Neil, who played a Djembe (with brushes). Lenny, sang in English but dreamed in French. And Mira, played an accordion drone like a kettle whistling musically. There were three of them in the van. Les Enfants de Personne, it was a name Neil heard in a dream. They tried touring Eastern Canada small towns where the post office clerks had names like Delbert and Wendy-Sue, and the Giant Tiger’s sold prayer candles, and some churches had turned into yoga studios. They’d hoped for open-hearted crowds. Most nights it was less than seven people and the background sound of someone texting. Occasionally an audience member asked if they could play something “with a beat.” In Moncton, they performed in a repurposed Irving station where a single moth circled the only lightbulb. In Shediac, they played a retirement lodge; one woman fell asleep and began snoring in rhythm. In Halifax, they shared the bill with a far left poet reciting an epic on municipal zoning bylaws. Later that night, walking along the wharf, Lenny asked, “Why are we doing this?” Mira replied, “To serve the music.” Neil said nothing, he had started to believe speech used up silence too quickly – and silence was where the notes came from. They pondered a sign on the road outside Mahone Bay: Retreat Centre & Herbal Library. A hand-painted arrow pointed down a gravel path. The owner, an old man who said he lived in Toronto’s Kensington Market forty-five years ago, met them with tea and no questions. “Play what the moment asks for,” he said. “We have a crowd inside.” There was just a rug. No stage or lights. Just moonlight. No microphones. No phones. But indeed the crowd was eighteen, sitting like offerings in the dark. Neil closed his eyes. Mira drew a long breath through her accordion, the note rising like steam. Lenny let sound emerge. Something shifted in the air. The crowd was engaged like people on stage who fell for hypnosis. One woman had tears down her face. A man in overalls looked at his hands as though meeting an old friend he’d long forgotten. Seemed like even the fireflies paused, caught in the hush between one note and the next. No one clapped. The old man said at the end, “Thank you, you played the note behind the note. The music before music.” He handed each a stone, smooth and warm. “Stay faithful to the moment that makes no sound,” he said. “That is the true melody.” They left without speaking. They parked later in a Walmart parking lot to sleep in the car. Lenny whispered, “Do you think any of that was real?” Mira just touched her stone and said, “Music doesn’t care if it’s believed.” Neil turned to the window and said, “We were played.” And none of them felt the need to be the musician. The road carried them like a bow across silence.

And for the first time, none of them felt the need to be the musician.

The road carried them like a bow across silence, and far off, something beyond them was still singing.