The musicians enter the courtyard. Acoustics amplify a
tumble of voices and chords of vibrant praise echo off the walls. There is cool
breeze and warm spice and I am transported to another world surrounded by gods
of knowledge-unknown. My throat burns with ignorance, and my head with longing.
I am a foreigner in a foreign land and have never felt
further from home. Everything is strange to me, uncatalogued. I feel the presence of others,
a oneness with like-minded spirits. They are talking, smoking, clapping along
to the intrepid beat, allowing it to transport them from their cares.
People come together over a bowl of food, share in a
communal feast.
The music winds up to a dizzying finale, conjuring the
whirl of a dervish. Skirted jackets spin in my mind, floating on currents of
sound. There is heat, smoke, coffee, aniseed in the sugared fennel at the
centre of the table. I am lost on a journey in my mind.
What I thought was a finale expands into a new act, the
rise and fall of new characters- a circus top.Bring on the dancing horses, a
mad monkey in a fez beats a drum, the ring master flicks his whip and its
tassle scurries on the sand behind the heals of the horses.
The hustlers come. They are ready with their upturned
tambourine, instrument-become-begging-bowl, to collect coins from the
onlookers. Where are the gods now? Clink, chink, the coins add their erratic
beat to the drummer’s story, he is faster now. There is an urgency to his ending.
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