the seating from Cadence.

"Hey! Get in line kid! We're still working on our retirement package!" the keyboardist from Cadence addressed him.

"Eat my Schwartz, you glorified MIDI loving, button pressing obstacle to real music! Played by humans!" young Bryan Adams responded.

"Wow! Where'd he learn those words?" asked the keyboardist.

"Sitting in here. He's a fixture around here. Him and some girl named Alanis Morisette," the receptionist responded.

"Well, my mother always said that what it all comes down to is that everything is going to be fine, fine, fine!" a four year old Alanis Morisette addressed the receptionist, Alanis' mother seated beside her, nodding her head approvingly.

"Fine? That could be, considering that we will get a fine if we have these children seated in here without proper supervision or insurance coverage," Jerry informed the receptionist as she rang the bell on her desk, signalling two monstrous security guards who emerged from a darkened broom closet.

They immediately grabbed Bryan Adams, Alanis Morisette and her mother, dragging them all out of the reception area and off of the property of Warn-her Music.

"Another retiring musical act saved from the ever voracious appetite of youth to move in on the stage before the next generation has cleared it!" the keyboardist responded, wiping his hands.

"I totally agree with you. That's why I've moved to have you replaced by Glen Gould," Jerry informed the keyboardist as he pulled a lever, a trap door opening beneath his seat.

The keyboardist disappeared screaming into the chute that had appeared beneath him, Glen Gould suddenly dropping from a chute in the ceiling directly into the keyboardist's empty chair.

"Wait! Any one of us could be replaced the same way! Are you going to stand for this?!!!" the bass player was the only one to speak up.

"Are you going to be supporting MIDI and computer music Mr. Gould?" asked the singer.

"Its sooo inorganic. It lacks strings... there's no tendons... gut lining... the aligned grain of wood... Plastic is so lifeless. I'd much rather countless elephants be tracked and murdered in cold blood for the ivory of my piano keys... and the surface from which my music emits..." Mr. Gould replied.

"He's in..." Cletus responded.

"I'm with him too..." the singer agreed.

"So does the rhythm section confer yet?" asked Jerry.

"Is it unanimous yet?" asked the bass player, hedging his bet.

"Oh, Leslie, I forgot to mention, the press are on their way for a P.R. piece on the music industry..." Jerry informed her.

Jerry's words ignited a sudden panic in the reception room.

The receptionist quickly unbuttoned her blouse by four buttons, exposing a good portion of her cleavage. She then removed the pins that had been keeping her hair in buns, allowing it to all fall to her shoulders. She took out her makeup kit and began embossing her lips and cheeks.

Meanwhile, the remaining members of Cadence tossed their books and magazines, pulling mickeys of whiskey from their ataché cases, sitting on the top of their seats, their boots resting on the arm rests of the reception chairs.

"Wanna seat Leslie?" the singer messed up his hair, and invited Leslie to his lap.

"There's five of you and one of me, whose it going to be?" she asked them, quickly looking for a place to seat herself.

"I'm good friends with your music professor..." Glen Gould announced modestly. crossing his legs and turning away from her.

She practically threw herself in his lap and he smiled.

"It always works," Mr. Gould responded.

"Jerry!" the singer exclaimed.

"Oh, I almost forgot..." Jerry responded, ripping open the reception desk and retrieving the jar labeled: fake five-o'clock shadow.

He quickly opened the jar and dabbed the contents on his hands, rubbing it on his face.

"Whew!" he exclaimed.

"No! He meant the Muzak!" Leslie yelled at Jerry.

He stood frozen, almost motionless, like a deer caught in the headlights of a... wait. I've already done the Watership Down metaphor numerous times. So many in fact that its lost the lustre of its reference.

Jerry stood suddenly stood still, unmoving, like a Rolling Stone caught helpless on stage in the spotlight, in the midst of a senior moment.

They all heard the elevator door open, and at that very moment, Jerry improvised.

A group of men, each of which appeared suspiciously similar to appearance to Kiefer Sutherland, walked into the room, black business suits, black gloves, and pinkish briefcases in their grip.

"What's the matter with Jerry?" asked the Kiefer Sutherland in the center of the three.

"He's... dead..." responded Mr. Gould.

"And you're partying?" asked one of the other Kiefer Sutherlands, now shocked by what they were seeing.

"What's with Muzak?" asked the third Kiefer Sutherland. The one on their left.

"This is a wake... for Jerry..." Mr. Gould said dramatically, with an entirely somber tone.

"Poor Jerry..." the singer took a healthy swig from his mickey.

"Wait. Are you press?" asked Leslie, leaning up from Mr. Gould's lap, presenting her cleavage unintendingly.

Two of the unmarried Kiefers paused, admiring her and her cleavage for a moment.

"Nooo. We're here to negotiate a deal..." the Kiefer in the center addressed her.

"Oh thank goodness! His breath is just attrocious..." Leslie got up out of Mr. Gould's lap, buttoning up her blouse to the top, returning the pins to her hair until they formed a picture perfect bun.

"What kind of deal?" Jerry suddenly sat up in his chair, addressing the men that had arrived.

"Thank goodness! Jerry's resurrected from the dead!" Mr. Gould suddenly stood from his chair, raising his hands in the air in celebration.

"That ruse is long gone my friend. We're moving on to the next one I'm afraid. Its back to the Arias and Symphonies for you..." the bass player informed Mr. Gould.

[The Spoons - Arias And Symphonies]

"This is rock and roll. You're going to have a be a lot quicker than that Mr. Butterfingers!" the drummer added.

[The Rolling Stones - Its Only Rock And Roll]

"Mr. Renowytch. We're coming to you with the ultimate deal that there is to offer," the Kiefer Sutherland in the center informed the newly resurrected Jerry.

"Offer away... I'm all ears..." Jerry responded.

"We're here on behalf of a greater force. One seeking to improve upon the possibilities that your future has to offer those to come," the Kiefer addressed Jerry.

"Is it just me, or does he resemble Kiefer Sutherland?" asked the singer of Cadence about the man in the center.

The man they'd referred to then responded by turning to the man on his left, and then the man on his right.

The three of them discussed matters for a time, before apparently agreeing upon something, considering the amount of head nodding going on, and then they all turned to face the singer of Cadence.

"No. We're not Billy Idol," they all replied in unison.

"Good. He'd never survive on his own if he left Generation X!" the singer responded.

Three of the remaining members of Cadence agreed with the singer, the fourth, Mr. Gould, responded with a question:

"Who in the hell is Billy Idol?" he asked, an unsettling somber mood having descended upon them all.

"We are however, the future of everything," the three men resembling Kiefer Sutherland responded.

"They must representatives of that new fangled cable television contraption!" Jerry sat up in the receptionist's chair.

"No. We have nothing to do with cable television," the man in the center asserted himself.

"Good thing too. They might have brought about the early invention of music videos," Jerry responded protectively of his job as a record company big wig.

"No. We're here about something far more important. You see, we represent the future. The actual future. We're very concerned about a disturbing trend that has taken hold in our time. The reason for our meeting you here in this time, is that we'd like to negotiate a deal in order to solve this problem, once and for all!" the face of the man in the center of the three Kiefer Sutherlands took on a sinister glare, not unlike that scene in The Lost Boys where he faces off against a group of organized comic book nerds who... for crying out loud, just watch the damned movie please.

"Must be about my rider request for a bath tub filled with Jack Daniels flavoured gumdrops marinaded in Southern Comfort after every show. I knew that'd catch up with me!" Cletus responded, his guilt eventually bubbling to the surface.

His other four band mates immediately took out their attaché cases, thumbed through their duo-tangs, each removing the legal size foolscap paper upon which their rider requests were written, tearing them to shreds.

"Lets hear this deal then. Leslie, could you fetch us all a coffee or tea, to our liking and bring it to us in my office?" asked Jerry of the receptionist.

"I've still got a considerable amount left to go on my thesis..." Leslie responded, walking over to where Jerry was still seated in her chair, folding her arms and tapping her foot.

"That's alright Leslie, I'll get it. Why don't you gentlemen find some seating in my office and we'll get this show started," Jerry got up from his chair and directed them into his office.

The members of Cadence, and the three Kiefer Sutherlands filtered in through the door to Jerry's office as Jerry gathered the coffee and tea.

Ten minutes later, their meeting began. A meeting that would affect the future of all of humanity.

Practice Makes Pernicious

[MILA'S BASEMENT ART STUDIO, SUMMER 1969]

Mila sat in front of the canvas, quickly brushing in the last few details of her painting. Nelony and Shaela each sat on a bench in the far corner of Mila's basement studio, while Barris and Sato sat across from them, a guitar in Barris' lap, and a pair of drumsticks in Sato's hands.

"You do realize that I've never played drums before, don't you?" Sato said, looking at the drumsticks, not knowing the bottom from the top.

"Have you at least played any instrument?" asked Barris, who was still drawing upon the immense combined knowledge of the band Cadence and their musical skill.

"The Shakuhachi, many years ago," Sato responded.

"What about you two?" asked Barris of Nelony and Shaela.

"I used to play the piano. I think I can still play Mary Had A Little Lamb, but only with one hand," Nelony admitted to them.

"Hmmm. A variation on the one four five progression, but lets jazz it up a bit based on modes with one (M7) six (m7) two (m7) five (dom7), and a turnaround progression through seven (m7b5) three (m7), then back to our six (m7), two (m7) and resolve it at the five (dom7)," Barris broke into a heavily improvised jazz version of Little Lamb, as if to mock her.

"Show off!" she responded with a slight tinge of jealousy.

"I played the Flute in band class, and Cello too," Shaela added.

"How far did you get?" asked Barris, now branching out from Little Lamb into a Sukiyaki improv, Mila blowing him a kiss as she continued with her work on the canvas.

[Chet Atkins - Sukiyaki]

"Second year. Played a few concerts with the school band, even earned a plaque or two. Made my mother smile a few times before she passed away..." Shaela reminisced about her time in school.

"That's another one of us that has found the joy of music!" Barris continued with his improv.

"Keep in mind that's coming from someone who up until a few hours ago, couldn't play a kazoo if his life depended upon it," Sato reminded them all about Barris' actual level of skill with guitar.

"That's alright. None of you should feel too bad that your lives didn't lead you in the direction of investing enough time to learn how to play. Between us who did and can, we'll share enough and then some to get us all through the gig," Mila spun around on her stool to face them, her paintbrush still glowing.

"How are we even going to practice? There's no space in here, let alone enough for instruments," Nelony felt herself struggling against a feeling of impending anxiety.

"Just let me do a little rearranging here..." Mila turned faced her new painting, this time discarding the paintbrush and instead working directly with the weave.

She reached into the painting, and the canvas suddenly stretched and expanded to encompass them all, the basement suddenly became a large stadium, a stage upon which they all sat replaced the room they'd been in previously.

A large set of Tama drums and Ziljian symbols sat a few feet away from Sato, who suddenly seemed familiar with them. As if he'd been playing for his entire life. He got up and sat behind them, moving his stool to a comfortable distance away from the kit, enough so that he could use the double kick drum pedals properly.

He hit the pedals a few times, and then the snare, and the sound came not only from the drums, but echoed from the large concert cabinets into the stadium itself.

"Whoa! Now that's a sound system!" he said, giving it a good test with a short tune, with which Barris jumped in upon recogizing the tune.

[The Surfaris - Wipe Out]

"Mind if I sit in on this session?" asked Shaela, a bass strapped around her shoulders.

"Sure, let's take this tune for a spin..." Barris started playing the guitar line, even stepping up to his microphone on the right side of the stage.

[Måneskin - Zitti e Buoni]

Nelony watched from her keyboard stool as the three of them, Shaela, Sato and Barris filled the stadium with the immense power of a song they'd covered by the band: Måneskin.

"Excellent. Why don't we work on our backup vocals, just to get ourselves up there for when we bring in the rest of the band?" suggested Barris, who'd suddenly taken it upon himself to guide the rehearsal forward.

"How do you suggest we do so? Hopefully nothing like your singing in the shower...!" asked Sato, shot at him.

"I'll get you one day. Mark my words. Until then, lets at least rehearse in peace?" For the first time in his life, Barris retreated from a full confrontation of wits with Sato.

"We need to practice our backup vocals, lets trying this one," Sato started pacing the song with the kick drum, starting in with the first line.

Shaela and Barris quickly recognized the song, and between them each somehow knew which harmony part to take given their respective range. It was as if they'd been playing together for years when in fact this was the first time they had at all.

[Yes - Leave It]

"That was great! But why didn't you jump in on that one Nelony?" asked Barris.

Nelony felt both energized and invigorated, but when she turned her face to see the immense vastness of chairs lining the stadium, she suddenly felt herself shaking throughout her entire body over, despite the fact that there was not a single person seated in the audience.

Except for the five in the front row.

They were Yirfir, Athandra, Jasmer, Kensai and Sir Manfred.

Jasmer put his hands together and began clapping for them, Yirfir, Athandra, Kensai and Sir Manfred eventually joining them.

"Sounds great from here, but when are we going to get a chance to hear Nelony play?" asked Yirfir.

Nelony knew that she now had the knowledge to play. That it was somehow magically in her thanks to Mila's weave. Mila had shared her immense sense of artistry with all five of them on the stage, and that included her knowledge, skill and creativity with music. However, even though Nelony's level of skill and ability was no longer an obstacle, her terror of being in front of an audience was.

She put her hands on the keyboard, but they were shaking so badly from side to side that she could barely be sure if she'd hit the right notes. It was as if the audience was the only thing on her mind, and whether she could see them or not, she was fearful of them.

She found it intimidating that even someone like Barris was somehow unaffected by the fear and terror of being in front of so many people. Even the thought that every single one of these chairs might have been filled, was frightening enough to deeply traumatize Nelony.

"Alright Nelony, just look at me, take a big breath, and when you exhale, let all of that fear out..." Barris suggested to her, drawing upon Cletus' own experience having played in front of audiences of all size for a decade and a half before their stance upon this stage.

"Alright... I'll... whew... this is... much more difficult than I thought it would be..." Nelony kept her eyes on the dashboard of the keyboard, and once she had become stable, she then looked up and out into the vastness beyond.

Her fear and trembling returned again.

"One more time. This time though, don't look out into the audience. Keep your eyes in your circle of safety," Barris said to her, doing his best to calm her.

"Alright. Let me try this again..." Nelony stated, doing her best to calm herself as Barris had directed.

She took a big breath. Held it, and then slowly let it out, imagining herself exhaling all of her fear with it. She then made a concerted effort to keep her focus on her circle of safety around her as she began to play.

"Give me a minute. I just need to do this first," Nelony spoke into her microphone, keeping her eyes focused on the keyboards surrounding her.

[Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata]

The stadium was quiet as she played the piece, though in all truth, she felt it more so than heard it. What saddened her most was that she truly felt the piece in her heart, but she knew that she'd never taken the time to study music herself enough so to use her own hands to play it. The memory of heart and perhaps even soul, that powered her ability came from something she'd never strived herself to do. She did however share in that person's love of music and this particular piece, enough so to find peace together when she was done.

When she played the last notes, they rang with an eerie silence throughout the stadium, and despite the immense potential for a crowd within, those there amongst the silence all felt truly moved by her performance.

"That was Brilliant Nelony!" Barris said to her encouragingly.

"I know. I only wish that it was really me playing it," she responded, knowing that at some level that Mila had been guiding her the whole time.

"Let's try something with the keyboards then?" Shaela suggested, adjusting the tuning of the bass by her perfect pitch of ear and with string harmonics.

"I've got it," Nelony replied, playing the opening part of the song.

As Nelony started the keyboard part, Barris stepped up to the microphone, drawing upon Cletus' sense of showmanship.

"Not all of us believe the same things. I know I don't, but everyone has that right. To believe as they choose or choose not to. This next one, by a legendary band is for all of you out there that keep on keepin' on. No matter how hard the going gets, no matter how cruel the few or the masses, or how lost you feel, you just keep on going. Hanging onto a dream..." Barris spoke as Nelony carried the intro over for another coda.

Barris stepped forward to the microphone, looking to Mila as he sang the lead vocal line, which was a little bit beyond the limit of his range, he himself certainly not capable of giving the song the kind of justice that it received from the original vocalist, Steve Perry.

"We'll always have each other. We'll always have our memories. And most of all, we'll always have our turtles..." Barris said to Mila as he began singing to her.

[Journey - Don't Stop Believin']

When they were close to the finish of the song, Barris snuck across the stage still playing, and came up to Mila, who stood watching them play from center stage.

He whispered something into her ear, and she thought about it for a moment, and nodded in agreement.

As their rendition of Journey's Don't Stop Believin' came to an end, Barris continued, carrying on with a steady guitar riff, to which Sato and Shaela immediately latched on, recognizing the musical piece.

Nelony heard the parts coming together, and knew the song, though it didn't have keyboard parts in the original, she improvised a part using her Wurlizter electric piano.

[Heart - Barracuda]

Once again, they played a song that demanded a lot of vocal presence and despite Mila's immense range and projection having trained both in traditional and operatic performance, she still found the piece trying on her limits. She regarded that as a great praise and testament to the original singer, Anne Wilson. Singing for rock and roll or any live stadium performances was not an easy thing, regardless of one's level of skill and accreditation, hence proving that in order to do so, their heart truly had to be in it.

Once again, Yirfir, Athandra, Jasmer, Kensai and Sir Manfred all applauded their performances.

"That was incredible. In fact, so much so, that I'm finding it hard to believe that there was never a time when you didn't know how to perform," Yirfir said to them, climbing the stairs to the stage to address them in person, the other four following behind her.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I feel like we should be using this as an opportunity to really say something. To give something that needs to be heard a voice... I mean that seemed to be a big part of what this time period was all about," Mila began.

"Was? What is she talking about? She's speaking about us in the past tense?" asked Athandra.

When Barris heard Mila's words, he (and Cletus) recalled the feeling he'd had when Mila had heard the words of the protestors:

KEEP IT SAFE!

KEEP IT GREEN!

DO AWAY WITH GASOLINE!

ELECTRIC CARS ARE HERE TO STAY!

KEEP IT MOTHER NATURE'S WAY!

In a way, to Mila, it was like seeing and hearing the very life essence of art, that which moved people, which ignited the spark that fueled the fire that's been burning since the beginning of time.

There was the Lost Riff on one hand, which may or may not exist and which certainly could devour a lifetime in its self indulgent pursuit as it already had throughout history. Then there was the essence of art itself, and this inspiration to change the world for the better. Either could become an obsession, and yet one devoured the souls of those who pursued it, and the other enriched the meaning, purpose and soul of the art of those who put their heart to it.

"...I meant seems to be a big part of what this time and generation is all about! The rock and roll movement of the nineteen sixties!" Mila suddenly realized that Athandra and Kensai were an integral part of this timeline, and she began to wonder who else might not be from her own original timeline.

"I think that's a great idea!" Athandra applauded the suggestion.

"I couldn't agree more," Kensai bowed in respect to them.

Inside of Barris, the entire band Cadence came alive with a renewed sense of purpose. The cage into which their souls had been siphoned no longer contained them. The insight and inspiration they'd gained by Mila's own regard for a higher purpose had ignited their drive and passion once again.

It wasn't about fame. It wasn't about money.

Funny enough, it was about something with which the nineteen sixties had been brimming over with, and that was the calling of a higher purpose and the living essence of the art of its musical generation.

Barris suddenly saw a man materialize from a brown haze in the front row stadium seating. He was dapperly dressed, walking casually over to the stairs in front of the stage.

"Do you remember the day that I came to your life Cletus?" asked the man as he began ascending the stairs to the stage.

"The hitchhiker...? The one thumbing his way through life in search of the Lost Riff?" asked Barris, though Cletus was providing the memories.

"One and the same. You see, I told you that you that there'd be a cost. With you finally having stepped out of your comfort zone, and now that it seems that you've awakened to your value of a good cause and to other people, so has come the time for me to collect up," the hitchhiker addressed him.

"Security, deal with this intruder!" Barris looked to Kensai, who nodded affirmatively and turned to face the fateful hitchhiker.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Kensai's hand rested at the ready on his belt, the Saya of his katana no more than a hand's width away.

The hitchhiker clasped his hand tightly, drawing in and shaping the weave immediately, and he and Barris were ripped from the world, now seated in that same hotel room where they'd first met.

"What found trickery is this?" Sir Manfred had ascended to the stage as backup for Kensai, as the hitchhiker disappeared.

"Pyrotechnics maybe? Part of the show perhaps?" suggested Athandra.

"Mila?" Barris gestured over to Mila, who left the microphone and approached her fiancé to within range of his mouth.

"Something's changed... I... I can't remember how to play...!!!" Barris looked to the supernatural guitar as if it were an unfamiliar and intimidating device.

...

Cletus and the fateful hitchhiker sat facing each other, the same whiskey between them in the dwindling darkness of the wee hours of the morning.

"So that's it? You're just going to take everything?" Cletus seemed somewhat confused, if not resigned.

"Your pursuits became somewhat different than I'd anticipated, for I wanted someone who had a good chance of finding the Lost Riff. Instead, you put your focus into something I hadn't anticipated. Now seeing as you strayed from our original deal, I'm taking what is rightfully mine, for your success was only possible through my gift to you," the fateful hitchhiker waved his hand once more, and Cletus suddenly found himself standing on the street under the setting sun.

He felt unclean, as if he'd not showered for a day or two. His jeans were worn and in need of changing, while his button-down shirt smelled of body odour. He checked his pockets and between them found just enough change to buy a coffee.

He ran his hands over his face, and felt three days growth of stubble upon it. He felt wrinkles and dry scales beneath his eyes. Thinning hair atop of his head. Gone were the hair treatments and the spa care he'd received on a weekly basis. His daily sauna and whirlpool were things of the past. All he'd taken for granted was gone, and he was left only with that which his career honed ego would have never approved.

He began walking in the direction of what appeared to be one of the major downtown streets, high rise buildings surrounding him. When he arrived, he recognized the street sign.

"Front Street! Thank goodness..." he said, looking in either direction as the sun dipped behind the horizon.

He began walking in no particular direction, passing a newspaper stand on his way to his destination of nowhere in particular.

There upon the front page of the newspaper were the headlines:

Cadence Killed In Tragic Car Accident!

The members of the once chart topping band Cadence, were tragically killed when two cars collided early this morning. They are survived by Cletus Bart Addersin, who had been fired from the band several years previous. Cadence's last big hit topped the charts nearly a decade ago, with guitarist Addersin taking the helm, though they hadn't been able to match their success since that album.

Tears welled up in Cletus' eyes as he remembered his band mates, suddenly realizing that they had been people with whom he'd shared part of his greatest journey: that of his pursuit of musical knowledge. All the rehearsals, all of the laughs, all of the arguments, all of the clash of egos, all of the joy of having chased a dream together. All of it was gone in that moment with the death of his friends.

He felt a deep seated loneliness, a void where his sense of hope and optimism, however misdirected they were through the guiles of obsession and self importance, were gone. Vanished, as the last of his friends disappeared from the stage he'd shared with them much of his life.

He was now in an unfamiliar world, a new generation staking their claim as the last of his generation filed off that same stage, some helped off, others forced off. Some with canes, others with walkers, yet more on gurneys and the fortunate few on their own two feet taking their lonely last few steps.

How petty he thought, recalling his squabbles with his band mates, for in the scheme of things, by placing so much merit upon such matters during such times, he'd failed to see the gold that had been in front of them the entire time. It was never about the destination. It was always about the proverbial journey itself, though there had never been a fool as had he been, who realized it right there and then.

He wondered how Barris was going to get through the gig, for he knew that the record company would not allow them to cancel. Whether Barris could play or not was of little importance to them, for they lived by the age old eidos: the show must go on and with so much invested in their appearance on that historical venue, it most certainly would, willing or not.

It was at that moment that Cletus suddenly had an idea, and one in which he'd not be the first consideration or benefactor thereof.

He turned eastward and began running in the direction of his goal. After ten minutes of his efforts towards a steady jog, he stopped, choking and coughing outside of the doors of Long And McQuades Music Store.

He ran inside of the store, one of the clerks waving to him, yelling as he ran for the guitar section.

"Sir... we're closing in like two minutes, can I help you?" the clerk asked him, suddenly recognizing the man.

"Cletus Addersin? Is that you?" the clerk asked.

"Damned right it is Jamie. Now look, I have to get a guitar today, but I'm flat broke..." Cletus pleaded with Jamie, a clerk he'd known well during the height of his career in the band Cadence.

"Do you have any ID with you? Any cash? Throw me a bone here man... I need something," asked Jamie of the guitar legend.

Cletus suddenly remembered something he'd had that was of great value to him. He checked his back pocket for it, for he'd kept with him like a good luck charm for a very long time.

"You see this? This is an 24 Karat gold guitar pick. I had it minted after our first album went double platinum, and I've had it for every gig and tour since before I was fired..." Cletus handed Jamie the guitar pick.

"I don't know... this is kind of valuable Cletus, and I can't match it dollar for dollar, but I can lend you some of my own money, and keep this as collatoral," Jamie suggested.

"That'll work, but I need a guitar. I need a very special, one of a kind guitar..." Cletus affirmed for the clerk.

"Heck, I'll even throw in the case... and some pocket cash to boot, but you have to pay me back if you want this here pick..." Jamie told him as he drew up the paperwork.

...

The door clicked as Jamie locked it behind Cletus, who now slung a guitar case across his shoulder. He reached into his pockets and thumbed through the paper cash Jamie had added to the trade for the golden guitar pick. It came to three hundred dollars even, all in fifties.

"I've got a gig to get to..." Cletus said as he flagged a taxi.

"Where are you going daddio?" asked the taxi driver of Cletus after he'd pulled over to the curb side.

"To the train station. I gotta get myself to Southern Ontario by tomorrow afternoon latest," Cletus told him.

"Where ya going?" asked the cab driver.

"Willow Lake, just south of Oxford Road 33," Cletus responded.

"I'll take you the whole way daddio for one of those fifties," the cab driver negotiated.

"Fifty dollars! Are you kidding me? I could go there and back twice for fifty!" Cletus responded, suddenly finding himself having to be frugal with the last of his fortune.

"But not in style. Not to mention, your trip includes a dinner stop along the way and some good company to boot. Whaddaya say?" the cab driver offered.

"Fair enough. You have yourself a deal," Cletus responded, jumping in the back seat.

"Wake me up when we're stopping for dinner, and my eyes have eyes on the back of my head, so don't try anything funny with my money," Cletus told the cab driver, who turned the big V8 hybrid electric around and began in the direction of Willow Lake.

"Those darned musician types, all high and mighty..." the cab driver scoffed at Cletus as he drove off.

To be continued...

I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701. I'm an Atheist that leans toward Buddhism and Taoism.

⃰ "Silence?" Courtesy of the Sampson Family Trust, care of Les Senior. Patent pending.

⃰ ⃰ "Silence? Sure, I could play that. Could you hum a few bars?" Courtesy of the Haines Family Trust, care of Darrell.

⃰ ⃰ ⃰ Happiu~isuka is Mishima Sato's pet pug, who is currently back in Shepperton Off The Thames, London, United Kingdom under the care of a part-time student employee of his knick-knack shop.

⃰ ⃰ ⃰ ⃰ I chose Longtime/Foreplay for this part, not to represent Barris and Mila's relationship, but rather, the woman who'd snuck into Mila's master bathroom to make out with her boyfriend. When they leave, the lyrics that Boston singer Brad Delp sings, are really coming from them and intended for Mila and Barris as a farewell and thanks for letting them use their bathroom.