About a decade ago, I remember a sprite, a vaporous, mercurial spirit who sparkled and burst through the vestiges of Time accumulating fragments of ideas and skills, assembling them into paradigms and exploring new terrain in impish but serious navigation. She seemed to be on a mission, and somehow, I was fortunate to be a mentor that helped her while she explored some of her ideas and potential. For several years she would streak by my life with some new venture, a way of categorizing and analyzing new songs and recordings sent to a recording or publishing house, or inventing herself as a literary/talent agent with a fresh angle.
In a way, we inhabited the Village, but at different frequencies. She occasionally zoomed by my habitat leaving me some trace of her existence with an assuring "See you around the Village! ...Debbie" She probably saw me more than I saw her, because she was an invisible presence, a happening that was joyful, a charisma that often seemed to redeem the moment. But she was always flitting in and out of the picture like scenes of a movie, where the character is always lingering on the edge of the action, appearing when least expected, and vanishing suddenly without a trace.
I think maybe the last time she hurried by was in the Fall of 2000, when she left an artifact she was nurturing, a punk rock novel, Exit 25 Utopia by Steven Wishnia, under the auspices of Walking Bass Literary Agency. It is a striking commentary, well-done, and I am not sure exactly how this nimble dreamer related to this work, but I can see and hear that the novel echoes the spirit of her as venturing into uncharted doorways and sometimes sinister landscapes. A quick google reveals that she has metamorphosed into Muse Literary Management as listed in the PublishersMarketplace, but I can't tell how current this listing may be. However, these listings are not free, so perhaps she is still gliding through the Village and environs, piloting new plots and projects.
So just like the itinerant literary waif that I have imagined her to be, she erupts again into my consciousness when a few moments ago, the note she left with Wishnia's book tumbles out of the bookcase onto the floor. I can see her waving familiarly with an exuberant gesture as she dashes ahead, exploring her vision and her options with that enigmatic glance of optimism that always shaped a new and peculiar pathway.
The years have passed, and suddenly this note tumbles onto the floor like some wayward Time-Traveller, and I look into the shimmering empty space ahead searching for some sign of this mysterious muse.
"Are you still there?"
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