The Weewoo's Nest Concerto

Purchased: Month of Relaxing, the 2nd

Property of Eugene Weewoo

Condition: Excellent, touched only by one traveler before. Smells of sea salt and faerie dust.

      ---

Month of Relaxing, the 3rd

      The stars have faded out. I am writing this either by the light of the moon or by what is the beginning of the sun. The two are sharing the sky at the moment, quite a sight really--a meek circle of silver collided with a faint slant of orange. Brothers are calling, sisters are singing.

      Wee woo, wee woo, wee woo.

      I am too shy to join the chorus. My voice is my own, you see. I've only ever let it rise to a candlelight whisper. Friends have urged me to sing with them, but I've always declined--never with words, but with the shake of my head. They'd urge some more. Later, I'd scuttle back to my perch in a small crevice scarring the side of Krawk Island Academy, and listen to the world. I never watch it. I'm afraid of its depth, the way its shadows deepen without the sun. When I'm not looking, I can pretend that the sound the waves are making is just the call of an exotic feathered friend and that when the ocean swells with the moon, he has found his home.

      ---

      I once had a friend who made his home in a grand piano. It belonged to an old Kyrii who taught young Neopets how to play in large concert halls filled with lofty spectators. The Kyrii's name was Ms. Jeers. When my friend first told me her name, I'll admit, I chuckled.

      "Ms. Jeers, I'm sure she's easy on the kids."

      There in the heart of the piano, my friend would hit every note that Ms. Jeers' students missed. When Ms Jeers raised an eyebrow in confusion, he would echo the wrong note over and over until Ms. Jeers shouted "Enough!" and took her seat at the piano, to show the anxious student how it's done. Then, with his own clear voice, my friend would sing along to whatever Ms. Jeers played on the piano, without missing a single note. He would mimic every minor, ace every flat.

      "Monday was Fyora's Lullaby, Tuesday the Symphony of Kreludor. On Sundays, Ms. Jeers would sit at the piano and attempt her own concerto. Never really got it, poor lady. It was just a jumble of misfit notes. I called it "Weewoo's Nest"!"

      In the end, nobody really knows what happened to Ms. Jeers, not even my friend, who one night emerged from the grand piano, only to find himself surrounded by trees and a night sky that stretched for miles. He couldn't see the stars, just stormy darkness saturating the clouds. It was cold. Above, thunder. Below, a sea like flustered sheet music.

      "But the way the wind played that piano that night, boy, I would have thrown a neopoint or two into her hat."

      ---

      Let me explain something to you, those of you who are lucky enough to hear my voice, though an indistinguishable whisper it may be. I tell my stories; I write my memories, my discoveries and epiphanies, things I am not yet ready to speak of, not even to myself. So if I wish for you to forget, I will speak it, send it to you on a murmur like a hastily written note to the wind. After all, doesn't all noise eventually dim to silence?

      ---

      A music box on my windowsill,

      a fledgling melody in my heart,

      I am heading off to get my fill

      of the world of which I'm 'part

      a lavender lilt of light,

      a soft golden smile,

      her wings give me flight

      and arrest my dreams for a while.

      So hush, like a faerie in a glass,

      close your heavy eyes

      Tonight's storm soon shall pass,

      --banished from the skies.

      Hush now, you'll soar and glide

      among the clouds and the seas,

      her arms providing a serene ride,

      her eyes holding peace.

Month of Relaxing, the 5th

      If you couldn't figure it out from the sappy lullaby, I am writing this from Faerieland. Pink. Purple. Swirls of the two. Silence. Song. Both competing to resound throughout the morning. I won't be here long, I don't think. It's not the place for me. When you have wings like these and no desire to befriend strangers, it is difficult to find the place for you. Perhaps the place for you is the sky. But wait...Faerieland is just a big sky, isn't it? Wrong. A sky is vast, lonely. Those you meet are just passing by, true strangers. Here, there are no strangers. Everybody wants to know everybody's story, sorrows, last night's meal, and so on. I've been urged to speak from the moment I glided through the gate, by gossiping Faellies buzzing through the air, smug Harrises intent on prodding at the new guy. Perhaps it's rude of me. Perhaps I should stop for a little while, exchange a tale and a smile, but I have no desire to do so. Think of me as a Crockabek of Meridell: solitary, sly, looking on only for his next prey. Once he has it, he is off into the moonlight again.

      ---

      If you are wondering how I know the lyrics to Fyora's Lullaby, please know that it is somewhat of a miracle. You see, before my friend left me once again to seek another life in the rusting heart of some old instrument, he left me the sheet music he found lying in the rain that night Ms. Jeers abandoned the grand piano.

      "A tragedy, really. Look at this ink, see? Why, perhaps we have our own Weewoo's Nest here! Nobody will be able to play Fyora's Lullaby again. A shame really..."

      And indeed, the sheet music was destroyed. Treble clefs, half notes and whole notes tangled into what I imagine would be quite the cacophony.

      "Forget Weewoo's Nest! How about The Song of the Spyder's Web? Here, you can keep all these. I won't be needing them. Perhaps you can make a real nest of them someday, you little pilgrim."

      Alas, I've made these old ditties no home of mine, but I have kept them close to me, examining them daily, untangling the Spyder's web into something more tangible, if you will. After much squinting and straining, I've discovered words beneath the music, though blurred. My friend had never told me this music has words, but perhaps because he knows me so well.

      Words are for writing and writing only.

      Music is not only for listening, but for living through.

      ---

      Stars fade in. Music out.

      This is not a true symphony. This is the sound a galaxy makes when it is expanding.

      Kreludor swells, conducts the tides. Music in, if only briefly.

      Murmuring. It's the slumbering of the Dreamer. Not snoring, something much more harmonious than that.

      Stars in. Sun out, completely. Just a minute ago, it was a simmering candlewick. Now it is nothing, mute.

Month of Relaxing, the 7th

      I suppose I'm the first Weewoo on Kreludor now, or at least the first Weewoo on Kreludor who wishes to be a permanent resident. I have no shelter here, just a shallow crater with a decent view of the ocean, but whose ocean I am not sure. Could be Krawk Island's. Could be all of Maraqua for all I know. All that I am sure of is that I cannot hear it from up here, which I'll admit, that frightens me. Perhaps for once in my life, I will raise my voice to the pitch of waves. A seashell that a young Kougra has put to his ear for the first time, a seashell that never realized it knew the music of movement.

      And another thing. Sound is a foreign thing here on Kreludor. It's not that it is nonexistent--oh, it exists, all right--but to the people here, every noise is something worth stopping to listen to. My kind of people.

      Bright lights are everyday sights here. After all, this is where galaxies yawn for the very first time. This is where silence begins, silence ends, and you don't have to listen too hard to learn where it goes to rest for the night.

      When I arrived here, one eager young Angelpuss belonging to some Grundo asked to know what I was carrying.

      Sheet music, I explained.

      The angelpuss tilted his head, confused, but did not say more.

      I extended a single wing and showed him. I wasn't sure what to say myself.

      "A Weewoo's Nest. My nest."

      And then I walked on.

The End