I am the wonderer.
I pass underneath curtain-less windows, yellow light spilling out into the dusk and I wonder: What lives play themselves out on the inside? What excites them? Anything they look forward to? Or do they drift, aimlessly?
I wander through this maze of lives oblivious of my existence, always just a question or two away. Unless I ask, no one asks me. Time passes as I wonder. I imagine and write down their stories for no one.
The streetlamps wink out as I leave them behind.
I am the wanderer.
I go where my feet take me. To the edge of the land and the sea and the known world, this time. I walk alongside the waves lapping at the shore, footsteps heavy, feet leaving traces soon to be washed away. A lone fisherman stands in the tide, his line straining, arms pulling back. I wonder what fortune he’s angling for.
I linger, just for a moment. Kneel and wait for the water to come, let it touch my fingers. It touches me and pulls away. Icy cold. Indifferent. It retreats and I wonder just how far and what land lies on the other side. Answers never come easily. I ask all the same.
I am the wonderer. Ever wandering.
I wonder and I wander far and wide, where my feet take me and folk pay me to ask them questions… or answer them. I’ve been called many names, it’s true. The Wonderer. The Wanderer. Hooded Traveler. I am the Unwelcome One. Or the Welcome One. It all depends on who opens the door and lets me enter. But the one name I prefer is the Whistler.
Music is how I hear the world and I respond in kind, flute in hand. The seagulls’ cry, the crashing of the waves, the child’s cry, the merchants hawking their wares. The world throws sounds at me and it is in the still moments that inevitably follow that I recompose the music into something worth remembering… or following.
I once led an army of rats out of a despairing city on nothing but melody. A good story, that. Buried now, half-forgotten. The world moves too fast, forgetful of stories. Forging new tales. I deliberately wander at my own pace. I stop to collect the shards of truths people throw away. Put them in my bottomless bag. For safekeeping. For remembrance. Some are worth retelling. Or singing a song about.
There are those I touch and who touch me, along the way. Sometimes I follow, other times I lead. Sometimes we just… are. We find companionship in music or shared love for things that matter. We need not meet again. But meaning remains. I wonder, how is it that the ephemeral moments last the longest?
I am the Wanderer. I walk on the flashlight beam. The liminal spaces are where I dwell.
I am the Wonderer. I probe. I question, seeking depth, unearth stories worth telling.
I am the Whistler. I refract silence. I resurface echoes of a world no one listens to anymore.
It’s a solitary path, of my own making. I never linger long enough. I separate myself and wander on.
I do wonder, though, as I whistle this oddly cheery tune. Not quite alone. Never alone.
….