Blue Boy

15 - Tunes

After taking but a few seconds to make sure she's in tune, Violeta plucks at the guitar with a brilliant ease and clarity, she looks down, eyes closed as if in a faraway trance. Her notes are warm, comforting. I sit there paralyzed by my own thoughts as I watch her play, overwhelmed by a wave of misplaced nostalgia. 

I chose the song about the white trees, at the time, I chose without knowing it was her favorite of the three. The notes lead into her soft-spoken vocals, she sang about a loss in her life that happened long ago. The song about the white trees reminded me of a rainy autumn, a couple years back, which I spent alone and in the harsh cold.  

As Violeta finished up, she sets her guitar aside and takes a sip of her cold tea. I've been quiet the whole time but I felt a wide smile on my face.

"I remember seeing a forest filled with white trees," I said. "I wasn't paying attention and suddenly I was surrounded by them. I couldn't see the tops they were so tall, I've never seen anything like it, It felt like a hallucination or a fever dream, almost."

We spent the rest of that dreamy afternoon chatting about the things we've seen, our travels and such. As the sun set, Violeta opened a bottle of the local wine. As she poured me a glass, she was recounting this one time she built a drone for a client.

"He told me he wanted titanium plating and one of those power cores...", she says pointing to the bag that hangs on her bed frame, the power core she found, glowing pink as usual. 

"He wanted it powering the drone... by the way, this was a real shady looking kinda guy, hooded face, and everything" Violeta looked out of it, her eyes looked more tired than usual, she took a sip of her wine.

"He paid me the quoted amount and I told him, 'ok I'll see' and he told me something like, 'see to that, dear' I got chills right after he said that."

"You built the drone for him?" I ask.

"Yes and no, I was mostly done with it, but here's the freaky part. I went to the tavern and heard that the same guy was found dead in his apartment. He hung himself or at least... that's what I heard." She took a nice swig of her wine. 

I sat there digesting the story as if in a beautiful hypnosis. It was quiet for some time. I looked up at her and couldn't help but smile, she bursts into a hearty laugh, I laughed with her. She tips the bottle of wine over onto my glass, emptying the bottle. We sat giggling across from each other for a while.

"Wanna go grab some food?" she asks.

"Yeah, let's do that."