To Ease the Passing of Time

Henry was 19 years old at the time. He was very good at Scrabble. He played often on his iPad, always at the most advanced level, and most of the time he won. Henry knew a lot of words, but he could not put them together to write a story or a poem. It was the same with music. He knew all the notes, but he could not put them together to write a song. People said he had a pretty good voice, but what he wanted was to write and sing his own songs. He had the theoretical knowledge but not the inspiration and the talent to achieve his dream. He was bitter and frustrated about that.

One day, as he was playing Scrabble, an image suddenly appeared on the screen of his iPad. It was an old black lady with long fingernails painted different colours. She had a scarf decorated with flowers wrapped around her head, and she was wearing a lot of long and colourful necklaces around her neck. And…she was smoking a cigar. Henry frantically tried to turn off the image to go back to his game, but no matter what he did, the image wouldn’t go away. Then the old lady started to speak:

“Don’t be afraid, Henry! I don’t want to scare you. I’m here to help you.”

“Who are you?"

“I’m a fairy. Some people say that I’m a witch, but I don’t care. It’s all the same to me.”

“I didn’t know that fairies…or witches smoked cigars.”

“Some of us do, but that’s beside the point. I have a gift for you. I’ve been watching you for some time, and I know how much you’d like to be able to write and sing your own songs. What I have for you is the gift of inspiration.”

“What do you want in exchange for that gift: my soul?”

“No, no, I don’t want your soul. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I just want you to be happy and stop being so bitter and frustrated about life.”

“But you know, Mam, what else makes me really frustrated, I mean beside the fact that I’m not able to write songs: girls don’t seem to be interested in me; they find me boring.”

“I know that. As I said, I’ve been watching you. The gift that I have for you will take care of that as well, but perhaps a little too well. That’s why you have to be careful. If you’re not careful with you gift, you will lose it. That’s why I’m telling you that you have to use it wisely.”

“Careful! What should I do in order to be careful and use my gift wisely?”

 “Don’t be a jerk! That’s all! Now I’ve got to go. I have other people to see. Enjoy your gift and take care, Henry!”

She took a drag of her cigar and blew the smoke at Henry. The smoke came out of the screen and Henry realized that he was able to smell the sweet scent of the cigar. He knew that this was real. He grabbed his guitar and stated picking. The music came naturally like a stream coming down a mountain. After he finished writing the music, he started with the lyrics. Again, the words came to his mind like magic. In no time he had written the most beautiful song.

It didn’t take long for Henry to become famous. His songs and music spread faster than the coronavirus on YouTube and the radio stations all over the world. Henry started to go on tours. As for the girls, the fairy was right: there were plenty of them. They were known as groupies, and he could have all the sex he wanted with them. The only thing those girls really wanted was to be able to brag to their friends that they had slept with him, the great singer. There was no real love on either side. There was no time for love anyway. He was always on the go.

One night, after a concert, he met a young woman that he became instantly attracted to. She wasn’t that pretty, but she had something different, something special that the other girls he had met before didn’t have. There was also something vaguely familiar in her eyes and in her voice. She looked like a younger version of the fairy or witch that had talked to him on his iPad. She asked him for an autograph, and he asked her if she wanted to sleep with him. When she said ‘no’ he was surprised. She said that the autograph was for her sister who couldn’t come to the concert because she was sick, and that she didn’t care that much about him and his music. He took that as a challenge, and it made him want her even more. Her name was Leila. He asked her for her e-mail address her and she gave it to him. They wrote to each other for a while, and he soon became infatuated with her. But it was not love. It was more like: “How can you resist me? I’m famous. I’m a very talented artist. Plenty of girls a lot prettier than you slept with me…” Henry became more and more obsessed with Leila. He wanted her like King David wanted Bathsheba in the Bible.

Just like Donald Trump who said that when you are rich, powerful and famous “you can grab them by the pussy”, Henry considered that because of his notoriety and prestige he deserved to have Leila. That’s when he started writing her love e-mails, and have expensive bouquets of flowers sent to her even if he wasn’t really in love with her. It didn’t work. So he decided to use his immense talent and write a song that he called A Song for Leila in which he declared to the whole world that he was in love with her. It was a lie, but it was the most beautiful song that he had ever written. And she fell for it. But soon after sleeping with Leila, just like King David in the Bible, Henry didn’t feel good. His heart was heavy with remorse and regrets. He felt as if he had done something wrong, very wrong.

He went online to play a game of Scrabble hoping that he could see again the mysterious fairy that had given him his special gift a few years before. She appeared to him on his screen only after a few minutes after he had started playing, but this time she didn’t say a word. She just looked at him, and he could see sadness in her eyes. He said to her: “I blew it, didn’t I?” “Yes you did”, she said. She slowly took a drag of her cigar and blew the smoke towards Henry. This time It didn’t reach his face, and he could not smell the sweet scent of the cigar. He knew that the magic was gone, and that he would never be able to write a song again.