Studer jumped into the interval between the A and E chords of a song picked just for this occasion. He was propelled by the measured grace of partially muted strings of a guitar feeding a slightly overdriven tube amp. He flew through what felt like air into the brief space between huge sounds. He was back in the virtual game that seemed so real, while in full relaxation on his quiet sunny back deck in the real world.

Events swirled about Studer as his Probabilities app dialed in the correct time and space coordinates for a virtual representation of Saint Paul, Minnesota on October 14, 1986. The realism was partially born of his actually having been at this show.

He landed in a wide parkway, looking down a lane that was stitched by ghostly trails accreting into cirrus clouds in the evening sky. They showed the effect of the delay pedal that Blunie had slung over the guitar when recording.

He wrapped the harmony around him like a cloak and followed the violin melody, which shot out a trail towards his main destination. The notes glowed as fairies of old as they flew eagerly to the main doors of a large auditorium in the otherwise quiet city. The minor tone of the cellos added a slight fretful feel to the breeze stirring the bushes next to the sidewalk.

Studer walked towards the pounding, thumping, and rattle of an excited crowd. The doors of the Roy Wilkins Auditorium swung open as if pulled by ancient invisible guardians that knew him by sight as one who belonged where few may go.

Nodding at old friends as he strode the labyrinth towards backstage, he thought about his proteges, those that knew, and those yet to meet knowing. The forces gathering them together were like winds gently teasing pieces of paper on the street.

The ley lines of this music scene crossed his screen and flashed bright shadows in the laugh lines of his face. He traced a path that might take the right amount of seeming daring and danger for his students immersed in the game.

A space in time opened to let in his lesson, and he felt the familiar warmth as something new came into the past. A half-hour opening slot should be enough, he thought.

What treasure lay hidden in the warp and weft of the twin towns in their heyday? It was time to set Blunie up with a tableau, a new slice, using his song to make back in the day bigger.

Studer had a thing for music and all that went with it. He thought with affection of his friends down the speaker wire, transmitting tunes into times and vice versa.

He had treaded many a board in the supposed real world. His mind was a vast trove of concerts, stages, people and songs, strummed into being and into Dual City. His experience made his scenarios for those on the lower rungs into real lessons. His reputation for those stuck in screens was to be able to replace second hand living with the feel and rush of really playing.

A friend from Camper Van Beethoven raised his hand, on his way to the tiny room that opening bands were allowed. It was Jonathan Segal, their multi-instrumentalist. Studer wanted to ask him how the violin was going over on the big stage of this tour of pageantry. The string samples recorded in a church in Berlin that Blunie had used in his recording were cool, but Studer looked forward to the “real” thing, if only virtually.

He would be in the wings as Blunie arrived, aglow with possibility. He wanted to see him sail the high seas of sound waves that could be harbored in Dual City.

The crowd started to fill the front rows like ocean to sand. With them Studer felt excited, alive and free for a few hours created from infinity. This is what we live for, he thought, as the door opened into the crossroads of music and time. (to be continued)

Fiction by Marc Coleman, 2021

Photo: Manuela Thames