They had walked about two miles out of town and had now entered a long gravel driveway leading up to a very large, two story farmhouse. It was surrounded on all sides by large fields filled with prairie grass. The land belonged to a family who were big supporters of the college. All of their children had attended Sayers and were now grown and had kids of their own but the couple still loved to have college students over.
“Hello everyone!” Said Mrs. Maize.
“Greetings and salutations Rebekah!” Hailed Dr. Williams. “We thank you kindly for the use of your fields once again!”
“Only too happy to have young people stomping around the property Jeff! When you have had your fill of insect collecting make sure you swing back by the house with the group and I will have sandwiches and sweet tea for everyone!” She smiled as she looked at each student marching up the drive.
“Too good an offer to refuse, don’t you all think?” Dr. Williams asked his class.
A chorus of responses broke out in the vein of, “Sounds great!” and “Can’t Wait!” and “I love sweet tea!” All of the students smiled kindly back at Mrs. Maize and thanked her as they passed by. They then headed to the fields with the professor.
All the way to the farm grounds, on the two mile walk, Thomas had been trying to think of something interesting to say to Sarah. Try as he may, however, he could think of nothing which didn’t strike him as utterly ridiculous. The rest of the group had chatted and joked merrily all the way there but he had just played the part of a sullen and brooding mute. Not quite the way he had wanted to come off but he at least took solace in something he had heard his literature professor say the other day, “Even a fool is thought wise when he keeps his mouth shut.” That seemed like pretty good advice and he would certainly rather be quiet than sound like an idiot in front of Sarah Taylor.
There were six of them in the group this morning, plus the professor. Dr. Williams had given each of them a color-printed piece of card stock with a list of different kinds of insects which they were supposed to look for. The professor had made it into a competition between the various sections of the class to see who could find, and collect, as many of the different kinds as possible. Thomas’ group was the last to go out to the farm for the semester. They were “Group D.” The winning group was going to win the honor of having pizza at the professor's house. Thomas liked pizza. Thomas also liked another opportunity to be around Sarah…maybe he’d do better at finding conversation over a meal than he did on a hike and nature expedition.
“Okay, what do you guys think, do you want to all split into different directions individually or do you want to work in teams of two?” Asked the professor.
Thomas froze in horror. Would he be grouped with Sarah? Was that a dream come true or a nightmare?
“Let’s group off in twos” offered Sarah. But as she said this she linked her arm with Danica’s, one of her close friends who was also in the class.
‘Of course.’ Thought Thomas (who was simultaneously relieved and annoyed).
“I think I’ll just go on my own, if that’s okay.” Suggested Thomas.
“What?” said Andre, “Do we smell bad or something?” He sniffed his shirt as he said this. Andre was from New Jersey and everything about his accent and demeanor seemed just like the stereotype which Thomas had formed in his head about people from ‘Jersey.’ This was purely based upon shows he had watched on television, but it seemed to sync with the reality in this instance at least.
“No. I…uh, well, I’ll do whatever. I don’t mind.”
“You’re kind of a loner, huh?” Said Sarah.
“No. I like people. Some of them.” Replied Thomas sheepishly.
Instantly he felt like he had blown his cover and that she knew he meant her. He liked her. It was all over! He was a fool and everyone knew it because he didn’t keep his mouth shut!
But Sarah just smiled sweetly at him and said, “No worries, we all like some alone time now and then.”
“Alright, well… do as you please. Let’s get cracking!” Cried Dr. Williams.
With that Sarah and Danica split off with their gear and headed West. The other three boys and the professor headed North. Thomas hesitated for a moment and then headed South on his own. Why was he acting like a loner? He still felt out of place, no matter where he went, since his parents had died. He just wasn’t comfortable with himself and therefore not really comfortable with anyone else either.
This part of Kansas was pretty flat in its terrain. The rolling hills were all in the Eastern part of the state. Nonetheless, there was a kind of sloping depression a little ways ahead of Thomas and he decided to head that direction. As he descended into the basin of the depression he got his card out of his pack and looked over the list of bugs. Several of them looked so similar to him that he wasn’t very sure how he would know if he had actually collected the different kinds.
There was nothing for it but to get down low and start looking. Thomas got down on his hands and knees and started examining the ground carefully. He began combing through the grass so as to better see the surface and, as he did so, he was reminded of a moment in elementary school when the school nurse had to comb through students’ hair looking for lice. He shivered with the grossness of that thought. Nonetheless, he pressed on, determined to help win a night of free pizza at his professor’s house and another chance to redeem himself and make meaningful conversation with Sarah. Maybe he could read a book about how to talk to women.
Just as his mind wandered toward the “self help” section of an imaginary bookstore he was pulled back to reality by the unmistakable presence of a small creature that looked an awful lot like one of the insects on his card.
“Eureka!” He cried.
He began fumbling through his pack quickly to find one of the specimen jars which he had brought with him when his hand touched something else he did not intend. Suddenly the field burst aloud with breathtaking music!
He pulled back his hand in astonishment and the music stopped instantly. For a moment he froze, solid as a statue and quiet as a mouse, still kneeling on the ground. He wondered whether anyone else had heard those notes which had seemed to sweep across the field like a deluge. He stood up slowly and looked around but the depression, or bowl, in which he now stood was deep enough that he could see no one else.
He knew, of course, what he must have touched in his pack. He had taken that letter opener with him absolutely everywhere since it had come into his possession. It surprised him, though, that at a moment when he was for once not thinking about it, it had come to life by the briefest touch. After having tried everything he knew to get some reaction out of it for months, what had made it go off like that?
Wanting to insure that he would have full privacy to make his inspection of the letter opener he restrained his urge to instantly plunge his hand back into the pack. He summited the hill on one side of the bowl and scanned the large field. He saw the two different groups far off in separate directions. They were evidently completely unaware of the music which had, from his perspective, resonated from every molecule of the earth and air around him.
Seeing the others all were apparently unaware of what had happened he practically dove back into the bowl. Thomas opened wide his pack until he could see the letter opener plainly. It was tucked into one of the pockets with only the top of the handle exposed. He looked around anxiously one last time and then he picked it up.
Again the music broke out all around him. As long as he held the letter opener the music remained in play. As held the instrument and listened, it dawned upon him that this was not exactly the same song, or music, which he had heard when the letter opener had first…called to him. Called? Do letter openers call anyone? Not normally. But then they don’t make music either. Try as he may to turn up a better description of that initial event, nothing else came to him which was more fitting. It had called him. Nor could Thomas, even for a moment, entertain the idea that it was some sort of general call as when a person who is drowning calls out for anyone who hears them to come quickly. No, this call was much more like…and now tears came to his eyes…it was much more like when he was little and had been playing in the small wood behind his house and his mother had opened the back door of the house and called to him, by name, to come home to her.
He pulled his mind back to the moment. This song was not that same song as that first. It did, however, sound related to it in some way. It took him some time to put his finger on the relationship between the two pieces of music but it finally came to him. The music which he now heard was part of that original song. Part of it, understand, not like the first 30 seconds of a song on loop, but part of it like isolating a single instrument in an orchestral piece and listening to just that one play its part. It was not less beautiful for being partial, it was simply more distinct in its notes. The quality did not perfectly match any instrument which Thomas could recall having heard before but, if he were to liken it to anything, he would have called it something like a bassoon. It was deep, a bit melancholy, but not so melancholy as to make the listener sad. It seemed to want to draw Thomas’ mind to things that were happy, but happy from the past.
He wasn’t altogether sure how long he had listened to the music, which at no time paused even for a moment, when he finally looked again at the letter opener in his hand. Then, to his amazement, he saw something he had never seen before. The blade was now glowing with an intense crimson color. It was not, however, glowing equally on the entire surface of the blade but it was glowing most intensely on the left side of the blade. Thomas turned it over in his hand, expecting the glow to now be on the right but, as he turned it, the glow remained directionally on his left. The glow moved like it was drawn gravitationally in that direction.
The basin in which Thomas stood was no less than thirty feet in diameter and he was a good twenty feet from what he adjudged to be the center. The center was on his left and that was the side of the blade which glowed. Thomas held out the blade in front of him and he slowly turned towards the center. As he did so he watched the glow of the blade move along the edge to the very tip as the tip pointed toward the exact center of the bowl. Thomas had the distinct impression that this letter opener was now behaving oddly like a compass although he was pretty sure the direction it was pointing was more East than North.
His scientific mind was now excited and he meant to test a hypothesis that had just formed within him. Rather than run straight on to the center, where the glow was seeming to say he should go, he wanted to know if it was really pointing to the center or just the direction that the center held from his current position. After all, if it was just pointing East then it wasn’t really about the center at all. So Thomas began to walk the circumference of the bowl and to his surprise, although it had been what he imagined might be the case, no matter where he walked the glow pointed to the center. It was almost as though, for this instrument, the center of this depression in the ground was the true North Pole.
Having satisfied himself on this point there was nothing left but to move toward the center itself. Something like fear tried to hold him back, but something like courage pushed him forward. As he stepped slowly towards the center, the blade of the letter opener outstretched, he watched as the glow of the blade spread down from the tip to the hilt as he got closer. He was only a few paces from the center now when a blaze shot up out of the ground right in the very middle of the bowl. Thomas let out a little shriek, one he would be none too proud of if Sarah had overheard, and he jumped back.
Instantly after jumping back the blaze disappeared. Catching his breath (which had all but run away completely in his startled state) he determined to step forward once again. As he did so the blaze reappeared. It was quite contained in the dead center and did not seem to be spreading. Indeed, as Thomas looked closely, it did not appear to actually be consuming the grassy floor of the bowl at all. A second later he realized that the blaze had a distinct shape to it as well. He knew it instantly. Well, he knew its form, not its meaning. He had seen it a thousand times before as he had meticulously studied the shapes on the handle of the blade. The blaze was shaped like one of the characters above the yellow ring on the handle, the one closest to the blade.
Thomas looked at the letter opener and located the matching marking. He then knew what he was supposed to do. He rotated the yellow ring until the triangular arrow etched upon it pointed to the matching character. As it clicked into place the full song returned in confirmation of what he had done. The entire symphony of instruments along with something like a super-terrestrial (not extraterrestrial for the association with that word would be misleading) choir rang all around him.
Thomas started shaking all over. At first he thought it was merely the nerves of his body responding to the overwhelming beauty of the music but then he realized that the letter opener was actually vibrating strongly and steadily. Without fully understanding what so moved him, Thomas raised the letter opener and slashed the air in front of him. As he did so his mind had a hard time conceiving what he saw. The air wrent in two as if he had slashed a movie theater screen and made a slit. He could see nothing through it presently, and it was hard to explain how his perception even understood the experience or was able to distinguish that he had cut a slit in the air, but he had. As he stared the slit repaired itself and was gone.
After a moment’s hesitation Thomas extended the letter opener once again and more carefully, indeed more surgically, cut a slit in the air from just above his eye level down almost to the ground. As he did so the opening widened and he saw what seemed like a forest. His mind absolutely reeled at the sight. He stepped a bit to the left and then to the right, peering around the slit in the air, and he saw nothing but the Kansas field which should be there. He decided to circumnavigate the opening he had made. The portal was closing again, seaming itself back together, so he once again opened it with the letter opener and then quickly ran around it in a circle. As he did so his view through the opening changed, and he saw more of the forest from different angles.
Thomas would not have considered himself brave before that day, nor even after. Nonetheless, from an outsider's view, what he did next could only be properly described by the old Latin saying, “Audentes fortuna adiuvat”, for in the next moment he made another large slash from head to tow and he leapt through the opening.