© 1999 John H. Doe

"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Matthew 16:26

When you are dear to the earth, Max thought, to the earth itself, when your funeral sky rips open, and the hand of God reaches down and plants a rose on your grave, what then? Worms everywhere. Only the worm is immortal. The day was too bright. A Sunday, into the park but only to pass through, clouds lounging through the clearest, painfully blue sky, green grass, green bushes, green leaves swaying lazily in the trees÷Max could almost taste the color green, it was so omnipresent. He wondered why there were parks at all, little planned mock-ups of Nature, only reminders that there actually were some happy people in the world. The rest of the city knew itself. The asphalt, the concrete, steel, and glass: that told you the world was high and unapproachable, as it was. The park was a Sunday surrounded by a year of Mondays.

Almost through, Max was beginning to feel himself again. He was a slicker; he had been a slicker when he first peeked cockeyed out of his motherâs birth canal, his fatherâs sperm had all been slickers, his motherâs ovum had been a slicker. When he vacationed, he only traveled to other sprawls of vertical and massive blind watchkeepers. Evolution had caught up to the industrial revolution in Max. Only twenty or so yards left back into the gray, even if the sun did its best to cheer it up this afternoon. Ha! Good luck. Almost÷what was that gleam? What was that corner-of-the-eye trick this sunshine was trying to pull? Egad, Max thought, I almost got away clean. He veered towards it and looked down, half hoping it was a crumpled soda can so that his disgust could be justified. It was a flute.

Silver-shiny, the sun glimmered down its length in slipping patterns of reflection as he moved his head in examining it÷slightly transfixed by that, he was almost afraid to touch it. Max looked up and absently stepped three hundred sixty degrees around to scan the whole park, the flood of green carpet, from where he stood: about a dozen randomly and vividly dressed in blue and red and yellow people lying on the grass, two picnics and sandwiches cheerily being chomped away by perfect teeth, a circle of children spree-throwing a frisbee and scrambling to catch their horrendously bad aims, no musicians, no one near enough to claim it by right of vicinity. Thinking better about it immediately (why not get it out of the way?), he decided he should just leave it, but the thinking manâs curse÷the Second Thought÷nudged in like a familiar con man, and its cards were quick. The subversive desire to possess something new and that shiny edged out anything else, and with a guilty twang in his cheeks, Max bent down, picked it up, looked casually around to see if anyone perused his general direction, and walked out of the park with it.

Where was he going? Oh, yes, the café. He had lost himself for a moment, slightly in a thrill, feeling somehow that he had tiptoed away with a grand misdemeanor÷he had walked out of the store, and the security guards hadnât converged on him in herds, the alarm hadnât sounded three days to Christmas÷and he was a little disappointed about that, too. Café Vigaro a few yards ahead, and people dawdling over their drinks at the tiny, round, black tables outside looked at him as it became conspicuous that he was headed there÷was he going to shape the air with music? Stupid people. Max just wanted his Sunday coffee and onion bagel. Some of them should have gotten a sharper picture÷they had held musical instruments before, and look how he handled that thing? like a football if a football were a thin cylinder of metal and that person had never handled a football before in his life. People hope, mostly in vain, disdaining any objective evidence. Max walked in, ignoring them.

"Hey, Max," said Hal, keeper of the coffee÷finest heavy water radiating within three miles, "coffee and an onion bagel?"

"Yes. · I mean, no," Max replied, feeling peculiar turning around in his mind like that. "Give me a mocha today. · And a poppy bagel." Max peeked down at the flute, an intricately wired wand, a muted silver shine in the dimness inside the café.

"Okay." Hal noticed the flute, if not the sudden change in a six-month customerâs broken record of an order. "Do you play?"

"On occasion," Max lied. The brain does its the best to give an instant response÷thus, a credible lie÷when three half-formed thoughts dance frantically through it like sillywalkers in panic: first, he couldnât tell Hal he had just plucked it from the ground, because Hal would have eyed him suspiciously (unknown: reason why); second, he couldnât just say yes, because Hal would have asked him to blow it musically or hold it like he meant to play, which he had no idea how to do and only a vague idea how to do, respectively (unknown: reason why, the second part); and third, he couldnât just say no, because why did he have the flute, then? which brings us back to malformed thought first (unknown: where the little fairy who planted these thoughts lived and How Max Could Kill Him).

"Can you play something for me?" Hal asked innocently, wiping his hands on his black apron in anticipation.

And this is where the lie paid off, or this is where the lie became a convoluted drama: "No, not today÷Iâm just airing it out, so to speak."

"O-kay," Hal said, with an inflection on the second syllable meaning, Didnât fall far from the cuckooâs nest, did we?

That was alright. The lie, in fact, did pay off, with a small jackpot of bent and flattened quarters. The important thing was÷the substance was÷Halâs nose was out of the pool where Max was hiding a unicorn made of glass.

"Of course!" a voice boomed out to the side of him, "he lets the instrument breathe!"

Oh, no. Oh, no. Not Dexter. Not the Khaki Knight himself, Max thought. He stayed absolutely still, squinching his eyes shut, gripping the flute so tightly he was engraving the skin of his palms with the metalwork. Dexter must have seen him come in.

Dexter peeked over his shoulder, being half a head taller than Max, dashing in his blindingly clean white dress shirt, and the unanimously fashionable khaki slacks which bestowed upon him his nickname. Among other things in his favor. "May I see?" he said, voice lustrous, all chivalry.

Max opened his eyes, let out a quiet sigh, limply handed the flute over, feeling himself slouch about five degrees more than usual in his resignation, stepping aside.

"My goodness. This is crafted work worthy of the Renaissance! Where did you purchase this rod of art?"

Before Max could wildly calculate another instant and watered-down lie, Dexter began to blow it, to play it. Max, as others did at that moment, could have imagined a small grove of trees in the first furtive days of Spring, dawn illuminating the drops of dew dappling the leaves of wildflowers, their petals hovering their tiny reign over the grasses in the fields outlying those trees, etc., etc. Instead, Maxâs thoughts surfed a sarcastic wave: Oh, yes, you play, oh, yes, five instruments, isnât it? Not to mention fluent in French, Chinese, and Swahili? Oh, donât blush, now. Then, instant rage mixed into the stew: Letâs not be modest about achieving every, single, last dream you ever had! Max fumed silently about this and similar appropriate infuriations as he let Dexter conclude his sonnet of music.

Everyone applauded, of course. Some whistled enthusiastically in cheer. Max extended his hand to accept the flute back, but Dexter pored over it lovingly, carefully transferring it from hand to hand, contemplating its heft, turning it lengthwise over and over with his strong and gentle grasp. "My goodness," he said. "It plays like Aphroditeâs own." Suddenly, he looked at Max, eyes steeled with a certain honor÷one meant to convince: "Iâll give you one thousand dollars for it."

What was this? For two seconds, Max was completely at a loss. Completely. Not, somewhere around the corner here there must be a street I know÷it was more like, the constellations around here are bizarre. "One·what? What did you say?"

"One thousand dollars. Cash. American. For it. The flute."

Max smiled a crooked smile. Heâs human! Max thought, nudged up a little in excited. Heâs actually made of flesh and blood!

"By your smile do we perceive that we are pleased with the offer?" Dexter crooned, smiling with grand, straight, white, white teeth.

"May I have it back please?" Max said plainly.

Dexterâs smile vanished, and a confusion perked up in his expression. "What? Do you find it unfair?"

"Please. My flute."

"One thousand five hundred," Dexter said with an adamant tone.

Max looked him straight in the eye: "Let me see if any brain cells survived the lack of oxygen caused by the vacuum the constant blowing of your mouth creates." Stepping a little closer, "No."

"But·but·you saw how I played it. It was·it was magic·" he said, and just as Max was beginning to feel sorry for him, flustering in his speech like that (albeit only a little; he would still have said no, but nicer), Dexter said straightaway, "Two thousand."

Max reached over and seized the flute, wrenching it away from the grasp of the Khaki Knight, which took a little doing. "No!" he said, joyfully springing up on his toes to do so.

Max about faced and happily (happily? the emotion might have been strange, had Max stopped to think about it, though, as we all know, happy people never do) walked out, forgetting completely about his mocha and poppy bagel. Max imagined Dexter sobbing as he walked back out into the sunlit street, the random taxicab and convertible coasting by. No, he thought. Probably got over it the second I left. Oh, well. Maxâs mind rested into a calm little contentment (also strange, and also unanalyzed) as he walked away, not toward the park, though not guided by paranoia about the flute, but that he just felt like taking a stroll, glowing faintly from his victory. Not once did he think, Strange visions have danced before my eyes.

"What are you doing with my flute?" someone said somewhere behind Max, an accusing, time-cracked voice.

Max froze. Slowly, he turned around to face his doom. It was a man well over sixty, straggly white beard and mustache, dirty in his flannel shirt and torn jeans, grimed to the bone in dark soot-like substance. He was splayed out with his back to a building. Max had missed seeing him when he had passed, like missing a familiar piece of scenery. He was so dirty he almost shined with it.

"Give me my flute back," he said wearily, defeated, it seemed, before he started.

Who knows? Somewhere inside him, Max believed the old man, that somehow this was his flute, a prized possession he pained to wipe all hours of the night with his only clean rag until it shone unbelievably bright. Perhaps he could even play it. Max stepped over and crouched before him, half ready to give him back his only cherished prize.

"Youâre wearing my shirt," he said. In his voice Max could hear it: this was the voice rejected by every ear it tried to enter, this was the voice of the tree falling in the forest when no one was around.

Max reached behind into his back pocket and drew his wallet out. He said, "Iâll tell you what, old man, Iâll give you·letâs see·twenty-two dollars for the set. Flute and shirt."

"Those are my shoes," he said, as if he hadnât heard Max at all.

"Come on, old man, itâs all the money I have. Give me a chance, here. I know itâs all yours, the flute, the shirt, the shoes, and letâs not forget the pants. Can you find it your heart to throw them all in for the twenty-two? Please?" Max implored kindly, cocking up one eyebrow.

A glimmer, something like recognition, like a tiny candle remembering something, flickered alight in the eyes of the old man. He said, "Well·alright. Iâll let you go this one time," and he slowly grasped the bills and slid them free from Maxâs hand.

"Thank God for people like you, old man," Max replied, and he rose to begin walking away, not looking back, sensing a touch behind his eyes, a wisp trying to break free. He didnât understand it.

Max paced through the city for another hour without incident, and by that time, the flute had almost blown from awareness÷he supported it as if it were an extra limb, the flute muscle, sort of an appendix attached to the heart. What he had done, without realizing it, was walk in a jagged arc all the way back around the park, and ting! he just realized it. He was just not himself. To his right, two blocks down, the shadows of the trees in the park had lain down to about half-size the trees themselves. It was bright·it was·a nice day. He heard a little girl crying behind him. He swiveled around to see.

It was Natalie, a first grader in the neighborhood, often to be seen skipping rope or something outside after school, who once drew him a picture of a flower which he·ahem·tossed in the garbage without really even looking at it÷about a month ago, to his best guess. He walked over and stooped down where she sat in a ball on her bottom step, asking in his most gentle voice, "Whatâs wrong, little Natalie?"

Clutching the hem of her checkerboard yellow and white Sunday dress, she managed to speak in between the shudders of her sobs: "I lost·my pendant."

"Donât be so sad, Natalie, things can be replaced."

She shook her head, still overwhelmed. "My grandpa·gave it to me·when I was only five· before he·passed away."

"Do you know where you lost it?"

"In the·park." She pointed down the street.

Emotions are not to be felt more than one at a time. Something about each one crowds another out, like being told a good joke in a time of distress, being told your dog has died when you have just aced a final exam, being told youâre going to be a father at any time whatsoever÷this is because emotions are not to be felt more than one at a time. Max distinctly, and strongly, felt three, spilling emotions when she said those simple words, "in the park": shame, which was troubling (shame is always troubling), because the flute he was holding might as well have been her flute, in fact, it was her flute, and he had stolen it from where she had been resting it to toss a frisbee, far enough away so as not to misstep and crush it; fear, which was troubling and strange, fear of, in fact, little Natalie here, that she would somehow discover that he had just nonchalantly lifted the flute from the ground without asking anyone if, by chance, did he or she lose a flute; and anger, and this was the most troubling of all, that some stranger had spied a glimmer in the grass and was wearing the pendant around town, impressing friends.

Max straightened upright, and Max calmed down. He reached deeper in himself than he thought really was there to begin with, or end with, for that matter, and said these words calmly: "Natalie, you can draw, canât you?" She nodded, and the shuddering eased. "I remember the flower you drew for me. It was beautiful. Now, do you think you could draw your grandpaâs pendant?" She nodded again, wiping away some tears, a little shudder. "What you need to do is to draw your grandpaâs pendant on a piece of paper, then have your mommy or daddy write that you lost this pendant, and that it was your old grandpa, who passed away, who gave it to you. Put on it that thereâs a one hundred dollar reward for it, and Iâll give your mommy and daddy the money for the reward. Alright? Please donât cry, Natalie." There it was again, the wisp right behind his eyes÷and it broke free for a second, and about two-thirds of a tear leaked out. He stood up straight, wiped it away, and sniffed.

Natalie nodded, almost still, a few minor vibrations still left every few seconds, and reached up with both arms. Max bent over and received the first hug he had had in three years.

"Have your mommy or daddy give me a call," he said. "Maxwell Bush, in the phone book. You know where my apartment building is, donât you? Thatâs a good girl. Iâve got to go now. I have something important I have to do."

Max began to step hurriedly toward the park, breaking into a run at about thirty paces, flute swinging a shiny blur in the grip of his right hand. It canât be too late, he thought, trying to decide it was true. They have to be there, still. Whomever this flute belongs to. He knew it somewhere, that this flute couldnât possibly belong to a little girl like Natalie, hadnât been strategically placed to the side so she could scamper around with her little friends. So what? This flute was a broken heart and a half, by the looks of it. He was inside the park, now, panting as he raced to the opposite side. Oh, how out of shape he was. His lungs were raw, and pain clenched his gut, too, not to mention his legs wobbling at each rapid step, back to the spot where the glint had first struck him. He stopped. While wheezing to catch any breath he could, hunched over, left hand on knee, he eyed the trees, the park benches, trying to align all the angles. He was a few feet off even in the best of all possible worlds, but he did his best to recreate its discovery in reverse. Carefully, like resting a sleeping baby on the grass, he laid the flute back down where he had found it.