The turntable and thorns

Clint adjusted his trusty old tool bag over his shoulder as the duo wandered along the streets of the overgrown ruins of Nola City. The streets stretched far ahead like a mosaic of concrete and sprouting greenery, a place where time had been overrun by nature, as if there was a purpose for every fern and flower. Rusted signs leaned at odd angles, crumbling storefronts yawned open, revealing darkened interiors decorated with broken glass and forgotten debris.

Finn scuttled ahead, with its six legs clicking rhythmically against the cracked pavement. Occasionally little Finn paused to inspect something, an overturned trash can, a corroded bolt, before humming curiously and continuing on. Clint found himself grinning, his heart lighter than it had ever been, or as long as his heart could remember.

"You sure are a strange one, Finn," he muttered, more to himself than the bot. Finn, as if in response, let out a cheerful melody of a saxophone playing, then suddenly turned sharply, disappearing into a darkened doorway.

“Wait, Hey! Wait up!” Clint called, jogging after it whilst holding on to his toolbag.

Inside, the air was heavy, filled with dust and memories. As his eyes squinted to adjust to the dim light filtering through the shattered windows, Clint understood where they were. They were in a small, rundown music store. The shelves were warped and rotting, but they still held remnants of a long forgotten era. Broken instruments, guitars hung from the walls, their strings curled and frayed. Trumpets and saxophones that lay scattered on the floor, tarnished and dented. Sheet music, that had turned yellow with age, clung stubbornly to a bulletin board behind the counter.

The space was saturated, with a quiet, almost sacred energy. Finn had scurried away to the corner, where it spun around in front of a dusty record player perched perilously on a rickety table. Clint followed with his boots crunching on glass shards.

“This place…” Clint murmured softly, his voice hushed. His fingers brushed the edge of a record sleeve on the counter. The cover was cracked, but he could just make out the image of a man with a trumpet, against a starry backdrop.

Finn let out excited chirps and nudged the record player, drawing Clint’s attention. He knelt down beside it, brushing away the thick layer of grime. The turntable was intact but stiff, and the needle was missing. “It's seen better days, that’s for sure,” Clint muttered whilst inspecting it. “But… maybe.”

He wasn’t sure where to start. He’d never seen a record player before, let alone worked on one. It was clear that it was a machine of some sort, though a puzzle to be solved. A puzzle Clint could handle. He studied it for a while , noting its intricate mechanics. The spinning platter, the arm that must have held onto the missing needle, and the wires that snaked underneath.

His eyes caught a faded photograph tacked to the wall behind the counter. It depicted the store in its former prime, with instruments gleaming, shelves lined with pristine records and a record player proudly displayed at the center. Clint squinted at the image trying to commit the details of the player’s intact form to memory.

"Yup, all right, let’s figure this little fella out," he muttered, pulling out his tools.

The first challenge was to free the turntable. It had seized with rust, no amount of gentle coaxing would make it budge. Clint scratched his beard, then reached for a small vial of oil. He applied it carefully along the edges, working it in with a strip of cloth. After several meticulous minutes of twisting and tinkering, the turntable gave a reluctant groan and began to spin, albeit with a noticeable wobble.

“Progress, wouldn’t you say?” Clint said with a small smile.

Next, it was time for him to turn his attention to the missing needle. He rummaged carefully through the store, searching for anything that might serve as a suitable replacement. He found a cracked trumpet mouthpiece, snapped guitar strings, and a few shards of glass. None of it seemed useful, not until he noticed a tiny snippet of metal wedged in the corner of a broken display case.

Clint pried it loose, holding it up to the light. It was a thin, pointy fragment, perhaps from a watch mechanism. It was far from perfect, but it was the right size. He made a makeshift holder for it using a bent wire that laid in his tool bag, attaching it to the arm of the record player with careful precision.

Finally, he got to the wiring. The components were a mess of frayed and corroded connections. He rewired what he could, bypassing the few sections that were too far gone. More than once he had to pause, staring at the parts as frustration threatened to boil over. But each time he took a deep breath to remind himself of the joy he’d felt as a toy repairman, of the children’s faces lighting up when he fixed their small treasures.

After what felt like an eternity, Clint took a few steps back, wiping sweat from his dusty brow. The record player looked crude and cobbled together, but it was intact. “Here goes nothing,” he said, chuckling nervously, setting a record Finn had chosen on the turntable. He wound the crank, holding his breath as he lowered the arm on to the record.

For a moment, there was only silence. Then a soft crackle filled the room, followed by warm, resonant tones of a jazz melody. Clint was left frozen, his heart loudly pounding as the music swelled. The colors of his emotions shifted. Soft gold and a velvety red for the warmth of nostalgia, a heavy deep blue for the sadness of lost time, and a vibrant green for the hope that he felt blooming within him.

Finn chirped happily and began to sway up and down, from side to side, its little legs tapping in rhythm. Clint couldn’t help but to let out a laugh, a sound that bubbled up, from the depths of his soul. He tapped his foot, then let himself move with the music, letting it fill the empty store with life once more.

Their next stop was a greenhouse, or what was left of one. Clint had caught a glimpse of it from a distance, with its massive glass dome cracked but still standing, overrun with thorny vines and moss.

Clint pushed open the proud metal doors, and the greenhouse unfolded before him just like a secret world, untouched and thriving from the ruin around it. Sunlight pierced through the broken and foggy glass dome, scattering into fractured beams that dressed the space in ethereal light. The air inside was warm and alive, with the smell of damp earth, sweet blossoms and the faint sharp tang of moss.

Plants grew wild and untamed here, bursting from broken pots, creeping up the rusted metal frames, and spilling over the shattered walkways. Imposing ferns leaned over pools of stagnant water, their leaves catching glimmers of the sunlight that managed to sneak through. Thick, thorny vines, heavy with tiny star-shaped flowers, snaked their way along the ceiling, draping down like curtains. Small and colorful mushrooms dotted the edges of the paths, glowing faintly in the dim corners, like tiny lanterns.

Clint stepped most carefully, his boots crunching on the gravel that had been overtaken by tendrils of ivy. He stopped at the edge of a bench covered with moss and set the record player down. Finn scurried around him with its six legs skittering over the uneven floor as it chirped excitedly, poking at all the flowers, funghi and crevices it could find.

Clint smiled, but his heart felt somewhat heavy. This place was alive, alive in a way New City had never been. It hummed with an energy that wasn’t manufactured or regulated. It was chaotic and raw, yet perfect.

As he began adjusting the record player, he absorbed his surroundings with awe. The life around him seemed to breathe, the plants swaying gently as if responding to his movements. Sunlight filtering through the dome shifted with the wind, painting the scene in moving shades of gold and green. It felt as if the plants were whispering to him in a language he couldn’t understand, but instinctively felt.

Finally, he placed a new record on the turntable and wound the crank. The familiar crackle of the needle meeting the vinyl softly filled the air, followed by the warm, soulful notes of a jazz melody. The sound rose softly. Threading through the greenhouse and merging with the rustle of leaves and the occasional drops of water from the dome’s fractured glass.

Clint sank deeply onto the bench, leaning back against the moss-clad backrest. He closed his eyes and let the music wash over him. His emotions surged in waves of color behind his closed eyelids. The steady rhythm of the bass was a deep grounding green. The soaring melody of the trumpet decorated the air in golden streaks. The soft croon of the saxophone wove through it all in hues of violet, smooth and melancholy.

For the first time in decades, Clint felt at peace. He wasn’t just alive, he was living. The rigid and sterile monotony of New City felt like a distant memory here, buried beneath the warmth of the sun and the music’s embrace.

Finn, as if sensing the mood, began to dance. Its little legs moved awkwardly but rhythmically, and its little body swayed in time with the music. Clint chuckled as his heart swelled from watching his strange little companion. “Where did you learn moves like that, Finn?” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

As the song ended and the record’s needle lifted with a soft crackle, Clint’s eyes opened. The greenhouse seemed to glow even brighter now, the plants shimmering full of life. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and let his gaze wander across the flourishing expanse.

It wasn’t fair to feel this for himself, he realized. It wasn’t fair that this kind of bliss, this kind of freedom, tucked away, forgotten by a world that had chosen order and structure over life.

“I must let them hear it,” Clint whispered with his voice barely audible over the hum of the greenhouse.

Finn paused in its dancing, tilting its head up at him as if to ask a question.

Clint nodded to himself, his teeth clenching with determination. “They need to feel this,” he said, louder now. “The people in New City… They need to know what they could’ve had, what they lost.”

He didn’t know how yet, but a seed of a plan had been sowed. It grew in his mind just like the wild bramble around him, unstoppable and persistent.

Clint leaned back on the bench with his eyes focused on the distant cracks in the dome, where the sky seeped through like a promise. Finn chirped softly and climbed up onto the bench beside him, its glowing eyes reflecting the same resolve that was now a burning ember in Clint’s chest.

“One day” Clint said softly, his voice filled with gentle determination. “We’ll bring it all back, the colors, the sounds, the man with a starry backdrop. All of it, all of them.”

For now, they will rest. But soon enough, they would act.