Music Found

    I had the strangest dream. I was wanting to get away, to vanish for a bit and was walking along a coast looking for a way to get down to the water. A tree was reaching up from below and it looked like I could slip down to the water along one of the branches so like the kid I once was, no sooner thought than done. I reached down with my staff as I slid and went and just as I was getting down by the water the end of the staff hit some wood with the most marvelous hollow resonant sound. I realized I had to stop then because I'd gotten to the water, it was just a few inches deep but deep right up to the bluff I'd come down, so I looked around and found a crook and settled in and hit the wood again. So beautiful. I started to hit around and found all these notes, a sort of natural? xylophone. It was getting near dark, so I more felt for than looked for different notes. There were some fallen sticks and I tried with some of them to get different sounds, but ended up just pulling them off to the sides, my staff could reach more notes. I hit something different and realized there was an old small engine wedged in. I found a hammer of a sort I hadn't ever seen with small narrow faces. I tried hitting notes with it too, but I couldn't hit very hard without it trying to dig in to the wood so after trying it a bit on the little engine, I set it aside and went back to my staff. Pretty soon I had a nice rhythmic melody going and cycled through throwing in variations as I went.
    All of a sudden a guy slides down beside me and grins. I grinned back but didn't stop so he grabs a stick and joins in. Soon another and another come down and by then I realized that this was their place, and that I was the interloper, but with music, there is no interloper, there's just play, so I played. All my troubles were gone, there was nothing but music. We went on for a long time working around my composition, but eventually it started to slide to something else, and I dropped back into supporting rhythm with a little counter here or there. A last guy, an old grizzled grey whiskered guy spry as a monkey dropped in. I realized no more sticks were there and reached behind and felt for the hammer and gave it to him. He slid to the engine and clearly he knew it. He found sounds I hadn't. We must have played for an hour or three. I don't know. It was full dark by then, we couldn't see more than flashes of teeth in the darkness under the tree. The tide had gone out, and by starlight and waxing moonlight, I could see a bit of path at the base of the little cliff had appeared, and thinking to go, I took my chance. I slithered down and found myself on wet rocks and clambered along looking for a way up. Behind me the sound kept me company for a long time as I went.