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Chapter Thirty: Music From Another Age
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Fiona took Taberah by the hand, eagerly leading him as if she were a small child. The university's square was filled with a noisy, jostling, laughing group of people, chaotic as any bazaar. The excitement was tangible. "Today is the first day of Student Activities Week. All the student organizations are clamoring to find new recruits from among the freshmen, and anybody else who cares to come. It is a lot of fun."
Taberah walked over to one stand where several people were talking. He read the sign overhead, Humanist Hacker's Guild, and asked, "What is a hacker?"
One of the men looked up from a portable computer and said, "The first hackers were people in software who like solving problems and believe in freedom and helping each other. They produced a lot of computers and software. We are a special kind of hacker, hackers in the humanities. We produce artwork, music, and literature, and share it with other people. In a way, there have been humanist hackers for ages, but interaction with computer hackers has brought an awareness and a fertile field for sharing. Would you like to have a copy of one of my poems?"
Taberah said, "If I am here, why would you give me a copy? Why not just recite it?"
The hacker said, "Um, because I don't have it memorized?"
Taberah said, "I'm puzzled."
The hacker said, "Why?"
Taberah said, "How could you compose a poem, even writing it down, and then forget it?"
"Quite easily, I assure you."
Fiona put her hand on Taberah's arm and said, "Taberah, please. We are his guests."
The hacker took a sheet of paper and said, "Here. I'll read it to you."
"The Unicorn's Horn," by Elron Ellingswood
I walked out into the deep, dark, forest,
and there, in a clearing, it stood.
Oak was behind it, ferns below,
and atop its head, stood a blazing white horn.
It walked to a shimmering pool,
Its hooves not making a sound.
Around, the silence was broken
by the calling of a hawk.
The wind stirred the tree leaves
and danced softly over the grass.The Lady of the Lake stirred,
softly,
invisibly.
Taberah looked both impressed and puzzled. He said, "You show the forest as an object of beauty. Why?"
Fiona grabbed his wrist, and tugged on him, saying, "Look over there! Karate!"
An instructor smiled and said, "Not Karate. Kuk Sool Won. Karate is a single martial art that focuses on punching, kicking, and blocking; Kuk Sool is a comprehensive martial arts system that includes joint locks, weapons, and escapes as well as many kinds of punching, kicking, and blocking."
Taberah said, "What's a joint lock?"
The instructor said, "Throw a slow punch at me."
Taberah said, "What?"
The instructor said, "Do this."
Taberah made the motion and his hand was caught, his wrist twisted.
"But what if I punch you with my other hand?"
"Why don't you try to do that? Slowly?"
Taberah did, and his puzzlement was exceeded by the instructor's, who said, after a second, "Stop. I've never seen someone who could resist a joint lock like that. You must have a tremendously high tolerance for pain."
Taberah said, "I don't understand. I didn't feel pain. I don't understand what you were trying to do."
The color of Fiona's face was beginning to match her long, wavy red hair. She said, "Taberah, come on. Let's find something else."
Taberah began to wander, and then saw -- or rather, heard -- something so positively medieval in spirit that it drew his attention so completely he was aware of nothing else. Up until this point, he had been thrown off balance by a hurry in the people around him -- or, at least, that would be a deficient way of putting it. A more accurate way of putting it would be that he was aware of time in the sense of an awareness of something around him, but not in any sense that would let him grasp rushing to get something done, or guilt at sitting at doing nothing. He vaguely perceived such a quality in those about him, and he was baffled and troubled by it, in the same way as if he were surrounded by people who were constantly thinking about air and in a frenzied haste to try to find some space that had enough air to breathe.
It was the near total absence of this quality in the music before him that beckoned him. It was as if he had stepped into a room of people breathing normally and attending more important concerns and only then come to realize that he had been surrounded by people fretting over whether they had enough air to breathe.
Taberah stood in silence, drinking it in. Then he stepped forward, picked up an instrument, and joined in the song.
At dinner, Aed asked Taberah, "So what did you see today?"
Taberah said, "Today was a happy day. Today I discovered New Age."
Aed suppressed a groan. How was he to begin an explanation? The phenomenon that was called New Age in its current incarnation had occurred many times in the past, and would doubtless occur many times in the future, each time under a different name; it was in spirituality what a logical fallacy is in reasoning. It was heresy -- perhaps he was safe in using that word with Taberah. In the word, 'heresy' carried a curious inversion of "a good and original idea which some benighted tradition condemns", the word being a condemnation of the tradition rather than the idea. What a diabolical trick that was! Heresies were neither good nor original ideas; they were propositions that had been weighed in the balance and found lacking, "New" Age being a manifestation of an error that had first occurred two millennia ago and had rotted every time since then. It promised freedom, and was one of the most confining and constricting prisons he had known -- a prison like being left all alone in an empty wasteland. You could go as far and wide as you wanted, and still find nothing good.
Aed hesitantly asked Taberah, "What draws you to New Age?"
"The -- music -- time -- you are hurried. They are not."
Aed nodded. New Age music was soothing music. But as to the time -- "Taberah, it's a busy time of year for me. What is this about time?"
Taberah tried to explain, and at first failed completely. Then, on the second time through, there was a look of dawning comprehension on Fiona's face, and she said, "I will try to enter your time, Taberah. But it will be difficult; we have been taught to hurry for a long time. I won't be able to do it very quickly, if I can."
Taberah kissed her cheek, and said, "I not in hurry -- ooh, did I do right in touch?"
Aed wondered what Taberah was talking about, and then recalled him sternly telling Taberah not to touch others in ways that he had not seen them touching. "It's OK, Taberah. You may give a kiss on the cheek to people in this family."
Taberah walked over, and kissed Aed on the cheek.
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Chapter Thirty: Music From Another Age
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