Primitive Jazz

     One afternoon, Tone was aimlessly walking around the coast when he

happened upon a strange looking, golden object that had washed up on the shore. He

had never seen anything like it. At first he thought it was some kind of a large sea shell

but it was much too shiny. It was bright and the sunlight it reflected was almost

blinding. In fact, it was so bright that he had to shield his eyes with his hand when he

looked directly at it. When he got closer he saw that it was made up of a foreign

material unlike any material he had seen before.

     Scared but intrigued, he picked up a stick from the sand and poked at it.

Nothing happened. He poked again, this time with more force. Still, nothing. Somewhat

confident that whatever it was wasn’t alive, his fear began to wane. However, his

curiosity remained. He bent down with caution and slowly extended his hand to touch

the object, still grasping the stick in his other hand. As soon as his hand met the

object, the clouds blacked out the sun and a bolt of electricity shot down on him at

once.

* * * * *

     Lying on his back, Tone slowly opened his eyes and his field of vision became

filled with an expansive pale blue sky and titanium white clouds. He felt moisture in the

air and tasted salt on his tongue. He heard a gentle lapping of water and felt the earth

rocking beneath him. Disoriented and frightened, he immediately jumped up and

looked around to see where he was. He quickly realized that it wasn’t the ground that

was rocking below him, in fact there was no ground in sight. He was floating in a

strange wooden vessel, surrounded by water that stretched out to the horizon in all

directions.

     He had no idea what happened until he looked down and saw the strange

radiant object lying at his feet. (The sight of the object brought back the memory of him

standing on the shore and getting struck by lightning as he touched the object.)

Horrified, he began frantically jumping up and down and cursing the object with

unintelligible screams and grunts when he heard a voice coming from behind him.

     “Hey, settle down, you’ll capsize the boat jumping up and down like a damn

barbarian.”Even more frightened than before, he turned around violently to see a hooded figure

standing there stoically. He let out another scream and jumped back.

“Ahh of course, I didn’t expect you to understand me. The English language won’t even

be invented for another million years where you come from. You may be a prehistoric

primitive but I can tell you that you are NOT a barbarian.” He continued to speak despite understanding that the words he spoke were not being comprehended. “You’ve got a gift my friend” the hooded figure said as he motioned towards the strange object. “A gift which can be channeled through that trumpet laying at your

feet”.

     He stared at the hooded figure blankly, understanding only that he was referring to the

strange, radiant object that got him into this mess. Tone looked at the object and then back at the hooded man.Then back at the object. He saw that it wasn't as bright as it was before he got struck by lightning and he could now look at it without it almost blinding him.

     “Go ahead, pick it up. It won’t hurt you this time,” the hooded figure said.

     Against his better judgement, he cautiously bent over to pick up the object and

sure enough, as soon as his fingertips touched it, he was again struck by lightening

and again he was struck unconscious. However, when he came to this time around, he

found himself in a loud dark room. He had clothes on, bright flashy clothes and a top

hat. “Mr. Davis, you’re up!” A voice called from behind a curtain. Tone was startled and

confused. He didn’t even have time to realize that he was holding the strange, golden

object in his hands before two men in suits approached him and escorted him behind a

set of curtains and onto a stage where he joined a full jazz band.

     Tone found himself staring at a sea of strange people wearing strange clothes who were all staring back at

him like they wanted something from him that he didn’t know he had. It was in this

moment that Tone instinctually embraced the strange object he was holding, put it to

his lips and channeled his entire being into sound waves. Somehow, he was suddenly

able to express everything he wanted through the trumpet, and the audience stood in

amazement. In between songs his spoken communication was limited to various

primitive sounds including grunts and growls and sometimes howls, but he was no

stranger to language. He could hit tenor notes that resembled the long earth rocking

roar of thunder and his high notes sounded like brilliant violent flashes of sky shattering

lightning.