Devil's Peak

Tuesday

9:56 AM

Power chords rang out of the busted up Mustang amp that was hooked up to the equally deteriorated Ibanez. Their buzzing metallic sounds roared into the distance. Miles upon miles of desert gave way to the sonorous cry. The player smoothly slid his fingers down the guitar strings and trilled several notes for a moment before coming to an end. He stood motionless. With his left hand loosely grasping the neck of the guitar and the other holding his pick slightly above the pickups, he stared into the distance with his mouth agape and his brow furrowed. Sweat poured down from his temples.

"It's there," he said. "I know it's there. I just gotta find it."

"It'll come naturally," a voice from behind called. "You can't rush it. It won't straight up tell you, 'here are the notes Roberto, now play them'."

"No yeah, you're right. But music is made of math, and it speaks in math."

"Wu wei."

"Yeah, wu wei, wu wei."

Roberto turned around and walked toward the foldable wooden table where his friend was sitting next to. He pulled a blue chair on the other side of the table closer to him and sat down on it. A small pile of peanut shells laid on the table along with two thermos bottles. From a burlap sack that was sitting next to the table, Roberto pulled out a handful of peanuts and started peeling them.

"I haven't seen the gulf in a while," Roberto said. "Would be nice to take a dip in it. What you say Ferny?"

Fernando slowly nodded his head without taking his eyes off of his phone. He repeatedly swiped on it. Then, a smile drew on his face.

"Tinder poppin'," Fernando said.

"For real?," Roberto asked. "I've been trying it for a while but haven't gotten any signal out here."

"Yeah, but it's just a bot all the way in San Diego," Fernando said dejectedly.

"Big oof," Roberto said. He tossed his peanut shells with the rest in the pile on the table. Then, he reached for more peanuts from the sack. "I mean, I guess that's why we came here. Get away from everything."

"And get in touch with everything," Fernando added. "I saw lights last night again."

"In the sky?," Roberto asked.

"No, in the mountains," Fernando said.

"Oh, I haven't seen those," Roberto said.

"They're faint," Fernando said. "At first I wasn't sure of it, but then I pulled out the binoculars. And sure, there they are."

"I saw a light in the sky two days ago," Roberto said.

Fernando chuckled, "they're spying on our secret research."

"No joke," Roberto said. "It's always hovering. Back and forth. Like it's searching for something."

Fernando put his phone in his pocket, reached for more peanuts, and began peeling away the shells.

"The doctor says that DMT can open your eyes to other worlds not present otherwise," Roberto said. "I'm guessing that we'll just keep seeing more stuff like that."

"Ah yes, yes," Fernando said as he munched on some peanuts. "Strassman the master. Should've let him keep going."

Roberto tossed away his shells and reached for more. "Locals asked me why you never talk. They think you hiding something."