He played the harmonica above his plate, beans in a muddy sauce, remembering his days playing with Buddy Guy. He controlled the vibrations of air in this room, his canvas. The air which he played spun a melody of traversing a valley. In thoughts and in tune he followed the river therein. The river brought him back again to the table, empty save for a plate.

Gus, sitting half-dazed on the ground in a corner of the same room, drummed a beat on the palm of his hand. “Why don’t you send me a postcard, baby…” he started singing. “A postcard, with a… dancing panda bear, or something. This part ain’t finished. But it ends like this…”

The phone rang. The room was no longer filled with: harmonica playing, bean eating, Gus’s singing or hand clapping. The phone rang and Junior let it ring. Says Gus: “Hey man.”

“Hey man. Who do you think is ringing up your phone?”
“Your girl.”
“Nah, she won’t talk to me until I get a promotion. Pick up the phone, man.”

Junior shrugged and started to play his harmonica, the notes to a song he wrote about working in the orchard in the rain, alone in a haze of dark and wet. The scents, the sound. Oceans of time. Just a guy in an orchard, cold and wet and busy and content.