Viridian’s Rest
by Silas Coghill
For Chester Bennington
Listen. It’s there, a guitar humming the frigid city block. A man, not as old as he looks, sits on a tattered blanket, back against concrete, with the instrument pulled to his chest. His fingertips, calloused and numbed, hold the chords. His face sunken-in but still kind. For as long as anyone can remember, he’s played there. And, to the local shop owners, he’s known only as the man with the guitar. He’s never peddled for money or anything. He gives freely, to the patrons and passersby his music, to the late-night mutt roaming behind the butcher shop his company. On occasion, someone will gift him a warm treat from the bakery or coffeehouse. They always do this without talking. He seems to appreciate it. He has made the street his home.
The lady in the fleece coat doesn’t know this. She sees his straggly, unkempt hair and torn jeans and looks away. Her heels’ clicking pierce the strumming, while her son’s sneakers scuff the sidewalk. For her son, the street is magical. The shops’ signs glow gold and red. His mother tosses her cigarette on the ground and steps on it in front of the man. As she pulls her son to the ATM, she blows smoke over its screen.
“Mommy, look, it’s green!” The little boy points to the man.
She pulls him closer. “Hush, don’t stare.” She grabs her son’s outstretched hand, and she selects her option and quickly shoves the cash deep in her coat pocket.
“But Mommy. It’s all in the air.” He looks wildly around them.
The lady turns and accidentally sees the man with the guitar and looks away. She doesn’t want to look at him. She doesn’t want to owe him anything. All she can think about is her latte—something she deserves. But her son keeps pleading with her. He wants to see the man, he wants to talk to him. He wants the green, he shouts.
Hearing the boy, the man with the guitar turns to the son and his mother and smiles. The boy knows! He can see what the man sees, he must! Despite his numb fingers, he plays faster yet more delicately; the guitar sings against his chest. The notes, they rise, winding through the air as pulses of brilliant, green light. Waves and orbs of green beacon the cold air and linger for a moment before they fade. The viridian notes have made the cold, sterile street a lush forest—yet no one knows. No one but the boy and him.
The man, quieting his playing, speaks up. “Excuse me, Ma’am.”
She doesn’t hear him. All her attention is on her son who yanks her arm and screams, drawing the eyes of other passersby and those who sit in the window booth, quietly sipping their drinks. The boy’s cries rupture the rhythmic green, stealing its color.
“Hey, little man, you see it too, don’t you?”
The lady casts a gaze of fury on the man. “Excuse me! Mind your own business!”
The man tries again. “You see the colors, right?”
The little boy lurches toward the man and his guitar. His cries become cheers, echoing throughout the street, accompanied by the mutt’s barking for scraps. In a flash, the grand chorus stills as the mother strikes the boy.
At that moment, a police officer confronts the lady. “Is something the matter, Miss?” His thumbs are tucked between his paunch and belt. His face burns red from the cold.
“All is fine, Officer.” She smiles while she keeps the boy to her side which is now filled with quiet weeping. “I apologize for the scene. My son just needed some immediate discipline.”
The boy lifts his face from his mother’s coat to look at the officer.
“I completely understand. I refuse to let my children get feel-good trophies just for showing up. Parenting isn’t easy.” The officer squats, looking at the boy.
“Precisely,” she says flatly, “Children need discipline and gumption.”
According to the man with the guitar, the officer forces a smile, one that seemed to crack at the corners, his chapped lip splitting. As if the boy won’t understand, the officer says. “Listen to your mother, you hear. Let it be a lesson to you.”
The boy, shaking and clinging to his mother’s coat, nods. He doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t like the strange fat man, nor his mother right now. The only thing that calms him is the soft strumming. The man with the guitar had started playing again, as if to soothe him and the mutt, his mother and the people staring from the windows. He soothes the street with his simple viridian melody.
The officer, returning his attention to the lady, says, “Next time, try to keep it at home,” and he wishes them a good evening and vanishes, turning off the street.
The little boy can’t stop thinking about the man with the guitar. He wonders if he, too, can make colors and paint the world—ribbons into skyways. He and his mother head into the coffeehouse where everyone looks at them. Cautious of them, the owner takes their order. The boy wishes he was invisible. After paying, they find a table in the back to sit, or to hide.
As the man with the guitar plays into the cold evening, he recalls the only other person he’d met who could see the colors. He had met her when he was young, just older than the boy but not by much. She sang and played guitar in a jazz club. He pulls his coat tight as he remembers seeing the golden ribbons reaching out from the club. Sneaking in and following the shimmering light, he found her center stage with a small band behind her. The music was warm and it moved him. He stood in front of the stage, his eyes glistening. She could see it in his young eyes, and she pulled him onto the stage. The bassist pulsated a deep red; pops of purple flash out from the drums and cymbals; silver wisps spring forth from the pianist. All the while, the woman’s golden ribbons threaded the audience’s claps with the band’s playing.
For months, he’d sneak into her shows, because he was too young to be there. A most loyal admirer. It wasn’t ever because of her beauty, although she was indeed pretty; it was because of the colors. Always the colors. And he’d follow them.
One night while singing, with the boy sitting front row, the woman collapsed. The way her gold faded into green somehow told him what happened. The band gifted him her guitar—said it’s wat she would’ve wanted. So every day he practiced, trying to summon those golden notes, but he was never able. Everything came out green always. To him, the notes feel tarnished, and yet, he loves them still. They are all he has now.
The little boy sits quietly with his mother. Through the window, he watches the viridian pules, barely hearing the guitar. He doesn’t tell his mother when the green shimmers like gold and then fades and doesn’t return. He doesn’t say anything. His mother doesn’t notice the patrons standing at the windows or the owner running outside. She doesn’t register the red lights sweeping across their faces.
It isn’t until they leave the coffeehouse that she realizes what has occurred. She doesn’t know how to tell her son, but he already knows. A pair of paramedics hoist the stretcher draped in white. On the sidewalk, dozens of people stand. They become a sea of whispers—every comment undulating into another. The officer has returned. He tries to keep people away. The mutt has curled up on the man’s blanket and growls when anyone gets close. A piece of cardboard with writing on it rests against the guitar. When the officer sees the lady, he ushers her to the front of the crowd. Careful of the mutt, the officer grabs the guitar and hands it to the lady.
“It’s for your son.” He looks uncomfortable. “There’s no investigation. So, I know it’s weird, and if you don’t want it.”
The boy grabs the guitar’s neck, the cold steel strings pressed into his palm, and he looks to his mother. He strums the muted strings, and at his fingers, a cascade of colors sparks.
BIO: Silas received their BA from Indiana University and their MFA from Hamline University. They were a finalist for New Millennium Writing’s 44th Annual Fiction Award, and they were published in Entropy Magazine. They are a mental health advocate. They live in Minnesota and plan to teach one day.