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epitome of incomprehensibility
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These were the words I thought I heard, but not at first. At first, as I approached the stone hut shaped like a beehive, the music coming out of it was wordless. I thought the slow jazzy licks on a guitar were part of the recording, part of the pre-planned art of the place.
Lara, the dog, stepped inside investigate. That's when we saw the white-haired man sitting and playing, head bent a little.
It seemed okay to come in, so we did, ducking our own heads to fit. The alternating stone pattern on the wall reinforced my beehive impression, and the seats projecting from it were disc-shaped, like those in one of the Montreal metros. Four out of five of us sat down on them, like an audience. In the middle was a firepit, now ash. At the top of this beehive igloo was a round hole. Across from us, the guitarist sat in the oval pool of light where the sun slanted through.
I thought it would be rude to take a picture of a stranger up close, so I photographed the framed sky, the art-deco stools and wall. And I listened. When I thought he was done, he started singing.
A repeating line was "Return to the land of your soul," or maybe just "Return again to your soul" - but that would be less interesting. Idly I wondered where he was from: the States? But when Arild thanked and complimented him, he answered in German. We stooped to crawl out.
For a while, when we were out, his voice took on a goofy kazoo-like sound, or maybe he was playing a harmonica, I couldn't tell. I took a picture from farther away, an angle where you could see the haloed musician through the doorway.
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