Month: March 2016

Carlita never dreamed she’d be a widow at twenty-eight. How could it be—John was here one day and with the shriek of metal on metal gone forevermore?

More and more, Carlita wondered whether grief had taken over her analytical mind. First she heard a Hindu goddess lament lost loves. Now she allowed a clairvoyant called Willow talk her into meeting at John’s grave at midnight to try to contact him.

She pondered the two possible outcomes if the clairvoyant reached her dead husband. Carlita might hear her own callous words repeated back to her. She shuttered at the remembrance of their final exchange—she too busy preparing for a job interview to even bother to wish him a good day, much less pour out her heart. And what if John did not communicate anything? Carlita’s visceral reaction to that possibility quickly led her to pass out momentarily from hyperventilating.

As the clock ticked toward the witching hour, Carlita imagined a moonless night. Because the adjoining church held too much of her sorrow, Carlita would make her way along the back path through tangled overhung tree branches to John’s headstone. Her mind leapt to a petite blond in a flowing, shimmery white dress, beckoning to her with open arms. Carlita wondered whether the clairvoyant would illuminate the séance with only blood-red, dripping candles.

Before Carlita left their—no, her—apartment, she remembered Willow’s instructions to bring three possessions: an object from John’s childhood, one embodying his contentment, and something to signify his love. Carlita pocketed his onionskin shooter, jasper mala beads, and platinum wedding band, and headed out the door.

She had buried John less than one month earlier in this graveyard. The marker made of unpolished granite had his full name, birth and death dates, and “Beloved Son, Brother, Uncle, Husband” etched into its solemn face.

Carlita approached the ethereal Willow from behind and croaked out a greeting around the lump of sadness in her throat. The young widow, who stood head and shoulders taller than the clairvoyant, stretched out her hand. Instead of taking it, Willow gently drew Carlita in for a warm embrace. The hug, which seemed to last forever in that moment, lightened Carlita’s tearful burden.

Willow’s sapphire eyes glowed in the light of a nearly full moon, and she asked, “Did you bring the focus objects?”

“Yes,” Carlita replied as she slipped the keepsakes out of the pocket of her brown, hand-knit sweater.

Willow examined the three items in turn. First she held up the large, striped marble to one of the dozen glowing white pillar candles. Then she daintily brought the chunky, squared-off ring to the tip of her tongue. Finally, she closed her eyes and fingered the strand of 108 reddish-brown beads, whispering something to herself. Willow centered the ring on John’s headstone, then balanced the marble atop the ring, and encircled them with the beads.

“Now, let us sit beside the headstone,” Willow instructed, reaching for Carlita’s  hands. “Close your eyes and say to him, ‘I am here.’”

“I am here,” mumbled Carlita.

“Again. Louder.”

Though she felt silly, Carlita repeated the phrase.

“Keep going, more, more,” urged Willow.

Carlita repeated the phrase over and over until the words no longer made sense. They were simply sounds erupting from her mouth.

Suddenly, a bone-chilling wind blew through them, shivering the leaves of the oak trees, and Willow shook violently, releasing her firm handhold. Carlita heard someone gasping in terrible pain.

Her eyes flashed open. With the candles no longer glowing and the moon shrouded in clouds, Carlita sought out Willow’s form, patting the ground nearer and nearer the gasps.

To her horror, she discovered the clairvoyant convulsing over sacred ground six feet above John’s casket. Carlita screamed.

In a moment of clarity, she searched her pockets with fumbling fingers, trying to locate her cell phone to call for help. No luck. Then Carlita remembered she’d tucked her phone in the glove compartment. Running blindly toward her car, she stumbled over tree roots, branches scratching her tear-streaked face.

After calling in the emergency, Carlita grabbed her flashlight to return to John’s grave. She discovered Willow cross-legged next to the headstone, as if nothing had happened.

“Are you OK,” Carlita asked.

“Yes, of course,” Willow replied.

“But you were gasping and convulsing and—”

“Sorry if I scared you,” Willow interrupted. “I’m epileptic, and I sometimes have seizures when working.”

“Are you sure you’re alright? Because I called 9-1-1, saying it was an emergency. I imagine the—”

“I’m fine, but we should go.” Willow quickly stood, brushing debris from the folds of her silk dress. She stepped toward Carlita and gave her another hug.

Glancing past Willow, Carlita realized the three keepsakes were no longer on John’s headstone.

“Wait,” Carlita said, pulling away from the hug yet keeping her hands on Willow’s shoulders. “What happened to the keepsakes?”

The clairvoyant gazed deeply into Carlita’s  eyes. She then closed her eyes reverently, bowed her head, and uttered in another’s voice, “They are with John now.”

In amazement, Carlita recognized the dulcet tones of Dhumavati, the Hindu goddess of lost loves.

***

The following morning, Carlita called John’s childhood friend, Xavier, to find out whether he could replace the gifted mala beads. Xavier sighed heavily at the enormous effort it would take to get out of bed, much less travel across the Bay Bridge to the little shop that sold the beads seven years ago.

“How did they go missing,” Xavier asked.

Carlita told her tale of meeting the clairvoyant in the graveyard. She included every detail from the previous evening except hearing the voice of the Hindu goddess. She treasured that moment too much to have Xavier sully it with one of his sarcastic remarks.

“You were duped,” Xavier admonished and hung up on Carlita.

She was left wondering whether Willow the clairvoyant was a fake.

With seemingly boundless determination—granted by the Hindu god of divine love—Sean set out to save his partnership. On his way to work, he began making a mental checklist of all the romantic, passionate gestures he could show Xavier. Then he scratched that list for a more realistic approach of queries. How do I convince Xavier to get help for his depression? How will I get him to reengage with me? What can I do to support him during what must be such a hard time in his, well, our, life?

Shortly after arriving at his desk in the bullpen-style layout of Muzzik, Sean’s boss called him for a consult. “Today,” she explained, “you’ll be on a beta project. We’re calling it Muzzikick. We’re finding those rare, hidden gems the public doesn’t know about yet.”

“Who will I be teamed with,” Sean inquired, since all projects at his workplace were group based.

“That’s what makes this beta project so exciting. Instead of teaming with Muzzik colleagues, you’ll be with one of the potentials.”

“Potentials,” Sean asked quizzically.

“Yes, he has the potential to break into the music scene in a big, big way. We’ve found him, and we want you to evaluate whether he’s one of the gems we should promote.”

Sean wasn’t sure he was the right person for this gig, but, hey, it would be a change of pace from appeasing customers’ numerous complaints by tweaking algorithms. He readied himself by grabbing a pen and pad of paper as well as requesting one of the soundproof booths on the third floor of Muzzik’s five-story building. Then he waited.

As is often the case with creative types, the musician arrived late. His long hair tied back, with little braids falling forward toward his angular face covered in a semi-beard—a bohemian look or a feeble attempt at growing facial hair, Sean didn’t know—the musician introduced himself by his stage name, Sage.

“So, Sage, what is the special sound you’ve got going?”

“Well…I’m not much of a talker. I’ll let you listen.” Sage began to unpack his Neopolitan mandolin, its almond-shaped body with a deep bowl created from curved strips of glued-together wood. He then tuned the instrument using the geared metal tuners to slacken or tighten the metal strings. Finally, he began to strum.

Sean heard notes of such spiritual beauty he was moved to tears. When Sage finished with a soft, lilting strum of the mandolin’s strings, Sean asked him to share his composing secret for the song he’d just performed.

“Well…I was in my loft studio, which is filled with light, and I cranked the windows wide open for some fresh air.” Sage stopped his narrative.

“Yes, go on,” Sean prompted.

After a few too many uncomfortable silent beats, Sage continued. “I grabbed my mandolin and waited. I thought to myself: ‘I am a musician who should compose something. But what?’ At that moment, a soft wind from the open window tickled my ear. It seemed to whisper, ‘Hymn.’”

“OK—”

Sage hurriedly continued, “I felt as if I were fingerless, unable to strum the beautiful sound I craved. I thought, ‘I must reach down deep to feel the waves of emotion.’ A mockingbird disturbed my reverie with something that sounded like ‘Hymn.’”

“You don’t say,” Sean replied incredulously.

“I puzzled over my lacking, ‘Why, oh why can I not interpret my devotional feelings into song?’ Suddenly, through my window in popped a hummingbird, buzzing what sounded like a single word: ‘Hymn.’”

Sean began to doodle comical renderings of Sage on his notepad out of sight of the musician, who was enraptured with his tale.

“Then my heart became full. Inspiration at last! A goose flying south honked ‘Hymn.’ I made my mandolin smile. I thought, ‘I will share this with the world.’ And a car horn bleated ‘Hymn.’ I thanked Hindu seer Bharadvaja for helping me compose the song. Bharadvaja said, ‘True devotion is true love.’”

Sage concluded his story by placing his hands together at heart center, bowing his head, and reverently saying “Hymn.”

Once the musician departed, Sean shook his head in disbelief. He glanced at his pad, where he’d written: “7 Hymns” and “bah-ROD-va-JAUS-a.” I don’t remember writing those notes. Before submitting his report to his supervisor, Sean decided to do an online search for Sage’s Indian guy. According to a well-known yoga website,

Bharadvaja was one of seven seers who composed the hymns featured in the Vedas, which are texts from ancient India written in Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedas form the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature as well as the oldest Hindu scriptures.

Juliana hears a voice