The man at the bar who liked Baroque music
“I would come to your funeral.” He said to the old flute player sitting across from him at the bar. The man did not look up, lost, as he was, in his concise notations.
He had been listening to and notating baroque music across from him at that local pub all afternoon. And he had noticed his passion at transcribing each note so carefully. When he asked him about it, the older man with a wool newsboy style had pulled down nearly over his eyes, had looked up in what appeared to him to be glee.
“Oh, Bach understood the angels and people. He wasn’t just writing for kings, he was writing for God.”
Then he went back to transposing.
That was all he had really said. But he just liked him.
There is a whole life well lived, a true story, someone obsessed with what they love about life, and sharing that obsession in public-on stage.
He respected that sort of person. This man had clearly retired, and didn’t need the money from the music, just loved the music, and translating it for the next generation. He respected that.
So on his way out, he thought, if that man died at this bar right now, I would go to his funeral.
And decided to speak that out loud to the man.
When he did, it startled the man, and he knocked over his pint glass. It went everywhere. The notations were blurred. He looked up startled. He looked up at him as if looking at death itself.
“I’m not finished yet, so you’ll just have to wait son!” He said while desperately trying to retrieve his vanishing notes.
