Ashes Of The Phoenix

When she reached the boy she was quite bemused. He cheerfully drew bread crumbs from a paper bag and threw them to the birds; he even had a pigeon on his head. Fade solemnly decided that from that day onward she wouldn’t even touch him again.

The boy threw the crumbs far away and all the birds disappeared, as if they had been tied with invisible threads to the paper bag and had been dragged away with it, then he slid off the metal body of the statue and enthusiastically reached her.

“I guess you didn’t take the taxi,” he said, looking at the wrinkled map in the girl's hands.

“I prefer managing on my own,” she replied proudly.

“Come on, I'll bring you to a special place!” He said running off and raising a column of pigeons with his feet, which dropped back to the ground, creating a sort of grey ‘wave’.

Shortly later, they found themselves in a narrow pub with wood panelled walls. Behind the counter, a hearty man was about to cut some meat for a sandwich.

“This is the best kebab in the city. Come on, let’s eat, I'm starving!” He said as he approached the man. She followed him, uncertain as to trust him or not, but her stomach left her without a doubt: she was also starving.

“Ibrahim!” The boy called. The man turned suspiciously but then he glowed at the sight of the pink bob.

“Jag, you're back! Is it me or have you shrunk?” He kidded him.

“You're the one who got fatter, you nut head!” The child replied with a hint of animosity in his eyes; the man noticed his look and tried to calm him. “Sorry, sorry, I was just kidding! I’ll make you a nice sandwich!”

“Alright,” he cut him short, still visibly angry, but then his mood changed. “This is Fade!”

“Good morning Miss,” Ibrahim countered, with his back turned as he cut some more meat. “Good morning,” she echoed, weakly.

“Ibrahim, I'm going to wash my hands, I’ll have the usual” the boy ordered, heading toward a dark door, through which he disappeared.

After minutes of endless silence, the man turned around holding a stuffed sandwich in his hand. “What do you want?” He asked seriously. “What do you mean?” She replied suspiciously. “What do you want in your sandwich? You can add any of the ingredients I have here,” he said, pointing with a movement of his eyes to some bowls sunk into the counter, full of weird slops. She looked at them disgustedly. “That's all!” And she grabbed the huge sandwich he offered her.

The man took a lit cigarette, abandoned on a corner of the counter, and dropped a long line of ash.

“You must be careful, Miss. Jag isn’t what he seems to be”, he said, and then he took a big puff reducing the cigarette to the filter alone.

“What does that mean?” She asked, remembering her own suspects. The owner approached her, leaning against the counter, as if to tell her a secret. Fade also approached him, but not too close, to listen. The man, before starting to speak, exhaled a puff of smoke onto the girl’s face, and she began to cough violently; one of the many things she hated was cigarette smoke.

The redhead kept coughing, her eyes and lungs burning, the sandwich fell on the floor as the heavy coughs made her head burst as if someone was hitting her with a hammer. Although it seemed absurd to the eyes of the owner, she dropped unconsciously onto the sticky floor.

“Miss!” The terrified man shouted, slipping out from behind the counter to help her, but it was too late: Jag was coming out of the bathroom at that moment.

“Ibrahim!” The little boy roared fiercely, “What the hell did you do?” He asked, kneeling next to the girl and holding her head.

“Nothing, I was giving her a sandwich and she fainted!” He babbled in confusion.

“Go get a glass of water!” he ordered as he tried to make her com to.

The man got up and went behind the counter bumping into everything and clumsily filling a glass. “If something happens to her, I...” Jag murmured as he waited.

“Here's the water!” The man exclaimed, reaching them, and poured it all on Fade’s face under the boy’s petrified gaze. The girl woke up screaming.

“Ibrahim!!” he yelled at him angrily. “She was supposed to drink it!”

“Sorry, Jag! Sorry!” He excused himself, in total panic.

“Oh, leave him alone!” She interrupted him, bothered by the noise.

“How do you feel?” He asked.

“Very clean,” she said sarcastically.

For the rest of the time the man didn’t speak, while the two of them ate at their table. Fade had a terrible headache and wanted to turn off her noisy companion who kept talking like a crazy machine, and then she tried to concentrate on the taste of the sandwich, which she actually liked a lot.

The two went out, she said goodbye to Ibrahim, who shyly returned her greeting. She was a little surprised to see such a big man obey so humbly to the orders of a small little boy. Jag, on the other hand, went out without looking back.

“What do you think of the city?” He asked, once they had walked a while. “Nothing special...” she said uncertainly. “What do you want to do now?”

“I've already spoken to the Momuht's manager, tomorrow morning I’ll meet with the band.”

“How the hell did you manage to convince them so easily?”

“It’s simple; I’ll be a co-financer of all their future projects. Tomorrow we’ll discuss the shares; you’re coming too!”

“I don’t understand anything about these things, no...”

“I only need someone to act as a secretary,” Jag explained. “A child alone isn’t very credible.”

“Even less so if you’re accompanied by a lunatic on skates!” She said.

“Ha Ha! You don’t know the bands tastes! Let's go, you have to learn all about them” he concluded. “There’s an internet point nearby!”

Connected to the network, the two studied the band’s most hidden, so to speak, secrets. The child gloried at each link to their private life, trying to explain their whole story to the girl who, of course, didn’t understand anything about it.

Jag decided to enter the official website: a specially made video, with pictures taken from their concerts, invaded the entire screen.

“Look!” He grinned with satisfaction “Now I'm gonna show you the guitarist’s page!” And clicked on the link with the mouse.

A single page opened, with a collage of objects scattered on a table seen from the top. In the lower right hand corner there was a Polaroid photo of the ‘emo’ boy showing half of his face, covered with one hand, allowing to see just an unbelievably blue eye through the space between his fingers.

“This must be the greatest representation of intrigue and mystery of the moment,” she thought. In the rest of the page were displayed scattered objects that were supposed to represent the young man’s personality.

Note books scribbled with compositions and notes, a lighter, an empty cup of coffee with a stubbed out cigarette in it, a catalogue of musical instruments, a half open flick-knife. The same table was engraved, probably with the latter, with incomprehensible signs.

The girl didn’t listen to the explanations, for she was intent on finding new details on the screen. Her attention was interrupted when the kid decided to pass to a new page. He clicked on the singer's page: the black-haired girl with the stern look.

Same scenario as the first: on the bottom, the Polaroid photo of a girl sitting at a Japanese noodle stand. The Japanese curtains, which dropped from the roof of the stand, concealed her identity, while leading to believe that it was indeed her sitting there. Again, scattered items which represented her identity: a little doll with a big blond head was hanging by a cord to a smartphone of the last generation which displayed on its screen the progress of an audio track, a mini xylophone with drumsticks and a stuffed animal in the shape of a cat was all that Fade managed to see before the kid changed the page again.

The two searched the percussionist's page: immediately apparent were the two drumsticks crossed on the table. The boy's Polaroid depicted him while playing basketball, as he was about to toss the ball into the basket in a spectacular jump. Among the other things, an MP3 with headphones, a sports band, and a CD of Beethoven's Omnia Opera, a detail which puzzled the girl, given the type of band.

The last page the child opened was that of the bass player as well as leader of the group. On his table was only an ashtray overflowing with cigarettes butts, a glass with the last sips of whiskey, some bags with spare strings for the bass and a piece of knotted rope. His Polaroid photo showed just his hand, his middle finger raised, wearing a ring on which was engraved '666'.

“If we're lucky tomorrow you can see them live!” He said. “I don’t really care!” The girl replied. “But, if I have to act as your secretary, why don’t you start telling me the names of these dummies.”