The Traveling Bard

It was just him and his guitar. It had always been him and his guitar for as long as he could now remember, and though some might have called it lonely he was comfortable and happy in it. He’d always had his guitar, and she’d served him well through his years.
He carried her on his back, the strap a dark red that, over the course of much time, had become well-weathered. The case was white of faux leather, and was also somewhat dirtied and chapped in places. The only other bag he carried was a small rucksack, as he didn’t tend toward owning too many clothes.
He was always on the move: baggage like that was impractical.
He went from city to city easily enough. He used public transport, of course, and moved when it was cheapest. This meant odd dates and odder hours, but it was worth it. He’d never liked staying in one place: it had always felt like a trap, like sinking slowly into a routine he wouldn’t be able to get out of. Like quicksand almost, and he couldn’t take it.
He was a flighty soul, in more ways than one.
The guitar paid for it. He could play and sing in every city centre, in bars and cafés. It worked, he could do it. Fares weren’t really that much.
He liked trains best. There was something calming about the rhythmic run of metal over tracks, the feel of the cool glass as he laid his head against the window, the sight of trees and hills and everything else rolling past. Buses were okay, but it was nicer to have views of rolling hills and country that to see mile after mile of road.
There was something romantic to the idea, he knew, the idea of travelling from place to place by train. Especially with a guitar settled between his knees for the journey, he supposed. He didn’t mind. He never felt the loneliness, only the need to be moving.
It wasn’t like he never met any people. He did, he just… Didn’t keep in touch. And he was okay with that. Maybe he’d see them again, one day.
He had a habit, in each new city, before he boarded the next train or caught the next bus. He told himself it was just like taking a lucky charm, but he knew it was something more, really. He’d press a thumb to something. A fountain, a statue, some monument. It would be a quick enough movement, like a salute as he moved past.
He never saw the glow to his own thumb tip, nor the swirl it would leave on the metal or stone surface. Not then, not for a while. He continued on for many a year, from city to city. In each he left his mark.
In time, he grew tired. It was draining, his travel, though he adored it more than anything else. It was in a coastal town where he, for the first time in too long, took his time in pressing his thumb to a fountain’s plaque.
He stared at the silver glow to his own thumb that lasted barely a few seconds, and stared longer at the small swirl the energy had left engraved in the tarnished shine of the plaque. He thought on it, thought on his fatigue.
He understood.
He played that night until his fingers ached and his heart was breaking for every passing person’s expression as they watched him. There was always delight in most faces but no, there was something telling in a lot of those faces too, something sadder.
Some envied his freedom, some thought him mad. Some thought he would be lonely, or just let themselves feel emotion in song. That was okay. He was used to it.
That night he did not gravitate towards the nearest hostel, did not settle and speak to a listener to laugh and socialize. He dropped his case from his shoulder, rucksack thrown within, and left it beneath the bench to carry his guitar in hand. He felt a pull and went with the flow as he walked away: he never questioned his instincts.
He moved down to the beachfront, off the path and down across the pebbled beginnings before moving further. He stepped out onto a rocky piece of the beach, settling at the edge where the calm, early morning sea lapped at the black of the stone.
He settled there, cross-legged, and laid his guitar across his lap. For a time, he thought. The thoughts were vague and unimportant, of every little and big thing he’d seen. It was as the sun began very slowly to rise at the horizon that he looked to the wooden beauty across his knees.
He’d left pieces of his soul across the country, the tiniest pieces, but now there was little more left of him. He settled his palms on her sound board, together, and just thought absently. He saw the glow to his own palms, saw silver turn to gold as swirls of pattern were painted on the wood in colours he could never have imagined.
When he drew his hands away the sun was half risen, he felt dizzy and the body of his instrument was covered in patterns that spanned out from the two clear hand prints. As a last gesture he pushed the guitar forwards and it began to drift away on the tide, further and further away from the rocky outcrop he’d settled on all those hours ago.
He watched the sun glint on the water, felt himself get dizzier and lighter and airier. By the time the sun had risen, he’d lost all sight of the guitar that had been his only companion. He faded in the light of the dawn sun, leaving nothing tangible behind.
The guitar would travel on the seas and land on another beach a ways down the coast. She’d be picked up, of course, by another musician. How else would the cycle start again?

Content Tags

Rated T for Teen. Published September 1st 2021. Approximately 1000 words.

Genre & Tone: Fantasy.
Content: Magic. Cyclical Stories. Enchanted Objects.