“Wake up, Jack, wake up,” Julia said.

She tipped the taster cup to his lips, wetting them with the whiskey, and his mouth began to move, drawing in the liquid. He opened his eyes and saw how things stood. He blinked his eyes, clearing his vision, and moved his head subtly side-to-side, as if to make sure the images were all intact and they were not mere projections of his imagination.

“I was folding and refolding the linens, and when I returned, I found you passed out, Jack,” Julia said. “I tried to rouse you and when I couldn’t, I turned to the whiskey. I hear spirits can wake you up. I’ve seen it work in cartoons.”

Jack looked at her suspiciously, but he let it go. He had tired himself out, and his previous efforts to pierce through her purported intentions to unearth what possibly lay behind them had proven ineffective in the past. What was the use now? He looked at the grandfather clock. He saw he had lost consciousness for some portion of 30 minutes. He knew what must have done it. The sounds of his imagined trumpet playing overwhelmed him, and he plummeted into the land of oblivion. She resurrected him. He smiled at her to thank her. She didn’t seem to care.

“Can I have more?” Jack asked. “I think it’ll do me good to have more.”

Julia looked at him; her eyes were glistening in the muted lights of the lobby at twilight.

“Only if you kiss me,” Julia said, turning her ivory cheek to his mouth.

He was surprised by the request, but he was happy to do it. He planted his lips against her warm cheek. She moved back to the liquor cabinet and poured more whiskey into the taster cup. He wondered how much she had already drunk, and if she had drunk a lot, and if he was having more, how'd they conceal from Margaret the change in volume in the bottle, but he decided he’d worry about that particular matter later. Why ruin a good thing now? Jack received the taster cup and his eyes widened at the fullness of the pour. He didn’t wish to drink too much, for fear it could thwart the much-anticipated event, but if he had his chance, he certainly didn’t wish to drink too little. He decided to err on the side of too much, and drank it all down, enjoying the burn in his throat, as if it was the prelude to the creative fire to come.

“You appear much better, Jack,” Julia said, examining him after taking the empty taster cup back.

He felt the burning sensation in his mouth, all down his throat, spread to the far reaches of his inner body, and everything was stimulated to operate with a superior vivacity. He was comfortable with the change; he felt anything new destroyed the discordant notes of his past and ushered in an improved harmony that came along with his new self, those notes forming a richer and fuller symphony, which was building upon itself, amassing big amounts of god-like energy.

“It’s that time, Jack,” Julia said, looking at the face of the grandfather clock.

He laughed but forgot to capture the outburst before it escaped.

“What’s gotten into you? What’s so funny?” Julia asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jack said, waving it off.

“You’ve had too much. Be careful out there in the night,” Julia said, taking the taster cup through the front office to the back locker room to wash it in the hand-rinsing sink.

Jack made the closing rounds of the vacant inn, relying on a conditioned automatic performance to see through it all as if Margaret had cast a formidable spell over him to perform his job duties flawlessly in her inn; Margaret struck him as a determined soul, rising against all circumstances, refusing to quit. He had a fondness for those qualities of hers because they reminded him of qualities he employed to play his trumpet. After he’d run in and out of all the rooms on the second and third floors, Jack came back down the stairs. He saw Julia at the entryway door holding it ajar; he had caught her in her escape.

“Close up, Jacky, I’m late,” she said, and vanished out into the street, closing the door behind her.

Jack thought she was acting peculiar, but he attributed it to the whiskey. He walked to the office toward the lockers to change and collect his things, most importantly, his trumpet. On his way, he noticed the skeleton key she used to lock the liquor cabinet hanging on the nail in the office. He shook the idea out of his head. He must have had enough. He walked into the locker room, removed the tailored Daniel O’Rourke uniform, and hung it up carefully in his assigned locker. He was certain Margaret routinely checked how he cared for the uniform. But even if she didn’t, he felt a deep responsibility for it because it was her deceased husband’s uniform, which she gave him as a gift. Jack didn’t have anything else to wear that was appropriate for the job. He dressed in his usual day clothes, picked up his bag with his trumpet inside, and closed the locker door shut. He walked out, closing the door to the locker room shut, and he looked at the skeleton key hanging on the nail. He assessed his mood and his condition. He thought possibly another sip just to make sure he had enough. He grabbed the key and walked over to the cabinet. He took out the whiskey bottle, unscrewed the cap, and instead of dirtying the taster cup, which Julia had placed back exactly where it belonged, he tipped the bottle to pour it into his mouth from a few inches away. He gulped it down, and he instantly felt the warmth throughout his body intensify. He asked himself if that was enough and he thought one more for good luck, and he tipped it back, and poured more into his mouth, and swallowed it. He carefully screwed the cap onto the bottle, placed it inside the cabinet, closed the doors, and locked them with the skeleton key. He walked the key back to the nail, hung it by the hemp string, turned out the office lights, picked up his bag by the liquor cabinet, turned out the lobby lights, leaving nothing but a small night light on, and locked the front door by pressing in a button on the inner knob before closing it behind him. He was glad he got his inn duties out of the way when he had, because he was increasingly finding it difficult to focus on matters related to the inn, and he was also losing coordination to perform them. The door handle felt funny in his hand as he brought it closed. He checked more than once if he had in fact locked and closed it properly. He couldn’t see clearly if the door came right up against the jamb. He peered closer, and while it was swimming around, he was able to snap an image of it flush.

He looked into the night and saw a tapestry of flowing narrow streams of illuminated silver on the edges of objects as if a heartbeat was pumping the mysterious blood-like light through the veins of everything. He never once thought about retreating. This was all part of his dream, and since it was happening, he felt like he was living his dream in real-time, at last, and he was finding everything favoring him to assist in his attainment as if he was by his actions striking a harmony with everything of the universe, like the planets and the stars, and by consequence, he was receiving their aiding and abetting, when marvels occur, wonderful works.

His steps down the stairs of the porch of the inn were absurd, and he told himself he may have had too much, but he needed to struggle against the potency and stay on track, and his hope was it was just enough, not too much; it was a delicate operation in that everything had to fit exactly perfectly. He thought if anyone saw him walking, they would have surely assumed he was intoxicated, which was why he wished nobody saw him but if they did, they wouldn’t make a fuss about it. The town, mostly during the high season, when the streets were bustling well past midnight, would see its share of drunks and think nothing of it. They might think he just got an early start. He struggled to walk like a sober person, but the more he attempted to, the more he felt like he failed a great deal more, by an equal portion of some ratio to the amount he tried, so he gave up trying and walked the way he would if nobody was watching. He walked to the wharf. He knew one misstep might take him headfirst over a stone wall, cause him to crash into a bush, or make him collapse in a doorway where’d he remain until sobered up; these were the pitfalls of having drunk too much. But he had to be bigger than this, he had to live up to the jazz gods, he had to become the master of his own footsteps; he had to work with the intoxication.

When the lower level of the wharf came into view, on the descent of the street nearing its terminus, Jack stopped walking suddenly and looked into the darkened window of the gallery, where Margaret attended local artist gatherings. He had thought he saw out of the corner of his eye activity on the inside of the building, which was unusual for this time of day at this time of the season and when there were no lights on, certainly. But he had thought he saw a soft light and activity. Looking through the lower pane of the window, he saw strange movements inside. He first had to get over an initial disbelief before understanding what was going on. There was no other explanation for the unfolding scene except that he was observing the supernatural. A man originally constructed the art gallery building on the corner lot to use for his wooden boat building workshop, where he labored daily, walking up and down the wooden floor working on one boat after the next. The site was conveniently located about 40 feet from the harbor waters; when he finished a boat, he’d drag it on rails from his workshop right into the sea. Jack knew the history of the place well; many more knew it too after the gallery installed an historical plaque on the exterior commemorating the late boat builder. Jack’s favorite detail of what he knew about it was the indented floor inside which had bowed under the shipbuilder’s constant footsteps.

Jack empathized with the craftsman’s dedication and discipline because he was emulating it, not for building ships, but for playing his trumpet. He had known the story of the man, but this was the first time he had ever seen the man in his work. There was a holy element to his face like it was the source of the light he saw illuminating the scene, which otherwise would have been concealed by the darkness inside. The care and attention he applied to the small wooden vessel was full of love and tenderness, as if he was caring for a child of his own making, from the woman of his dreams. As much as Jack was amazed by the sight, he had a respect for the secret devotion of the shipbuilder and tore himself away from it, appreciative of the opportunity to have witnessed it, but knowing how best to go about the matters through an instinctual goodness, pulsing in every particle of his being which was guiding him more powerfully than ever before.

When he stepped onto the wharf, he saw one or two fishers’ boats tied up, but his vision was disorientated, and he couldn’t deduce which boats they were, and he gave up trying only after trying once or twice because everything in him was pushing him to tackle weightier matters, and the idea of discovering the fine details of which boats they were was burnt up into ashes as easily as dry tinder in a roaring fire. He was that fire, and he demanded the kind of fuel that would sustain the burn and allow its tongue to dance around it and its limbs to swirl like a serpent around a tree.

He placed his bag down by the ledge, and he knelt on the wooden plank to remove his trumpet from his bag. The world around him vanished, and his thoughts spread out until they exhausted themselves, but he found an inner kernel of self-might to bring the world back together from its infinite fragments, and his thoughts coalesced into simple concrete ones to perform what was usually a much easier task of taking the trumpet from the bag. Once his hands felt the trumpet, the wildness was tamed. His concentration intensified and focused on the instrument for which he lived. It wasn’t his own concentration either. He felt as if the liquefied world was flowing like a river all around him to the source of the trumpet like he had brought everything within him to it. Everything was pleased; the unrest from earlier in the day subsided. Jack stood from his kneeled position, steadied himself, and took a step onto the ledge near the piling, which seemed to breathe in expectation and sway in anticipation of a dance it could intuit through a prophecy.

Jack stabilized himself with one foot on the ledge and another one on the lower level, but he had to bring the other foot up to position himself the way he liked, and he knew it would be a challenge the way his equilibrium was playing a number of tricks on him. His first attempt to bring the right foot up to join the left was a failed one. He nearly lost his balance, before quickly setting the foot back down again. He decided to place one hand on his piling companion to steady himself with her as support, and it worked, and he stood on the ledge with his feet planted, and he positioned them in the way he did when he stood there to play nightly after his work at the inn ended. He knew all he needed to do was play that first note and surely like every other time it would take control of everything and guide him; all he had to do was release his hand from the piling and bring it to the trumpet and blow. He bowed his head, summoning the courage and the strength as he looked into the mysterious water lapping gently around and up against the lower part of the piling; it was alive and jovial in the night and it danced around in the silver light he had seen up on the hill in all the edges of all the objects, pumped by the heart of the night through the veins of its tapestry. He listened to voices from out of the waters, whispering secrets from time immemorial; they had come for him, for his moment, like it seemed everything else was, converging from their inner flows at his focal point for the transformation by the alchemical god. He was like Phoebus, and everything was like the life-searching faces of the pregnant blooms. He breathed out the air, emptying his lungs, and sucked in a fresh salty mouthful of the night, filling up his lungs, and in the purposeful breathing, he discovered a welcomed stability and calmness, his heart steadied itself, and his thoughts slowed to a patient condition, preparing him for the moment when he’d release his hand from the piling and place it on the instrument of his soul, seeking its salvation out of the phase it was in, knowing within itself all it needed to know for how to develop and what to aim toward like the seed of a fruit tree knows how to release a root and sprout from the top on its quest to become a fruit producing tree. In his readied state, his confidence in what he knew best reigned supreme. The essential force chased away all doubt and chance for failure, and it filled him up with an enthusiasm to perform the anticipated act.

With his feet in their proper stance, the position he had assumed countless times in his daily practice and performance as if it was the initial start like many other particulars to turn on whatever it was that began the flow like a switch turns on a light or a faucet turns on a water flow, he lifted the palm of his hand from the piling, which he no longer needed for support, feeling its uselessness before removing it, and finding his instincts were accurate, as he knew they would be, as he had the utmost confidence, the assurances beyond himself, the assurances from deep within his soul which found the promise from beyond the world, and brought it to his trumpet while he stood with a straightened posture, as if he was connecting his vertebrae into the cosmic socket and drawing into himself the electrical energy of all creation, from the ouroboros. He breathed out the spirit from his lips, and he sounded the note from out of the instrument. Everything came under the spell of its infectious resonance. Everything came to participate in the melodious flow, the moon rising in the east, the bright stars flashing their intelligence to pierce through the ignorance of people’s thoughts, the waters full of ghosts, the wooden wharf and piling, the substance of the night air, the soul of Jack, discovering once again the genuine substance of existence from deep within the heart of it all, opened up by the artistry of the trumpet blower.

Note followed note, and the creation was being born, becoming richer and fuller with activity of divine significance. Jack was coming and going out of a self-awareness, sometimes forgetting himself altogether, only to recall he was there and in the midst of it all, and letting himself go away again when he knew it was best, when he gave up himself altogether, like a self-immolation, and let the melody lead the way. Eventually, he was led for the second time to the same illuminated materials which called to him for its construction, beginning where he had begun the other night, only this time he went about it with an expertise of someone who had been through it before, only not just once before but many times before. He sensed an urgency, as he had the other night, but he felt it in the moment as if this was his final chance and no others would come again, as if the very fate of his soul depended upon it, a sort of holy desperation.

As he blew to build the illuminated steps from off the thick ledge of the wharf, he recalled the image of the shipbuilder through the windowpane and felt his companionship as if he was whispering to him particular guidance to assist in the craftsmanship, as he was a master craftsman in creating well-known vessels from his devoted service of more than half his life. The presence of the master builder only inflamed his enthusiasm the more, and the steps swiftly came into being through the expended energy of Jack, only achieved through self-sacrifice to the higher aim. When the higher aim came to fruition, there were the illuminated iridescent steps rising from the wooden ledge of the wharf up to the threshold of the moon’s kingdom and the stars, the angels and the gods, the heavenly harmonies.

Building the structure was one thing, one giant thing at that, which drained from out of Jack his vital energy, but he continued to hold on and draw from his well-spring as if he was at an eternal spring ever replenishing itself. The other thing was its use. The steps called out for him, the steps and what was from where they led to, the voice taking the form of a medley of voices across a broad spectrum, calling him from where he was at the ledge to step upward and reach the cosmic realm where his soul would feel more at home and the cares of the world would dissolve into the proper nothingness they were. Up there at the end of the steps, there was the promise of the greatest happiness imaginable and the destruction of all worry; there was no past and no future, only the perfect present where there was the jubilation.

Jack dug around searchingly within himself; there was a need to attempt something new, unexpected. Up until this point, he had only struggled in his thinking leading up to the moment when the steps would come into creation; he hadn’t ever taken it beyond them because that feat alone was a difficult task requiring his complete and utter absorption. He now had to process it on the fly as he blew his wild melody in celebration of the creation and the promise of continued glory beyond it. He felt himself slipping from out of his flesh like a snake shedding its skin, but instead of growing a new epidermis, there was his form of light only, which glowed before him as the purest essence of his being, a superior and more complete expression of himself, a truer image of his being, like removing a costume and revealing what was truly behind the disguise, what was holding it up. The exciting aspect of his light form Jack discovered was its ability to move deftly and quickly to the beat of the drum, or in this case the blowing of the trumpet. At times, he thought the trumpet was playing in response to the Jack of light, at other times he felt like the notes were leading Jack of light onward and upward, and without it, he would retreat into the heavy flesh. Playing within the two vacillating feels, Jack kept on with it, determined to go until he used up each and every particle of whiskey he had filled himself up with, having yet to feel the faint lag and depletion he had felt the other night when it began to wear off and everything collapsed mid-creation, but fearing the warning signs, hoping they’d never come again. He wished to thrive on everything beyond the trumpet’s gateway, wondering if he could derive his energy source from it and replace one type of fuel with the other and still have the ability to go after what he was pursuing. As he played, the illuminated Jack was reaching higher and his physical body remained on the wharf's ledge, and he maintained a vision of these two among so many other elements of the moment as he concentrated on the trumpet and the flowering song as if he was looking through a higher eye, taking it all in at the same time, full of understanding. The higher eye was a witness to all the moving parts, in control of none of them. Jack on the ledge, Jack of light, the sounds of the trumpet, these were like the teeth of a key having opened the gate to another world, these were like the gears of a machine spinning fast on their axes, impossible to sustain themselves at the high velocity. But Jack of light was ascending into the lightness of the darkness, and the experiences were flowing direct into Jack on the ledge, in the company of the angels and their trumpets, the company of the jazz gods; the roadway opened up beyond the last step, yawning to the Jack of light and welcoming him along it to reach the first cause of all the effects from all the other causes that ever there were. It was beyond his imagination, it was beyond telling. It was no wonder nobody ever said a word about it. And yet, this was where it was at, this was the essential source of the chain of existence. He had discovered it at last, and it explained to him so much about how he was feeling before he had arrived. While he had listened to the jazz gods’ music countless times, studied and imitated it for hours on end daily, wishing some days there were more hours in a day to do more of both, he never knew until he was there, the Jack of light out there, that their compositions were full of it too because it was the only substance worth blowing about and they’d never have the energy or strength to make those sounds without having drawn from here while they were playing. And here Jack was, doing it too, among the jazz gods himself, in their stations, from a place of their kind, and he didn’t ever wish to let it go, he wished to go and never stop, he wished to blow himself into some utterly new existence he hadn’t ever fathomed before within the unfathomable space he had arrived within.

While others may have stopped in utter stupefaction over all the inundation of wonders, Jack was eager to explore and experience whatever there was through adventures to go on. The higher eye must have cried over what happened next, unable to lend any help whatsoever. Jack on the ledge and Jack of light were feeding off each other, the one not wishing to disappoint the other and vice versa. The dynamic created a competition and something of a fatal game of chicken. With neither refusing to give up, with both fighting to press on in the discovery of the heavens, the two failed to heed other vitally important considerations. Jack on the ledge had become engrossed in the entire enterprise and was blowing at a wild feverish pitch, but he lost track of how he was Jack of the ledge and not Jack of the light out there soaring, and he slipped up on his steps and he fell off the wharf, which wouldn’t have been so bad in itself other than he would have soaked himself and ended the enterprise, but on his way down he struck his head on the beloved piling, and it knocked him unconscious. With the slip in the sea and the blow to the head, everything went black; that Jack was no more.