Heavenly muse

‘In the mind of a fool one might find wisdom. Such is the way of the fool that he will thrive from his ignorance. Realising his wisdom, he sheds his ignorance and will speak for the masses. They will see he was one of them.’

A Guide to enlightenment

― John Bodhi

Providence. It came from the delicate flutes playing Indian music that serenaded the smoky air. “Pal Pal Teri Yaad” from Falguni Pathak. John had memorised it as only a music lover could, its meaning yet a mystery to him. He murmured the lyrics along as he drifted around in the brown living room, messy yet lively, and stepped across the floor, knowing this precious moment in time could have only come from divine guidance. John Bodhi knew it to be so: the music said so. He propelled himself through whirling incense smoke and made Scottish bird sounds freely: ‘Kaa kaa! Kaa kaa!’ John felt intensely relaxed, free of all manipulative powers and, he snidely concluded to himself: indeed the space cake had brought him into that wished-for-altered-state, where all things appeared beautiful and worth wild. Moving like the sea, his mind wanted to cry out! A deep inner transformational force was riding him.

    As he danced through the air with wavering hands his mind settled down for a touch of land, and soberly resolved: this is the best way to take it easy after a rough week of working nightshifts. And having a little fun while he’s at it, he thought with a smile. Still some forty hours apart from his next shift! He felt like King of the World. His own world. No resistance. Slumbering through the meagre filled living room he managed to put the volume of the stereo reasonably down, clean the two tables, put his records in order and in general ordered the place. A sleeping body lay on one green couch.

Exquisite, simply exquisite! John thought as he carefully ate the last crumpets of space cake. He took a long look through the dirty window to see Dublin Fair City. John noticed the busy traffic that streamed past bricks and concrete. His mind sailed through it and ascended slowly in memory, bringing up images of the past like a PowerPoint presentation. It had been a wild ride up to here. Six months earlier he drifted in from England to try his fortune with the famous Celtic Tiger. It was after a year of plumbing, connecting pipes and working in wet cold dirt underneath people’s houses in “the city of a thousand trades”, Birmingham, that he searched for any other job. A short e-mail response on a small newspaper ad “Working in a call-centre in Ireland” quickly led him to this stimulating dirty little town called Dublin, a bristling city he found flushed with challenges. He found an office job: on a chair behind a PC learning a proper profession. How little did he know before he started working as a Technical Support employee for SerkoS; one of the many IT companies that sprouted like mushrooms to feed on Ireland’s fat tax-free soil. It was his first job working with computers, and yes he learned alright; in his own time. John sighed and turned away from the window. This strange country with weird people that always seemed to slack him off. Slowly he got up and walked to the stereo to put a new CD on. Within moments Bobby Darin’s parade thundered in the room, lifting his spirit and sending it flying across the room. John smiled and sang along in a loud voice. This life in Dublin, John thought, challenged the immortality of the soul. A typical Irish job then, a man in the pub told him with a wide grin the first night he went out in Dublin. It was the first of Dublin’s many revelations. John sighed and squatted down on the floor in front of the stereo. The music blasted right through him. In the corner of his eye he saw movement in the kitchen. Was he not alone? The thought fled him just as ready as it came as Bobby Darin repeated the couplet once again, calling for John to sing along word for word, and his mind drifted outwards again back to memory.

Regretting his new found work within weeks, and hating the nightshifts that came along with it, John had drifted across Dublin in search for a new job. Without much apparent success he had hastily given up. John shifted on the floor as he slumbered, and lay down with his arms wide. Then one day… He came from a job interview, where he swiftly got rejected, when he suddenly heard Strange Brew from The Cream as he promenaded past a faint little shop. A sound that hit him in the face like cold water on a hot summer’s day. The featuring record Disraeli Gears now stood proudly among other masterpieces in his record collection. John had stopped and walked backwards, shortly standing in front of Dublin’s many independent small record shops. That first magical visit was the start of a wondrous journey to rediscover the music masters of the past. Rare grooves. It was what made John feel alive and in touch with the world. Perhaps it was karma? What if the present was the result from the future? He rolled over the ground, got up and slowly scratched himself. Would he put on some Underworld?

    ‘Oy! Could you turn that terrible noise down! Can’t even think properly!’ Someone shouted. John turned in shock, which quickly changed for relief as he saw his housemate Nick stepping in the room with a broad smile.

    ‘He man.’

    ‘Just messing with ye, it’s grand! I’ll be out, see you later!’ and gone was Nick again.

    John looked around him, considering this moment. Slowly he had learned to appreciate his working shifts. In between John listened to golden oldies and experimental music and while most people seemed to be working, he crisscrossed Dublin to hunt for arcane albums and limited race records. To John, God was a musician. Music was life. He found it in old seventies recordings, obscure and unheard labels with music that jingled the mind and anything that seemed to call out to him from little music shops, like Smiley just before Rathmind, or little stables at the indoor markets. He swiftly learned to avoid the bulky places like Virgin Records or Tower Records: they had neither character nor choice at all. He knew his special places. So many gems to be found if you knew where to look and Dublin became a hunting ground for the well-honed hunter that was John the music lover. John growled and grinned at his own expression.

Trusty as they were, most Irish people seemed to like him, even though his skin was fairly dark and he spoke with an appalling stuck up cockney accent. The accent troubled him and at times earned him a God honest slacking. He worked on getting an Irish accent, often to great amusement to the Irish, quite willing to rabbit along to see how far he’d get before twisting his tongue in their rhyming slang that made no sense whatsoever. They rarely meant it personal. Sometimes he felt as if they were brothers to him, all part of one great family called Mankind. And yet at other times he faced incomprehension and sometimes downright racism. Birmingham had been nicer in that respect. John shook his head at these thoughts. The Irish could be sharp as a razor in their tongue and full of wits and whimsical in their sally. In his time in Ireland people had called him a crazy pothead, a softy and a goddamn hippy. But when he was out hunting for quality music, there was something in the glaze of his keen set eyes as he flicked through old and neglected records, intensely focused on finding prey, ferocious as a hunting tiger and swift as a sea bird. The Phoenix arose under his hands when he saved another masterpiece from silent oblivion and blasted it loudly on his stereo. It was his personal goal in life to share it with the people around him, whether they agreed to it or not.

    John smiled and got up and put another CD on. The Dave Pike Set.

Albeit reluctantly at times, his exceptional taste of music attracted a small group of people who shared a musical indulgence, next to a substantial and sometimes even spiritual one. With a smirk John danced in the living room, snapping his fingers to the beat.

Harbouring such strong emotions about his music, John let it guide him through his life, abandoning his ambition for work. He only cared about the music. In the living room John started to groove and for a brief moment he wondered again about his housemates: Hans a depressed Dutchman and Nick, a cheerful Englishman who almost never was at home. At times John felt a strong dualism between them with himself in the middle, constantly trying to find a balance. At times things had gotten crazy, though he couldn’t bear himself to think up any solid examples. With a smile he pivoted on his heel. Their shared living room was nicely decorated with patterned wallpaper from a time when LSD was the alternative for being just bored. White tables stood defiantly next to two green couches facing a low pineapple table.

    Quite smooth indeed! Nick said after John had redecorated their living room, and Hans had only nodded. And they never objected when John would lighten heavy incense at occasions. Was it because they looked at him with awe for his way of living: expressionistic and carefree as he worked his way around his own needs; or because when he lighted the incense it cleaned the house of all bad influences and spirits? The latter fact, perhaps, which could have also been a side effect of the first. Of all the people that sauntered in his life, one way or the other, only a few actually knew his full last name; others just filled in the gaps as they came along. “Some friends went straight to heaven, others fell into hell” as Shane Mc Gowan once sang. All in all, his live was a secret one, about to come to light, slow and painfully like birth.