This might seem a bit odd, but the story I’m about to tell you is one about a bard named Tabor. Now I know what you might be thinking - aren’t the bards the ones who usually tell the stories? Normally you would be right, but Tabor is a unique case and just a unique man in general.
Our story begins in a bar called “Cookie’s Secret” - I frequent this bar quite often and I have never met a person named Cookie or even saw someone eating a cookie, so your guess is as good as mine as to where the name comes from, but that’s not important - What IS important is that I was in this bar during the Great Moon War. Much like Cookie’s Secret, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. We’re on the planet Indir and this war definitely did not take place on either of our moons, but again, not really important. While I’m in this bar during war time, I meet this guy named Frank. I talk to him for a while before he interrupts our conversation to beat up some rude guy giving a girl at the bar a hard time.
Next thing I know I hear this funky sounding harp blaring from the stage behind me. Lo and behold, there he is… Tabor! Rocking out on this harp. He’s singing, but I can hardly hear him over Frank beating this dude up next to me, so I make my way closer. Much to my surprise, Tabor is singing about Frank! The stuff he literally just did! Saving the girl at the bar. I couldn’t even hear Tabor singing on stage, so how the heck did he hear Frank confront this guy?
I stand there in awe, shimmying closer and closer to the stage as people move out of my way. I now have a front row seat to the weirdest concert ever, but it gets even weirder! With a slick movement of his hands, Tabor’s harp turned into a violin! I thought I missed him switching out instruments, but I never took my eyes off of him. I was enamored as he sang about miniscule things happening all around us. Some nice guy buying someone a drink, someone picking up the tab, someone offering their coat to someone else to keep them warm and of course Frank made his way back into the songs a few more times.
It was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever experienced, but these shenanigans weren’t done yet! Everything in the bar became eerily quiet when one of Tabor’s strings on his ex-harp violin snapped! I gasped, someone cried and for some weird reason we all turned to look at the entrance of the bar. Literally everyone in the bar turned at once to look at the entrance. I wanted to look behind me to look at Tabor and see what struggles he was experiencing with the potential death of his violin, but something was preventing me from doing so. Then the bar doors opened and in walked… Tabor? How did he get over there? I wondered. It was him, definitely him, but something was different. His hair was darker, his clothes were darker and his violin was now a guitar!
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He began playing a different tune and now he was singing about the stuff you would expect. Heroic tales, some of which must have been from different planets because they were most certainly not from Indir. He did a two minute set about some Starlight Samurai guy that made zero sense to the rest of us, but sounded great regardless. He sang about heroes defeating dragons and some planet-shattering battle on a mountaintop. The rest of the night was a blur. I woke up in my apartment feeling more hungover than normal and tried to piece together the few things I could remember. I grabbed my coat and headed out for “Cookie’s Secret.” If anyone else was there that had a similar encounter with Tabor’s magnificence then maybe they could help me piece together everything.
When I got to the bar, it was burnt to the ground. All I found was a pile of ashes. The only logical conclusion I could make is that Tabor rocked this bar so hard it burned to the ground. But if that’s the case then how did I get out? How did anyone get out? I stood there for what seemed like hours just looking at the remnants of “Cookie’s Secret.” Every once in a while I would go back to wondering why it was named that, but my super important thoughts got interrupted by a local.
“You ok there?” I remember this woman asking me. I turned my head to look at her and standing beside her was Tabor. He had his arm around her. I went to say something and he put his finger to his lips to shush me.
I asked if she had been at Cookie’s Secret last night.
She laughed at me and said, “Last night? That place burned down years ago.”
Shocked, I quickly looked at where I just saw the smoldering remains of the bar I watched Tabor perform in and it had been replaced by a restaurant called “Brownies and Stuff.” Another sweets reference was extremely ironic, I thought, but I looked back at them and noticed the woman was an employee there. She must have just gotten off her shift. I wanted to say something else, but Tabor took out a small notepad on the women’s apron and handed it to her.
“You forgot to return your notepad, babe,” he said so cool and nonchalant. He ripped off a page before he handed it to her and she said something like “silly me” and ran back inside. Tabor and I stood in an awkward silence for a few seconds as I conjured up the courage to say something. I needed answers. I needed to know what he did to everyone in the bar that night, but right before I spoke the woman returned. He gave me a nod and I watched as Tabor and this woman walked away from me.
My next idea was to go inside for answers, but I heard two people exiting the restaurant.
“We got lucky the Starlight Samurai came to Indir when he did,” said the first person.
“Wasn’t Tabor singing about him?” I thought.
“Hey, you dropped this,” I heard the other person say.
They were now right in front of me. I looked down and noticed the piece of paper on the floor. Tabor dropped it so that I would find it. I picked it up and it read…
“Welcome to the Future! Rock on~
-Tabor”