“Short stories and musical cues designed to inspire.”

“Mystical Shorts” is a collection of short stories showcasing several different adventures I’ve had over the years with my fictional rainy day friend, Simon Birdsong. 

Our first story, “THE FORGOTTEN TALE”, was conditionally promised by Simon’s Grandfather to be shared to him when Simon  found another of pure heart.

Over these tested times, we have become quite certain that neither of us possess the capacity to judge anyones heart and therefore have decided to offer up this collection of recollections to anyone now making or remaking acquaintance. 

Please know, you’re always welcome here to join Simon and me in summoning up the great Santa Ana Wind, in hope that it may lift us all together onto our next plateau.

“And on it may go, as on we may go.” – Steven Mumford January/2026 🙂

See “Roadmap to Mystical Shorts” for direction on how to best navigate this site. 

Once a year “The Great Mestolio” glides into the Coachella Valley from high above the peaks of the San Bernadinos.  At summer’s end, he leaves the shaded sanctity of the alpine mountain lakes for the more predictable terrain of his earlier years.  With one gust, the Santa Ana lifts him into flight…..

Using the updrafts provided by the Southern California desert wind, he gracefully descends to the warmth and familiarity awaiting below.  With each degree of heat, Mestolio’s eyes sync to the angle of his wing.  The weave of increased temperature and landmarks, help exact his flight plan to the place reserved only for him.  All instincts tell the Mestolio to fly past the giant fans and billboards to the cliffs of the San Jacinto.  He must, as ever before, craft his accelerating glide along the mountainside, drafting beyond the natural desert springs and cacti until reaching the El Paseo, where rest and contentment await him.

After the three hour journey Mestolio refreshes in the small water overflow of the palm tree planter on Tommy’s second story patio.  The views to the El Paseo are bent like images in fun house mirrors.  Everywhere outside there is no escaping the heat waving grip of the desert, but this does not bother the Mestolio.  He is proud, having again found success in locating his personal oasis.  The patio now is Mestolio’s domain, his castle alone.

The cool, but quickly evaporating water, soothes his hardened cracked feet.  From claw to wing, from feather to head, Mestolio delightfully refreshes, and is emboldened enough to fix a new position atop a nearby table of glass and iron.  He does not care about being observed by those inside Tommy’s casa.  The two toned bird regally struts to the table’s center and slowly and symmetrically extends his large wingtips to the heavens until his back is reverse arched.  Finding satisfaction in his realignment, the Mestolio tilts his head from side to side until he shakes like a happy wet dog.  With two more steps forward, his bulging bb eyes methodically survey the environ. Lifting his tail feathers, he provides sufficient room for exacting his “personal signature” on the table top beneath him while being in full view of those inside the casa.  Mestolio remains aloof and without shame.  For now, and forever he is the reigning king of Tommy’s patio.

For a fraction of a second, my eyes are diverted, and when glancing back, like the sweetness of the mango in November, he is gone.  Looking to the horizon, I site three, maybe two impostors, side by side on a bar hosting a traffic light above the Paseo.  I pondered, could one of them be Mestolio?

My beautiful bride of one day and twenty years approaches our table inside Tommy’s casa.  I look into the sparkle of her deep brown eyes and with one breath…..the Great Mestolio no longer exists.

Typically, darkness prevails at the opening to most caves, but this night, from a small hole in the side of the vast San Jacinto, a spectrum of glowing slivers leaks out into the open night air.  From far away, the event may have appeared to be a powerful star exploding into some far off galaxy, but a closer look would reveal an equally magnificent occurrence just five miles from the city’s central plaza.

This night, a gentle breeze sails through the boulder and palm, singing to the creatures guarding the cave’s entrance.

It was twenty years ago to this day, that the two impostors had left Mestolio alone to meet his fate on that street light by Tommy’s casa.

Since first flight, Mestolio had always known he had been chosen.  Two decades earlier his claws had wrapped about the steel girder bracing for the inevitable.  Mestolio’s expectant eyes had fixed straight ahead, watching a lone soccer ball, hauntingly without kick, pick up speed toward him.

All those years ago it took only seconds for that powerful gust of wind to force a giant fan into whirling white, to bend a lone yucca tree and send clusters of sand across highway 111, until pinpointing Mestolio’s position, sending him into an incredible involuntary vanishing act.

If two decades ago,  I hadn’t diverted my eyes back to my beautiful bride, I likely would have witnessed Mestolio’s incredibly swift exit.

Now, far off the El Paseo, away from the comforts of Tommy’s upstairs patio, Mestolio would remain dormant for another twenty years, unconscious in a small cave at the base of the great San Jacinto.

As with the wind before and for years that followed, the Ancients will take great care to guide their sacred underground water into and through Mestolio’s ravaged beak.  The secret fluid of the living desert, which had successfully eluded dinosaurs and the entrapments of the post Cambrian for a millennium, finally will find reprise, leaving all that is left only to the “awakening”.

But typically, like a man of my years, I fear I’m rambling and getting ahead of myself……

The small hole in the earth expanded with each thrust of the Mestolio’s now healthy beak.  The cave hosting him for the past two decades had become too confining for his revived frame.  Each demolishing peck outward opened the desert starlit sky, graciously returning familiar scents Mestolio had known since first nest.  He longed to breakout and expand his wings.  Mestolio needed to glide again along the vertical cliffs of the San Jacinto and feel the warm air caress his feathered wings.  His strong beak and claws worked frantically in sync, pushing aside the rock and dirt, to make way for sweet flight.

In that early spring, my beautiful bride of forty years and I began our annual trek inland from the edge of the Pacific until reaching the trailhead leading up to the shaded lakes of the San Grogornio.  We climbed the ribbon road until everything below was miniaturized.  I took joy, fishing in the perfected art of conversing with her, looking for the reward of her infectious smile.  Every year invited this venture out, to feel the mountain chill of the last snow melt until we would ultimately defer to the warmth of the Coachella Valley below.

After two days and nights we descended back down the mountain towards the desert floor below until countless tiny landmarks again found proper scale.  The highway east, would again bring the kiss of the desert sun and new fishing grounds for conversation.

We travelled past the billboards along highway 111.  Signs depicting heaven, directing how to get there.  Signs in the middle of nowhere, promising paradise amongst the dirt and tumbleweed…..so many perishable signs.

With the first big bend in the road, the majesty of the San Jacinto came into full view.  Flowered below the base of the enormous mountain, between the signs and yucca, a large farm of wind fans dotted the landscape.  Passing through the twirling swath of fans, our sense of normality suddenly shifted.

Several of the fans had been severed or torn along a true straight line as if by a giant ruler.  A quarter of a mile further east we were slowed to a stop near the banks of the Whitewater River.  Authorities instructed everyone to remain calm as they waved a military convoy through. Most of us bewilderedly watched, trying to understand the commotion.

Our eyes drew upward towards an incredibly amplified echoing koooooo to behold a great bird trying to maintain its balance on the steep mountainside.  Some of the onlookers screamed as if for their lives, others hooped and yelled, some actually seemed to be angry for being inconvenienced.  An approaching dust trail followed behind a rushing convoy leading straight to a plateau near the wondrous creature.  As the convoy began to establish position, the creature drafted into a glide further eastward along the jagged cliffs towards Cathedral City until out of sight.

Earlier, with the rising sun, when Mestolio sat perched atop the San Jacinto, all appeared normal.  The vast Salton Sea, the San Grogornio, the Paseo, all laid before him, innocently extending invitation.  Now in desperate flight towards the refuge of Tommy’s second story patio, simple geometry displayed the futility of his effort.  Mestolio’s wing span exceeded the width of his memory. His wings now clipped buildings on each side of the paseo.  When trying to land on Tommy’s patio, an extension of single claw caved in the railing on the second story balcony.  His heart beating faster and faster, the Mestolio mustered all his might to maintain flight, but he knew he would soon need to land.  He yearned for water to sooth his hardened claw and feather.  He needed to slow down his heart to find space between the beats to understand what was happening.

Above the Whitewater River, the sky filled with military jets leaving dozens of thin vapor trails behind their fast moving shadows.  Their speed defied imagination, the loudness pierced our ear drums.  The shadows efficiently merged into a formation following the creature’s flight eastward along the Santa Rosas.

The sky cleared with a diminuendo of sound.  Being temporarily removed from the immediate drama of events, my bride and I stood by the banks of the Whitewater mystified that we would be included in something so unimaginable.  Our hands separated when hearing an incredible explosion downstream toward the end of the mountain range.  We were ordered to turn back and head west. We gladly turned around and followed the late afternoon sun home to the Pacific.

Legend has it that once a year, every year until twenty years ago, the Great Mestolio would glide down from the high alpine lakes, past the giant wind fans, signs and yucca, along the vertical cliffs of the San Jacinto until finding his domain on the outside second story patio of Tommy’s casa on the Paseo.

Today, legend requires that a freakish bird be destroyed while sitting on a perch above the main stadium at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

 After what was left of him was swept up, the blood stains on center court could never be washed out or painted over.

His confiscated heart is still rumored to faintly beat inside a massive vacuum sealed, stainless steel room, at a laboratory in New Mexico, not more than five miles from the village center of Santa Fe.

Many say it is the heart of an impostor.

Santos was born on La Pampa, where he spent his youth with the herd meandering about in the tall grass along the cliffs bordering the cool Atlantic.  Like his peers, most of his thoughts encompassed filling his stomach and taking the easiest path to the day’s end.  Such was the life of Santos in his early and uneventful years.

One December morning, with the coming of the Argentinian sun, a bulgy eyed bird of silver and gray landed directly on the young bulls head.  The feeling of weight and movement above his eyes seemed foreign, but Santos quickly acclimated and without further thought soon rejoined the others in the common ritual of swishing tails and consuming grass.

The gauchos could always pick out Santos, because he was the only one in the herd with a bird perched on his head.  This made them smile and want to keep their two companions around.  Perhaps the duo enhanced the gauchos’ day and explained why year after year, after all the others were gathered for market, Santos and the pigeon were left behind to again feast on next spring’s succulent offerings.

Seven years after the bird’s arrival, a great wind blew ashore with such strength that the herd panicked and began to run inland away from the sea for shelter.  There were many ravines at the base of the nearby mountains, but to the gauchos’ delight, most all followed each other into the same boxed canyon, making their retrieval very easy.

Santos, however, lost his vision as his companion’s wings had fanned out over his eyes during the stampede.  When finally stopping, the bull and bird found themselves alone in a narrow canyon, much farther north than the others, somewhere along the eastern base of the great Andes mountain range.

The canyon was so narrow that Santos, plump from eating so much tall green grass, could not turn around.  His only option was to move westward through a small crevasse in the mountain with his bird companion jumping on and off his head, until they would reach a remote Chilean beach on the Pacific side of the great Andes.

Gazing at the calm waves, Santos yearned to again eat the lush green grass of La Pampa, but he had lost his sense of direction on how to return.  Aimlessly, Santos began a slow graze northward, past the Tropic of Cancer, eating everything between the equator and Southern California.  The Pacific Ocean, now a constant to his left, became his new internal compass.  Absent the laughter of the gauchos and the tall grass of La Pampa, his only link to the past was the bird jumping on and off his head during their long journey north.

This continued for countless sunsets.  Each ending with the same insatiable hunger, the bird and the sun disappearing into the darkness over the water to the west, leaving Santos always and forever alone in the cold nightfall.

One day, in the south of California, the bird landed heavily on Santos’s head and began incessantly pecking away.  This caused even the Santos to become very annoyed.  He swished his tail as fast as he could, yet to no avail.  The pecking continued. Santos rocked his head up and down, only causing the pecking to increase in tempo.  In his frustration, Santos ran away from the water toward a low hanging branch of a nearby tree, finally succeeding in scaring his bothersome companion, prompting the bird to fly high into the air towards the peak of a far away mountain.

Santos was so relieved, he did not notice his directional change inland.  Now without the ocean on his left, Santos slowly wandered into the vast vacuum of the Southern California desert, to pursue the deceiving mirage of shade and water at the base of the tall mountain before him.

Not having seen the bird for days, Santos was on his own, chewing on the sparse tumbleweed and cacti as he meandered through the hot, barren desert towards the distant landmark.  Over time, his legs grew more weary, his lips and chin became bloodied from eating the various scattered scrubs dotting the dry dirt about him.  The strengthening constant desert sun had now mercilessly beaten down his body into a frail silhouette of its past. Evening brought only temporary relief, until the predictable bitter cold would sweep in and engulf Santos, bringing with it what felt like forever until dawn.  Santos was now lost and alone. Without the company of the bird on his head, Santos was beginning to feel invisible.

Possibly, seeing his last sunrise, too cold to even enjoy the rewarding warmth of the early desert sun, the lost creature’s knees buckled as he slowly caved into the earth beneath him.  Santos habitually looked to the sky for his winged companion, only to find himself laying beneath a gigantic billboard.  About to close his eyes, perhaps for the last time, Santos thought for a moment that he could again smell the tall green grass of La Pampa and hear the faint laughter of the gauchos.

His instincts fading into vague memories, Santos prepared for his final nap on the floor of the barren valley surrounding him.  Dreaming the last pictures of everything defining him, he sensed an extreme slowing down towards complete darkness. Santos was strangely calm and at last content to end this life’s journey, until being interrupted by something gently dragging across his forehead.

His eyes slowly opened to a clouded image of what Santos thought was a gaucho, caressing his head with a damp cloth and then wringing it out providing small droplets of water near the bull’s caked chapped mouth.  Not knowing what else to do, he took in the water and slowly gave chance to this new restart.

Time, water and the shade of the giant billboard brought on more clarity. The “gaucho” was a short man wearing glasses so thick that his eyes were blurred beyond recognition of intent. Santos, never having peered into the eyes of a human being at such close range, sensed no option, but to follow the tugging rope and the man with no eyes to the awaiting trailer, roadside.

The fresh flake of compressed grass availed on the ledge at the front of the trailer was so delightful to Santos he hardly noticed being in motion or the palomino traveling in the stall next to him.  Together, they both chewed away on their hay, drinking water and swishing their tails as the turning wheels below them rolled eastward out of the Coachella Valley, leaving behind his winged companion and the high peak of the San Jacinto as the trailer flowed onward into the early evening stars towards the land of enchantment and the small village of Santa Fe.

Before becoming the custodian of the heart, Dr. Klaus Baumann was content in his pursuit of science.  He managed to retain a rational perspective on life while searching for its origin.  Every day a gift.  Every day revered.

This night, like all others before, Klaus would set down his thick glasses on the nightstand next to his bed and welcome the familiar blur that enveloped him.  His thoughts often returned to his childhood in Katmandu and the chronology of events leading to the present.  Recently, since returning from the Coachella Valley, the quantity of events and vivid depth of detail surrounding them, began to bombard his blur at an alarming pace.

Rather than worry, the doctor embraced the abundance and rapidity of his new recollections.  How could he have forgotten so much of the space between the benchmarks?  The people he merged with, the scents, tones and emotions that helped form him, were all swiftly coming at him.  Each episode fitting perfectly in synch with the prior and following scenes.  Even his life’s regrets now lay before him with new perspective.

The string and pattern of visuals for the past four nights, although expanding and accelerating with each new eve, kept ending abruptly on one of two separate events not logically fitting his timeline.  He would open his eyes and anxiously reconstruct the chain, trying to derive the logic in the pattern.

In his fifteenth year, while at school in biology class, Klaus was debating with his professor the ethics of dissecting a live frog, which over the course of the semester, the majority of the class had come to affectionately know as Minu.  Student Klaus Baumann, felt that without respect for life, indeed without humanity, how could there be honor in science.  Science, he felt, was a nobel pursuit, and although it could be used to unravel several queries, could anyone ever expect to attain any finality?  If taking life, meant getting closer to the impossible, it was a path, for him, that would remain untraveled.  There was a small, but profound victory for Klaus that day, as the class cheered with him on the decision to forgo the demise of their green friend living at the back of the classroom.  The doctor laughed to himself that of all the scenes in his life, this one had emerged as being so significant.

Now wide awake, out of habit when needing sleep, the man with no eyes gently tilted a small glass figurine of a top hat on the bedside table to one side, letting the hat rock back and forth, doubling in speed with each sway.  Click…Clack..Click..Clack.ClickityClackityClickityClackity…..with each half sway the top hat got faster and quieter in tandem as it accelerated toward the infinite.  His life’s timeline was now in fast forward, becoming vividly clearer until he was sitting at his parents dinning room table at the age of seventeen, rocking the same glass top hat in wonderment.  As the hat rocked faster, it now synced with the present, taking him into an enormous crescendoing white blur.

Launched past the point of no return, Klaus was strangely content with his incredible passage into the unknown, only looking back once to see Santos eating hay and swishing his tail in the field next to the laboratory/home of the great heart.  The man with no eyes heart ached while preparing for the solo journey ahead.  With his last breath, Klaus at last let go and flailed into the mystic.

The next day, no one was at the door of the laboratory to welcome the lost and curious.  No one was there to announce to the public that the incredible heart of the largest bird ever seen, had after seven years on life support, suddenly stopped beating.

On our last assent to a remote peak of the San Gabriel my Grandfather and I decided to take a new path along the eastern fork of what we called “Little Creek”.  Water played in and out of the random boulders and fallen branches that provided a safe crossing when the trail required.  Morning sunlight filtered through the green foliage along the water’s edge, dancing across my Grandfathers lean frame, accentuating the familiar labyrinth of colors in the tightly rolled up Indian blanket tied to his backpack.

I remember the depth of of my love for him and the joy of being outside and included in his pilgrimages.  With our steps and sometimes miscalculated crossings of Little Creek, we would laugh when our feet slipped off the moist boulders to find the water deep to our knees. Laughter always interwove with comfortable silence between topics ranging from continental drift to the virtues of corn nuts and Dr. Pepper.  I truly loved my Grandfather.

Sensing his age, I marveled at his determination to lead us upstream to our eventual vista.  I didn’t want these adventures to ever end, but knew it unfair to expect our sojourns to continue forever.  This likely would be the last time to spread his colorful blanket under the stars together, and although feeling this, we both anticipated a profound occurrence this night in our shared lives.

Unusually early to partake in the pipe, grandfather reminisced about the blanket beneath us.  He shared that it was given to him by his grandfather on their last hike in Santa Fe, and how it had served to lend ceremony to their sharing of tales.  He recalled the various storylines one after another until they merged together loosely with the thin vapors of smoke swirling from the base of his pipe into the heavens.

I knew this night was to be special and although trying hard to stay attentive, I finally succumbed to the long hike’s demand for sleep waiting at the end of our trail……my last memory that night, being my grandfather smoking and laughing at the stars, his voice diminishing to the sound of the wind and warmth of being fireside.  I love you Grandfather.

With the rising sun, I went to the stream’s edge to collect some water.  When I returned, I found the colorful Indian blanket tightly rolled up, affixed now to the top of my pack……I will never forget you Grandfather! Your smiling face, your laugh, your twinkling eyes and the humble sharing of your knowledge!

We flowed in trio, along the small creek that would soon gently pass the front porch my grandfather’s cabin….. the small porch out front, that for my entire life had provided sanctuary for his whittling and guitar playing, was strangely empty.

The Santa Ana accompanied my father suddenly picking up pace, pulling him away from me forcing a run just to keep up.

Today was different. I now understood my father’s worry.  The porch was never empty this time of day.  My grandfather’s guitar leaned alone against his vacant favorite chair with an envelope intertwined through the strings.  On the floor, just to the side, his pipe (which never leaves his side) and a half finished wood carving were just short of being taken away by the strong Santa Ana wind.

With our first steps up to the porch, Santa Ana disappeared taking with her the last shavings around the wooden sculpture in progress, leaving us behind with only the sound of the water gently caressing the creekside boulders.  We looked into the one room cabin to find our common thread in deep slumber, “singing” randomly between his deep non rhythmic breaths.  My father felt it best to leave him to himself to complete what we often referred to as his “conversation with the whales”.  

Retreating to the porch, we sat in the absence of Santa Ana, content in listening to the melody of my grandfather’s moan/sing/speak concert, trying to figure out what he could possibly be saying to the kings of the ocean.  The crescendo of one run was so incredible that we turned to each other and began uncontrollably  laughing in the same patterns genetically wired over the years by our adored sleeping host.

Then as quickly as Santa Ana’s exit, the singing/moaning abruptly stopped…..

By weeks end, my father and I travelled to the white sands along the Pacific, carrying with us my Grandfather’s pipe, guitar and unfinished wood carving.

My father awkwardly, but in earnest, attempted to replicate the melody of my Grandfather until giving into tears. The salted water flowed heavily from our hearts and eyes, raising the tide with what must have been the tears of the whales.

Surrounded by seats filled with strangers, the shade of the San Jacinto blended into the tinted windows of the Greyhound as we all rolled out of the Coachella Valley.  The seat next to me silently held my grandfather’s backpack and blanket.  Without my fishing companion, I sadly travelled alone, the void only being filled by the voice of a too familiar ghost.

The annoying spirit continued to reminded me that as the designated keeper of the “Forgotten Tale”, I must have it.  Out of habit, I reached into my coat pocket for reassurance that I still possessed my Grandfather’s letter of introduction, hoping that upon arriving at the village of Saint Francis, his prose would deliver the tale to me as he ultimately had intended.

For nearly a decade, since I stopped fishing for my bride’s smile, I had, on occasion, tried to decipher the content of his letter, wondering why my Grandfather chose to be so mysterious about it…..why my father had taken so long, before his passing, to give me his father’s directive.

Traveling across New Mexico’s rich red clay, in my one hundredth year, as instructed, I followed, the stars and green shrubbery eastward to the foot of the Sangre de Cristo, still sensing that finding a blanket matching the color and pattern of the one next to me, seemed as unlikely as finding someone with it that could lead me to the actual “Forgotten Tale”.

With a heavy sigh, I tucked letter back into my pocket, and with one breath, I imagined……..

Slivers of light pierced the greyhound’s darkened cocoon. With a final push the doors of the bus opened to the sweet smell of buttered corn and agave.  In the background I could hear my recently acquired “ghost guide” engaged in conversation with some other spirit across the isle to our left.

They argued in different languages over what to call where we were.   “Agah Po’oge, Yooto”, as well as several other options were being considered.  Both somewhat liked “La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assisi”, but agreed it took entirely too long to pronounce.

Each spirit grabbed my arms, assisting me in standing and securing my backpack. I accepted their help in escorting me towards the steps down into the light.  My hands were bruised from carrying the extra weight.  Even for my age, my hands looked foreign to me. How could they be mine?

I was grateful for the darkness in the greyhound, hiding my reflection off of the glass, allowing me no confirmation of how lost and disoriented I really was.  Immensely tired and alone, except for my now two ghost guides, I momentarily questioned the importance of finding the tale at all and seriously considered going back to my seat and surrendering to this life’s ordeal.

Once the three steps into the mid day sun were cautiously navigated, my acquaintances begin tugging on each arm beckoning  me to go with them in different directions.  Stubbornly, I trekked north towards the village center, content that this Tuesday I was accommodating no one, except my Grandfather.

Giovani, the newest spirit, slowed as we passed the Cathedral Bassicilica and insisted we all stop at the San Miguel.  My ghost on the right was angered that our path missed the plaque commemorating Dr. Baumann and the burial site of the giant heart he cared for.  So on it went, as on we went.

We passed numerous trinkets and opportunities to eat, the abundant colored crafts and warm smell of corn tortillas didn’t curtail our pursuit along the path towards the Palace of the Governors.  About to collapse, the spirits helped me push on until together we all converged on the blanketed isle described in the letter of my Grandfather.

Now with second wind, my eyes sharpened as we reviewed the various blankets displaying the wares and crafts of the local artists. I examined each blanket in detail for the entire length of the block, looking for a match in color and pattern, without success.  I asked anyone that would listen, if they had ever seen a blanket similar to mine before or a carving that resembled my Grandfather’s half finished piece……..I may as well have been invisible.

Ready to give into the heat of the sun, the spirits assisted in unison leading me to a seat by a tranquil bubbling fountain in the square.

My eyes closed, I yearned for sleep’s end. I had done the best I could do, it was all I had, this Tuesday afternoon…..I was ready, at last, to let go and flail into the mystic.

Desire abandoned, I was content with my life’s reconciliation.  The bubbles off the water fountain rolled on, audibly dancing through the rocks as in the stream bed by my Grandfather’s bungalow.  The faint smell of eucalyptus intertwined with the soft scent of butter and corn tortilla.  Santa Ana had followed me from the San Gabriels, past the billboards and giant wind fans of the Coachella Valley, beyond the grandeur of the magnificent San Jacinto, and now to the foot of the Sangre de Cristo.

No longer feeling angst for my shortcomings, I suffered only the loss of those left behind.  I was now, lost, alone and knew it to be true.

I had come through this Tuesday afternoon to find the space between my heart beats, strangely content with my pursuits regardless of outcome.  Love and loss abounded in my heart, alternating faster and faster until merging into a silent blurred film of my life.

The diminuendo about me, swiftly approaching complete silence, was then interrupted by the faint strum of a distant guitar playing the melody of my Grandfather.

I opened one eye, looking across the narrow calle towards the music’s source.  My spirit friends now vanished into the New Mexican sky, I sited a small cluster of three people, sitting around a guitarist playing atop a brilliant blanket of blue.

I mustered everything I had to cross the hardened clay pathway towards them.  When arriving, I was invited to sit, but was too excited noting the exact similarities in their blanket to mine and the finished carvings around them replicating my Grandfather’s unfinished work.

Hands shaking, I fumbled with my coat pocket until producing the letter of introduction to the eldest of the group.  After reading, her eyes welled up…. they could have been my father’s eyes.  She implored me to wait for her return and ran off to a nearby casita.

Not five minutes later, the woman of half my age and an elder approached handing me a sealed envelope and a single wooden carving.

They again invited me to sit and rest while offering me food and drink. The familiarity of their eyes and melody of the guitar overwhelmed me.  I graciously accepted their invitation, with the secret knowledge I was nearing my one hundred and first birthday with no where else to go.

Hardened wax covered the seam of the envelope.  The seal embedded on the wax imitated the carving it accompanied.  My eldest host lent his hands in opening the parched container.  Inside, a single piece of paper exhibited the steadier handwriting of my grandfather’s prose to say –

    “To the keeper of “The Forgotten Tale”, I am writing these instructions down as I know not yet who you are.  Afraid of dying or forgetting the tale before I’m able to find one of true heart, I have scribed and hid it inside this carving, which I’ve entrusted others to deliver to you.  Simply remove the nesting bird from the head of the bull and inside you will find “The Forgotten Tale”, as recited to me in my youth.

Delivered in earnest,

Martin Birdsong

While attempting to pull, without success, the likeness of a grey pigeon, from the head of the wooden bull, I absorbed the twilight giving into the stars dancing over the Sangre de Cristo, accompanied by the guitar’s familiar melody of my Grandfather.  Across the narrow paseo, next to the empty tables normally hosting trinkets and blankets, I could make out the silhouette of a living bull tied to a statue of Saint Francis in front of a gift shop.  Rather than fight captivity, he seemed calm, swishing his tail while searching for small blades of grass within his reach.

At that exact moment, Santa Ana picked up the corners of my blanket seat and delivered three pigeons.  One landing on the outstretched arms of Saint Francis, one on the hardened dirt next to me, and the third exacted a position precisely on the live bull’s head.

The hands, I thought not mine, inexplicably ceased to shake and found the counterclockwise motion needed to unscrew the bird from the wooden carving.  I pulled out a scroll from the carving and began to read……

“THE FORGOTTEN TALE”, as recited to me before I even thought I knew who I was.

“Always remember.  Remember to never forget that we are all lost in our existence.  With this knowledge, let us always be compassionate Human Beings.  If the continents drift and you cannot find your way home, give comfort to your fellow travelers and you will soon find your way.”

The tributaries off the Sangre de Cristo accepted my tears.  Their droplets would flow westward to the Pacific, and later merge with the great salted oceans of earth.

Tomorrow, I will return to my bungalow near the sea. I will again pass the San Jacinto, the wind farms and the billboards promising heaven. I will take pause by the banks of the Whitewater River to remember my beautiful bride, Mestolio, and Santos.  I will give thanks for another day on this journey and remember to never forget, never forget “The Forgotten Tale”.

But in this evening, I will share my Grandfather’s blanket and pipe, play guitar and recant stories under all of our magnificent stars giving thanks for another Tuesday amongst my fellow travelers.

I am forever yours in earnest,

Simon Birdsong