'The Song at Twilight' Extract

A growling car prowled past, and a part of me lifted off, seeking the driver in his old banger, wondering what dark errand kept him on the road so late. Was he returning home from visiting relatives? Was he a drink driver? An insomniac? I found an image of a man, face shadowed, cigarette glowing in his hand, and thought ‘ah, he is the one. He is the prowler.’ But my description seemed harsh. This was a true night owl, relishing the early hours, alone with nature around him, unafraid of smothering silence.

‘Now you start to see. Tell me, boy, who is he?’

I frowned, confused. “I...can’t see. His face is blacked out.”

‘That’s right. He is the nobody of human civilisation – an outcast from the racket of achievement, culture, and toil.’

Father sounded both amused and bitter, but as I clung to the drifter’s image, the meaning of his words became clear. The man lived apart, in silence, unable to fathom society’s love for brazen noise, rudely constructed. He didn’t want to experience rush hour, nor to work to the bone for most of his life. Children were the true heralds of imagination, but he got to be one for only a small fraction of his life. The rest was dedicated to ‘rush’, and that held no appeal.

So he put on a mask, played his part to a minimum, and spent the rest of the time free, alone, and unburdened. Nature was the grail, open spaces his home, and all the time – over months and years – he trained himself to truly listen to the trees...to embrace the symphony of existence.

His profession was an obsolete one – he was a Listener to the Gods.

‘At last we come to it. Who is that man, you say? I name him the proper scientist of Earth, the magi of the past, a philosopher of the unknown.’