Busker
by
Andrew Massey
It’s the Silurian’s fault Janex
thought setting up her gear, if only I’d ignored him. “It’s easy” he
said, “nothing to it, candy from a baby”. Oh yeah. “Make a mint” he’d
said, so I jumped off here at Carson’s World and what do I find? The
hardest damned crowd; intellectual, rational, boring as batshit. Not
that they aren’t friendly, just no heart, all mind. Janex looked at her
credset and sighed. And they don’t pay, four weeks and still short of
my ticket off this rock. Dammit she thought, I should be somewhere else
raking it in.
She tapped her throat mic and guitar to make sure they were charged,
setting the credset on the ground in front of her. A small crowd had
gathered, thirty of forty dressed in the same plain, drab, functional
garb. At least they’re curious she thought, it’s a bigger group than
usual too. She coughed gently, cementing her audience’s attention.
"Ladies and gentlemen, fine citizens of Carson’s World, today I present
for your education and interest music from worlds gone by, histories
decayed, empires fallen!" The crowd stirred gently. That always gets
them, I’m living proof they’re superior, outlasting, better.
"Today I bring you music from the most fabled, decayed, tragic world of
all. Earth! Yes, old Terra, birth place of man!" She held the n as long
as possible, a long, menacing trail setting the audience’s antennae
vibrating in anticipation. She singled out a juvenile in the front.
"Today I take you back to that place, to the height of their
consumerist era as they wantonly squandered their offspring’s future to
satisfy their own lustful pleasures." Janex drew shocked gasps from the
crowd, the juvenile pressing back against the adults with a mix of fear
and fascination. "I bring you an anthem, a rallying cry from the heart
of that degenerate society as it plunged headlong towards oblivion!"
She hit the first note clear and strong, vocals and guitar
augmented subtly. She scanned her audience and saw the first
flickerings of interest, and as she ramped up the sound and started the
characteristic strut that interest grew. The minutes flashed by and
with a flourish on one knee she was finished, letting the last chord
linger. One song was enough she knew, just at the limits of their
patience and curiosity.
"Thank you, thank you, you’re a wonderful, intelligent audience. If you
found my small gift interesting please return the favour," motioning to
the credset.
This time, instead of the odd one or two ponying up, most of the crowd
flashed one forearm or another over the credset. Finally, after an
animated discussion, the juvenile’s adults touched its forearm and it
scuttled over to the credset, chattered unintelligibly at Janex, and
ran off after them.
Janex looked down and smiled. Finally enough she thought, the price of
a ticket out of this dump, maybe enough over for some food too. She
started packing.
***
"Did we not say we understand the alien but it does not understand us?"
Dontrax asked the child as they walked away from the strange musical
human.
"You cannot speak BasEng and it cannot speak Mazkad," Thrmyn, the other
parent, continued.
"But I did try," their child replied, one arm wrapped around Thrmyn’s
leg and the other two mimicking Janex’s guitar work, happy to have seen
such a strange being first hand.
Dontrax looked at Thrmyn. "Much of their 'music' I have heard, but this
one never. It fills a gap. It was worth the creds to just hear such a
contradiction."
Thrmyn shifted half its gaze to Dontrax on the right, and half to the
child behind it. "Conflicted and illogical, as is all its kind."
"Unable to understand that what it wants it has. Thankfully all that is
left are the wanderers, the story tellers."
"How did it go again?" the child piped. "Can you repeat it?"
Thrmyn cleared its triple windpipes and started up, sounding much like
a piccolo bagpipe. It rendered the tune and lyrics as best it could,
millennia after the composer and its planet had turned to ash.
Surprisingly Thrmyn found itself taken with the tune.
They continued their walk home through the indigo blue city, the
shadows growing long as the bloated red sun bathed the landscape in
russet sunset tones. The ancient tune from the long dead composer
wafted gently along with them.
"I still fail to see why" Dontrax muttered to itself, lost in thought
and falling behind, "if it’s goal was to get no satisfaction, it could
not see that the act of trying to obtain satisfaction ensured that it
was unable to secure a lack of satisfaction. What a strange, strange
species!"
THE END
A pen pusher by day I live in
Brisbane Australia with my wife and our deranged cat. A sporadic SF
writer, my last short story after a long break from writing was
published by Aphelion (thanks for that).
My SF short story publications are as follows:
Story
Title
Webzine
Name
Year Published
The
Leaving
Aphelion
1998
Journeyman
Planet Web
Zine
1998
My Brothers
Keeper
Aphelion
1999
A Bird in the
Hand
Ibn
Qirtaiba
1999
The
Bar Aphelion
2016
Still
Waters
Aphelion
2016
Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine
Quantum
Muse
2016
Weatherman
Quantum
Muse
2016
Yesterday and Tomorrow is
Today
Drabble
2016
The Question
Unasked
Drabble
2016
E-mail:
Andrew Massey
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