First Kiss

He knew he was dying.

In fact, he knew he probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

It wasn’t how he’d wanted to go. He’d imagined lying in his bed at home, propped up on the pillow his wife had stitched him sixteen summers ago, his daughter’s hand in his. He’d pictured himself telling her the stories he’d never told her, the stories about his friends from the war, about his days in the Chicago barbershops. He’d imagined himself telling himself about the day he’d met her mother.

He’d have told her about their first kiss, how he’d envisioned it being like the ones in the films, and how instead they’d brushed noses moving in and she’d laughed, and how it was soft, and wet, and sweet. He’d wanted to tell her what he’d learned in that moment, that life has a manner of not letting itself turn out the way you’d imagined it. He’d wanted to say that was the beauty of it, that the greatest peace in life came from taking things as they came. And having said that, he’d have squeezed her hand tight, and closed his eyes.

But life has a manner of not letting itself turn out like you’d imagined it, and that night he found himself in a hospital bed, and his daughter was there but couldn’t have held his hand for all the equipment around him. And he couldn’t talk with the respirator in his mouth, and even without it he doubted he’d have had the energy for it. He was tired, and sad.

So he looked at her from his bed, and after a moment she turned to look back. She smiled.

He died in his sleep the following night.

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Chorus Angelicus – Lord of All Hopefulness (cond. Paul Halley) || 1994/Voices of Light

The Four Magi

On the fourth night of Winter a Lord of the land was visited by four well-clad wanderers. After they presented themselves as traveling Magi of the South, he bade them welcome to his keep. At dinner, when all had ate their fill, he said to them, “Tell me the nature of magic, and in words a mere mortal as I may know, for I am ignorant, and seek to have a knowledge of the great mystery that surrounds us.”

And the first mage, garbed in a robe of woven white, spoke. “Magic is like the wind, my King. It surrounds us, and though we cannot see it, it can be felt, and can be as delicate as a spring breeze on a leaf, or as terrible as a tempest on the plain.” And the second mage, garbed in solid robes of deep dusk, spoke. “Nay, brother, it is like the earth, in that it is the foundation of Aryth, and from what all things spring. As a man does shape the earth, so is he born from it, and so does he end in it.” And the third mage, garbed in robes of shimmering crimson, spoke. “Well-spoken, but untrue. Magic is as the fires that burn in the hearth, the source of the warmth and the life. It dances around us, but for a mortal man, to touch it would be no easier than for him to catch a flame in his hand.” And the fourth mage, garbed in robes of flowing blue, rose and said, “What ye have said may be right to thee, but I hold the truth. Magic is like the waters and oceans of the world, flowing under us and picking us up in its currents. And as a man puts his fingers in water, and the water flows around it, so does a mage put his fingers in magic, and shapes it to his liking.”

And at this they began to bicker amongst themselves, until the King took anger at them and said, “Silence, ye Workers of the Worlds! Ye have come into my hearth, and have upset the peace of my keep. For ye are all right – magic is the wind of the world, flowing from castle to farmhouse without any paying it heed. Magic is the earth of the world, tilled by peasants who know not what they do. Magic is the fire of the world, in whose flames many have perished. Magic is the waters of the world, holding the souls of the countless who have delved too deep and drowned in its depths. What fools are ye, to think ye hold the truth, when only by seeing all sides of the gem can one hold it in one’s hand.”

And with that, he leapt from his seat and cast a spell that held them in their chairs, where they sit to this day.

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Freiburger Spielleyt – Ondas do mar de vigo (comp. Martín Codax) || 1998/Waves of Vigo