The Old Man and the Crow

"I've got hyper-extensive voice", I blurt out.

"You got what?"

My bestie, John and I are walking down Boundary street, the sun has not long risen and its a rare moment of quietness in West End. Up ahead stands a solitary wheelie bin with white plastic bags erupting out. A lone crow lands on the green lid and begins to tear at the plastic with its beak.

"Hyper-extensive voice. My doctor says its not normal."

"Isn't that just being a Latino...like loud?"

"Hey don't stereotype Latinos we are not loud its just that Aussies are so quiet...until they hit the piss..."

The crow is yanking hard at the plastic. Black against white.

Oh Aussie men! I think to myself, I really like this one, yet they all seem to have sandbars of secret pain that I keep running into and they don't talk about. It frustrates and bewilders me...

"Ouch", grimaces John. I know I have hit the sandbar. Tough, he's a big boy.

"Its true and you know it."

"Hmmm, maybe...sort of..."His voice trails off into the void.

The Great Australian Void I call it. Sooooo goddammed frustrating.

We have come to a standstill, our bodies moving in a synchronous dance. He takes a step away from me, giving himself space from my hyper-extended voice I wonder.

"So what is this voice thing you've got?"

I can actually hear a note of curiosity that catches me by surprise. I had expected a withdrawal to his cone of silence, followed by a sulk.

The bin is directly behind him and the Crow seems oblivious to our presence. Its now got its talons into the plastic and is really tearing at it with its beak.

"Hyper-extensive voice... My doctor just came out with it. I went to see her for one thing and then she just came out with it. She had me making sounds and reading stuff and then she says its not developed normally in my childhood. Maybe something to do with the trauma of leaving my country of birth and learning a new language...maybe. She said I might have to have my vocal chords operated on."

"Oh that's such bullshit, I do not trust mainstream medicine at all. At least get a second opinion before they mess with your voice. Like I said your Latino loud", he flashes a cheeky grin. "Your fiery! More like hyper expressive voice to me. Its what I like about you".

Plonk! The Crow nonchalantly rises upward and descends to the ground where something has dropped out of the bin.

John follows my eye to see Crow now pecking at what must be a small black book.

"Can you get it for me", I ask John looking at him in the eye so he knows I mean business.

"The things I do for you..."

He is waving his arms wildly in the direction of the Crow and at first it just stares back, so cool and defiant, before bouncing a few steps sideways, leaving the book to be retrieved.

John hands it to me with a grin of achievement on his face.

"Here is your book, your omen, your fate sealed...delivered by your humble servant."

We both laugh as he places it in my hands. The Crow craws loudly looking on with a subdued intensity...brooding.

I turn it over running my fingers across the blackness.

"Well are you going to open it?", John asks with a hint of his impatience on a leash.

"No", I state, "I'm going to wait....till tonight." I make it up as I go. "Tonight is a full moon in Scorpio. A perfect time for secrets or omens or delving into the darkness. Timing is everything."

I'm clutching the book to my chest like a long lost lover .

John does his proverbial step back and only half seriously says, "your weird".

"Thanks for the compliment, better then being normal any day and beside hyper extensive voice goes beyond weird".

John just shakes his head and I know I've touched the pain again...Oh Lord spare me from unromantic Aussie hyper-sensitive normality.

A uncanny glow from the full moon is wafting through my study window. The Black book is on the desk in front of me. There is something about it that I cannot quite put my finger on...

I feel...what is it...? A mixture of fear and excitement. What am I scared of? I don't know...its just a book, a journal or something, that someone has thrown in the bin. And yet...?

Oh well here goes...I unclasp the elastic closing it and open it on the first page. Handwriting and drawing! Now that's novel... old school.

Carlos the Magnifio. If found please return to 13 Raven road. You will be rewarded. There is a drawing of a black sun rising on the horizon with a smoking crow standing in the foreground. I like it! Its got style..

The word Raven and the image seem to coalesce and almost fly off the page. I know where Raven road is its only a few blocks away. I'm getting excited, I feel almost giddy. I slam the book shut as I do not want to invade another persons privacy. No there is something more to it. I have a sense that this is not just private, its secret. To read another's secrets, now that is a different ballgame.

It just sits there glaring back at me. Carlos the Magnifio...Hmmm I wonder, I've heard about you, I've seen you but not for at least a year now.

When I first arrived in Westy a decade ago I thought the stories about this mysterious old man was a urban myth. So many stories coalescing around this one person I had never seen... And always told in away that you felt like secret knowledge was being passed on, spoken of in solemn whispered voices, like you had been initiated into a strange cult. Carlos was in exile from Cuba. Carlos played bass at Woodstock, Carlos lived in Haight Ashbury in 1969. Carlos hung out with Timothy Leary, or Terrence McKenna, or The Doors. That his full name is Carlos Castenada and the CIA is after him. Carlos is a Shaman, he's a Bruhjo, a Wizard, he talks to the trees and preaches to the birds, he has the wildest parties...Carlos has done way too much acid. He's either a wise man, a Holy Fool or a complete fruitcake or some mixture. If you see him he will always be wearing his signature Blue Velvet suit. Winter or the hottest day in Summer. Blue suede shoes, Red Panama hat and carved wooden walking . Always with a fat cigar in hand. Some said it was a fat doobie of California Gold he smoked...

Then one day last summer its pissing down rain and I arrive at the intersection of Boundary and Vulture. The traffic is in disarray, cars horns honking and there is Carlos in the middle of the intersection oblivious to the chaos he is causing. He is in full attire slowly dancing in a circle waving his walking stick in there air and chanting in a weird voice. I wonder if its sort of rain dance...did he summon up the rain? To be honest I loved it...it made my day, it energised me to see someone not give a shit if people thought he was crazy or not. And the weirdest thing was though I stood and watched for a full ten minutes as the traffic begun to wind around him and the rain pounded down I swear his goddammed fatboy cigar never went out! It caught my eye and I puzzled over this intensely. How is that possible? Later when I shared the story people would just laugh and say in knowing tones of voice, "that's Carlos", as if the mere mention of his name could explain away an anomaly in the basic principles of cold hard reality.

I had come to the conclusion the old dude had shuffled off this mortal coil. Must of been a year since I last saw him.

The journal just sat there, silent in its blackness. Reward, reward, reward...shuffled around on loop in my brain circuitry. My mind drifted into reverie. I was seeing a garish psychedelic door with the number 13 dripping in the centre. The door opens and Carlos and I exchange silently. I give him the journal and he gives me a Coles plastic shopping bag. I,m walking home and peer in. There is a layer of dried leaves and underneath... its full of gold, gold coins, shining like a beacon in the night, my mind is ablaze with the golden light...!!

No, I think I will just leave it for a while. The book was ditched so he must of croked it...

Raven road...Black Moon, its nearly midnight. There's a storm approaching. I can smell it. This is crazy, I think to myself. I can just drop it at the door and bolt. Black moon always feel like a energy drain for me and I had crashed out early for a change. The dream I had was so real I knew I had to get rid of this book for good. In the dream I'm clutching the book tightly in my hand, walking a narrow, winding, treelined, footpath at night. The trees begin to creep in closer to finally I have to use all my strength to squeeze through a gap between two trees. I'm in a sort of circular courtyard that's ringed by trees that are full of birds. The noise is almost deafening. Has to be crows though the darkness hides them. Then I spot him. In the intense blackness amidst the branches, slowly like out of a mist I can make out a man crouching there. He stretches his arms out except they are wings and then it all comes together. The suit, the hat, the hair and even in the dark I can see and feel the eyes penetrating me. Its goddammed Carlos. I wake in a sweat. Pull some clothes on and head out like a banshee determined to return this little black voodoo book.

Just drop it and bolt and I will be safely in bed before the storm hits. Easy- peasey!

I make out no 11 on the rusting letterbox, it must be the next one. The wind is getting stronger. Holy shit! 13. Its the freaking same psychedelic door and there's a light on inside and music. What the!... the music! Riders on the storm... Just a few steps, drop it at the front door and bolt...The door opens, and in a cloud of cigar smoke there he is, just as I remember him.

"Carlos the Magnifio at your service senorita". He takes off his hat and swings it through the smoke and bows.

I'm lost for words...

"I see you have my old black friend with you", he says looking at the book in my hand. I too look down as if I'm surprised to see it there and look back at him as if to say, " I have no idea how that got there". I pass it to him wordlessly, my throat all but clogged like a drainpipe, unable to let a sound out.

"Oh dearest Senorita you have ventured the wildest of the elements on this black night to return my beloved to me not knowing this is my last night here. That is truly an act of grace of which I am most appreciative".

His voice is deep and rich and seems to echo in some hidden dark place inside me. He gestures to his heart while I continue to just focus on not letting my mouth fall open. I must have a deer in the headlights look about me. I feel like a deer in the headlights. Stunned, lost for words, bewildered, in awe.

He smiles and the creases on his face rearrange. His deep set blue eyes almost sparkle. The silence lingers until finally I speak.

"Sorry I did'nt drop it off earlier I did'nt know if you were still um...here".

He chuckled ,"oh the rumours of my imminent departure have been greatly exaggerated in the past but alas now they are true. What a glorious night to meet when I, Carlos the Magnifio am preparing to leave my humble abode for good. The end is nigh. Brother Cancer has spoken.

"Oh I'm so sorry", I almost whisper. "I wish I had met you, I mean dropped off your book earlier".

Again that smile and those eyes...searching. "And yet we have met for this moment on this night. This is life right here. Now my sweet one, I can hear something in your voice that I have not heard for a long time. Your accent?

"My mother was from Equadour, my Dad is Aussie".

"Ahh a complex mixture and something deeper, I hear something deeper in your voice".

I take a deep breath. Stuff it ,this whole night has been weird so here we go, disclose all my secrets to a stranger on his doorstep at midnight with a cyclone brewing...Like why not!

"I've been diagnosed with Hyper extensive voice...its not normal but I can get it fixed...".

This time he laughs more loudly.

"Its true... I think".

"Yes it is true, that's what science calls it. They give names to what they cannot understand". He gestures with his hands to imply narrowness. "They squeeze and explain away the life in life".

Then he seemed to look past me into the night and it was like he was both speaking to me and the darkness around me simultaneously.

"I am an old man about to meet sister death, my fate. Some say I am crazy and they don't lie", he chuckled again and sucked on the half finished cigar, blowing the smoke above my head. "Most voices are like this smoke the sound dissipates quickly. Your voice travels far. The winged ones and the invisible ones hear it. Some things only a crazy old man knows."

I feel lava-like energy rising in my throat pushing against whatever was clogging it.

He seemed to float effortlessly a few steps backwards down the hallway and then forwards again with a Coles plastic shopping bag in his hand.

"When I was younger and older then I am now, a Senorita arriving at my door on the stroke of midnight...well she would be in moral danger", he chuckled. "Alas... I must let you go, you have completed your mission and there is a big storm brewing. Please take this for your service". He thrusts the plastic bag into my hand.

My throat feels like it will burst apart with the strain and I can only mutter a guttural "thank you".

He waves me away whilst again seemingly floating back through the doorway. Then he stops.

Alas forgive me ...an old man forgets his manners, what was your name?

"Sophia", I manage to mutter.

"Your voice is a gift Sophia, if you are ever in a dark place...remember what a crazy old man has told you. Now please go before I forget and act like my shoe size not my age..." Again that chuckle and the smile and yet I can see his blue eyes are filling with tears and he is gone before I can speak another word...

I stand and stare at the dripping 13 on the door as if I need to imprint, burn this image onto my soul. I turn and put one foot in front of the other. On automatic pilot. Clutching the plastic bag to my chest. A volcano begins to erupt in my chest, lava. Somewhere in the distance a crow begins to sing, and on cue the waters in the sky above break...

TO BE CONTINUED..