Rarity

I've never been to that village by the border. But it's Sunday and I have nothing better to do. The people there are strangers to my eyes. But a lone visitor in an unknown village, I am more a stranger to them. I sit down by the tuck shop, observing their movements. The occasional nods are directed at me and I respond with a smile. At one corner, a barter trade of sugar and salt with the rare garlic and ginger from the other side is transacted. Passing me by, I see an old man carrying a rolled-up zinc on his shoulder. He softly taps the zinc with his hands, maybe listening to the rhythm of an invisible melody. He comes to me and asks where I am from. I am a stranger, I say. He tells me he needs a ride to his place, located on the hill along the road that leads me home. At his small and low-lighted house, he passes me their local liquor. He then takes a rare musical instrument from the ashes among the gunnysacks of rice. The old man starts playing the bamboo-made instrument. Then, the invisible melody manifests itself. A melody that not many of his people play anymore. And I find this rare music on a hill. The old man smiles at my appreciation of this rarity. The road home is long. I leave the melody on a hill. In the hope of returning to this rarity.