When I check my email, I know usually there won`t be a thing there. New facebook spam goes in the "social" inbox that I stopped checking months ago, “update” spam in the other one on the right. Thanks gmail.
When there is something there, it`s from the one site that gmail allows into my main inbox that I could probably tell it not to, or an email from my mother.
Being contacted out of nowhere by anyone else is unusual and the way things are now, I must admit, pathetically exciting to me, even if just for a second.
When I saw a new email with an old friend`s name from back in my own country, I felt that little twinge too, and surprise.
This is a friend I could sit down and talk to for hours if we met right now and it would be as if I hadnt left at all. Yet at the same time, the way things go, I may never speak to him again. I could be the first to send an email, get back in touch, but I dont either.
Of course I didn`t really think about all those things when I saw that unread email, but I think they were all there, subconsciously or however you may call it. A twinge.
Opening it, the first thing I noticed was how short it was, and that it had a link.
It just went: Martin (for that is my name), have you seen this?? Weird! (written in my native language). WTF? (in internet language). Below was a link to a reddit thread.
At this point I`m puzzled. This is all highly irregular and I cannot imagine a single thing being on reddit that this distant friend would contact me about. Just getting back in touch.. just maybe, but not with a link to a funny reddit thread or even a very interesting one. This time, a twinge of realization that this is unusual.
I open the link, it`s a post in videos. Title: Check this out.
Now, this is not my first time on reddit, and I notice a few things right away. One, this thread is 6 hours old and has 8437 upvotes and over 10,000 comments, and that doesnt happen everyday. Two, from the title and subreddit its not the kind of thing that reddit responds to like this. It might be something cool, funny or weird on youtube, but we`ve basically seen it all. Just a youtube video would have to be something else.
Im the kind of person who reads the comments first and often dont even bother with the actual post. This video, I had to see, but I still looked at the comments first, to get some idea of what was going on.
The top comment was short, with what I knew on reddit, were a lot of upvotes. The comment said: This video is insane. It seems like its just made to go viral but I think what its really about is the name he says at the end. Reddit, we`ve got to find him. I saw a glimpse of the reply below and it was like a punch in the gut.
It was something very familiar looking.. not exactly my name, but I know why that is. It was my name as an English speaker would write it. Its a name in a language that relatively few people speak and that Im sure I don`t share with anyone. It was my name alright.
Now after this, things felt a bit weird. Why would my name be in any reddit comment at all, let alone one that`s in a thread like this?
I looked at some more comments and tried to get some idea of what was in the video, because frankly I wasn`t sure if I really wanted to find out. Was someone after me? Was someone putting a curse on me? For whatever reason, I was singled out and something unusual was going on, and trying to come up with any explanation at all lead me to scary possibilities.
Looking through the comments I got the idea there were two things people were talking about, the video itself and the theory that what it was really about was finding the person named in the video i.e. finding me.
People seemed to mostly find it an entertaining video in some way, and the fact any name was mentioned in it only just weird, not creepy. I was glad it was not creepy.
There was a lot of speculation going on in the comments, but nothing that told me anything; I just had to see the video for myself.
Opening the video, I saw it had gotten quite a lot of views there as well, though nothing unusual for youtube. Same title: Check this out.
In it, a guy. A friendly looking guy, hard to tell where from exactly, but slightly dark skinned, with narrow eyes, like he was permanently smiling. He smiled at the camera and said, "check this out" and proceeded to do several things that are hard to describe.
Not hard to describe what they were exactly, but hard to describe why they were so completely baffling. They were things that seemed impossible.. not physically impossible, but requiring so much skill and practice that going through the effort to learn them would seem, just implausible. That`s the right word for the entire video, implausible.
It was shot in a nice looking, spacious room, well lit and mostly empty except for some classical musicians with their instruments. It looked just like the kind of place where classical musicians would practice.
They seemed to not really know the check this out man, but they were all looking at him with interest. Like he`d walked into the room unannounced but made himself welcome right away.
After saying check this out, he smiled at a women holding a flute, gesturing her to hand it to him. She didn`t seem to mind.
Except, when he took the flute, he held it completely the wrong way and moved it to his mouth. The woman made a gesture and tried to tell him that`s not how you hold a flute, smiling a little embarrassedly, but stopped and stared at what he did next.
He blew into one of the holes in the side, while covering the other holes with his fingers and managed to play a flurry of notes that formed a disjointed but strangely beautiful melody. It was fast, harsh, strange and beautiful, and very short.
Id seen some of the comments mention that this video might be fake, but most people agreed it wasnt, even if just because of the reaction of the musicians there. If they were actors, there would be about twelve Oscar worthy performances of surprise, astonishment and fascination.
He smiled and handed back the flute, then motioned for the violin. That too he held in a very unusual way, but everyone just watched in silence.
Now I`m no musician, and what he played on the violin is hard to describe, but what I mentioned before, it was immediately clear that it was incredibly, implausibly skillful.
He didn`t use a bow, he strummed it, fast, while at the same time picking out a melody and tapping out a rhythm on the wood. He did so holding the violin upside down. And it was incredible. The musicians were equally amazed and excited at this point, nodding their heads, tapping feet, staring into the distance.
Check it man, thats what Ill call him, was smiling a pleasant, benevolent smile. He seemed to enjoy showing the musicians a few things that he knew they would like, but didn`t seem particularly focused on playing.
He played a few other instruments, all in strange ways, eliciting unusual sounds and interesting, beautiful or novel rhythms and melodies.
It`s hard to explain how or why, but even someone with no knowledge of music could see plainly that this was something different, that took enormous skill. Each snippet he played on any of the instruments could have been a viral video.
After handing back the bass, he looked at the camera, smiled and said thank you. That could have been the end of the video, but he added one thing.
His expression was a bit more serious now, or maybe earnest is a better word. Earnest with a hint of urgency, but always with a sort of benevolent kindness. He said my name and asked to contact him. He said it quickly and a lot of people may not even have noticed. And it sounded like Im supposed to know what its about, but I have no idea.