fLoOd--Part Twenty-One

May It Be

tWeNtY-oNe

   Johnson had been aware that Peterson had been giving him an intense stare for some moments, but it didn't phase him in the least. Likewise, he had noticed that the craft he was travelling in was picking up speed and it had inspired him in his musical improvisation. It may be a convenient moment, before the craft starts moving too quickly for these little digressions, to enter into a short study of Johnson's musical talents. His method of creating music from an ordinary blacksmith's anvil could use a bit of description. His right hand he employed exclusively in skimming over the surface of the object, preparing it to receive contact from the item in his left hand. This hand (the right) was often extended on the anvil flat and palm down and then moved quickly and lightly, as though caressing the surface and readying it for what was to follow. Just as often, the fingers would walk over the anvil, or they would run over the anvil. They would also skip, hop or dance over the anvil. They could be pulled lightly over the anvil like a brush or they could be heavily dragged over the anvil like a reluctant child. The nails could tap on the anvil or skitter across the surface of the anvil. The knuckles could rub back and forth over the anvil. The hand could open and close, massaging the anvil. And the back of the hand could simply lay on the anvil like a dead fish. All these techniques, and many more, Johnson used to create the pre-music of the anvil. For, you see, throughout all these different connections of his right hand on its surface, the anvil never produced a single, solitary sound. Not the tiniest hint of a whisper. Not the least suggestion of a tip or a tap or a tup. Not a miniscule oratory vibration to reach any listener's ear. Not a molecule or an atom or a neutron or an electron to make the keenest auditor aware that the anvil was conducive to creating sound in any of its myriad of forms. (You get the idea.) Sound was the province of his left hand and the wondrous item found therein. His muma. (His what, you ask. His muma, I reply. No such word, you indignantly state. No such word, I infuriatingly agree. Then why use it, you exasperatedly inquire. Because that's what it is, I exasperatingly insist. How can it be when you just agreed that the word doesn't exist, you triumphantly retort. Because, even though the word may not exist, I smugly inform you, the object undoubtedly does. You see it, right there, gleaming in the light of the full moon and you can hear the music it creates when employed by one as familiar with its possibilities as Mr. Johnson!) At this point, I graciously inform you that Johnson called this item a muma because he had received it directly from his dear sweet mother's hand, the only object ever passed to him from her. (Backstory alert!) At the time this unique event occurred, Johnson had no idea what the item was or to what employment it might be put. Even after he had come by the anvil, the thought of bringing the two objects into any kind of intimacy never crossed his mind. Then one day on a deserted country road, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere...But I see that I have digressed from my current digression and the boat is still speeding up, so we'll have to go into Johnson's history at another time. (Backstory alert cancelled.) Suffice to say that with his (relatively indescribable) muma in one hand and his right hand floating and skimming along the surface of the anvil, Johnson was a consummate musician, adept at both composition and performance. He could gently and sweetly produce a child's nursery rhyme or lullaby or he could rouse a company with an approximation of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. He also immensely enjoyed rendering one melody with his hand, muma and anvil while creating an entirely different composition in his mind. At this moment, he was transforming the gradually increasing speed of the water around him into a galloping rhythm with an undercurrent of swirling liquid motion. At the same time, gazing at Smith, his inner ear was hearing a gentle bubbling melody, evocative of men in shallow water wearing wading boots and fish lazily floating around weedy lake bottoms.