Wild Stars

The kid approached the elder. “Get up old man” it groaned. “The audience doesn’t forgive weakness”. The elder leaned on the kid’s arm. Some inarticulated sounds escaped from the mouth of the pathetic piece of meat tat the kid calle old man. “Shut up you relic! You don’t have any alternatives. The audience has a short temper when they are kept waiting”. The elder lifted his frail body and dragged his feet a little livelier. He extended his arm as if reaching for something. The room lights were not working properly and thus the shadows cast strange shapes on the walls. The kid was murmuring continiually. “Get on you old man. Just a little more and you might just make it. Otherwise we won’t survive”. The old corpse kept on walking towars the corridor. Upheval could be heard somewhere dond its end. The kid opened the locker and brought out the instrument. It followed the old man and entered the stage. People were getting overanxious and booing and howlings filled the place. The kid sat on the flat stone in the stage’s centre, next to the elder, and started tuning the instrument. All of a sudden the whole autitorium went silent. The old man advanced a bit and stood forward. The actual movement worked like a magic switch. The old man seemed as if he was changing his figure. He started looking taller, his hair was turning jet black and his whole appearance suggested a man in his prime. His voice, a rich contralto, echoed in the silence.

“Muse help me spin a tale about swiftfooted Achilles who great a battle begat with resourceful Ulisses at beautiful Troy’s ivory gates…”

The kid dropped his ciggarett butt on the dirty floor and stepped on it. He then turned to face the elder. “You did well tonight pops”. The old man cracked a smile. “Did you happen to notice who was sitting on the front row?” asked the kid. “Sure thing” said the elder. “The consul from Olympus. But I also did spot the representatives of Valhalla in the third row and of Hai-Brasil in the fifth”. “What about the Galaxian Reporter music critic? He was in the third row too” remarked the kid. The old man grabbed a bottle filled with a colored liquid and hit a big gulp from it. “What’s the schedule for tommorow?” asked the elder. “A performance in the Public conservatory of Hellenicon 4 at twenty five sharp and a repeat at forty two at the Dionesian Theatre in Creta 7. And that’s the morning. The late night performance is at the Eleusinian Mysteries Grounds open”. “Thirty five light years in one Galaxian daynight” nagged the elder. “Well old man Homer” said the kid “ever since we left Mycaenae we haven’t missed a single season. Sixty years in a row”. “Soon it’ll be your turn to get up there in the centre of the stage Hesiod” sighned old Homer. “The Duty of a National Bard is a great responsibility. All these years nobody has stopped this tradition. For millenia, ever since the Danaoi reached the stars there has always been a Homer and a Hesiod in turns. And that has to keep on as long as there are Danaoi and Achaeans in the Universe”. “You’re becoming didactic in your old age Homer. I thought it was the trait of Hesiods not Homers” fought back the kid. The old man, bottle in hand, approached the window. “Look at this view. It’s worth all our hardships” he declared pompously. “The Stars. The Wild Stars of Poetry. Our past, our present, our future”. “Gramps kill the sentiment. That’s stuff for the show. Remember. No song no paycheck. And I overheard that some Thespis guy, down the south rim, is preparing something new. He says it’s called… theatre. And it won’t just have singing but dancing and choirs and decors” said the kid and lit a new ciggarette. “There’s always going to be Pure Poetry” yelled the old man. “There’s always going to be a Homer”.-