He always sat quietly beside the lonely road, his mouth to his flute, playing a sad note.
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Whenever people passed that road, they would drop coins in his stained white kaftan because he never took his cap from his curly, dark hair.
We never saw his feet because they were always tucked under his thighs as he played. No one ever saw him come or go but he didn't miss a day to sit by the lonely road and play.
My friends and I were the first children to walk up to him and ask that he play with us. I remember the first day like the lines on my hand, he was seated there, playing soulful music, when I approached him and threw my toast into his kaftan because I didn't have any money.
For the first time since I had seen him, he lowered his flute from his mouth. We both stared at each other for a long time, my sea-blue eyes innocently looking into his deep brown ones. He then took the toast and handed it back out to me. I could see the grime in his fingernails, his golden skin catching the evening glow from where he was seated.
I shook my head.
“I want you to have it,” I told him. “I don't like it anyway, Jason puts in too much mayonnaise, he thinks that would make me like him”
The man laughed, exposing his set of browning teeth.
“You're a smart girl” he emphasized on his ‘Rs’ when speaking, stressing them so that you had to listen carefully to understand what he was saying.
“Thank you” I beamed excitedly at school.
“Come, let me play something for you” so I went closer and for the first time, heard him play a nicer tune than the sorrowful ones he had always played.
The next day after school, I told my friends, Cecily and Katie. They also wanted the strange man to play a tune for them so once school was dismissed, we all ran to the lonely road.
Cecily dropped her apple, and Katie, her chicken.
The man invited us to sit with him and he played us the Humpty Dumpty song. We clapped our hands, cheering him on. When the sun was retreating for the day, he asked us to leave the lonely road and head back home.
It soon became a routine for us.
My mother didn't get back from work until 8 pm, it was just her second husband, Jason who was doing everything to gain my favor so I had all the time. When Jason asked where I was always headed after school, I told him I was hanging out with the girls.
It was Katie's mom who couldn't understand what was going on with her 9-year-old. She never met Katie after school when the other kids were filing out to return home with their parents. So one day, she arrived earlier than dismissal time and caught us sneaking out of music class, giggling and running.
We didn't notice the blue Prado following us slowly as we ran past our houses, down the lonely road.
The man was there, waiting for us as usual. His smile expanded when we came into view.
“What is your name?” Katie asked him. We had been coming to see him every day for 2 weeks and he had never for once given us an identity to address him by.
“Sheik. It means light”
“Where are you from?” That was me, I always wanted to travel the world so I wanted to know as many places as we're available.
“A place far away from here….”
“And you would soon be returning there!” We scrambled to our feet as Katie's mom banged on the door of her Prado. I remember his face even now, completely serene and void of fear or guilt.
“So you're the one who has been misleading these girls? What have you done with them?”
Even as he said, “Nothing other than play music,” I could still see the calm in his eyes.
“Take your dirty personality and your boring music and leave this place. This town is not a place for a Gypsy!”
I saw his gaze falter for a second but a small smile graced his lip as he rose. It was then I saw that he was a tall, fine man. He packed up his things, bid us God's peace, and walked away.
From that day, the man Katie's mom called “Gypsy” stopped staying by the lonely road. I know it was weird but I was always excited in his company. I longed for him. No single day passed without me thinking about that man who lived a very simple but enviable life.
I am 23 now, just rounding up with college and I am not mistaken that the man who recently sits by the gate of the college, making music with a flute and tambourine, is that same gypsy who I had lost contact with.
Only this one can no longer look into my sea-blue eyes because his irises are white, almost the same color as his pupils. I make sure to drop a dollar note in his kaftan every time I walk past him because he never takes off his cap.
I wish to go up to him on one of these days to ask if he is Sheik, and if he is, ask him to sing me the Humpty Dumpty song. But until I find that courage, I will keep standing in the crowd and cheering him on as he plays his flute and tambourine.