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Chapter 1: Însămânţa-3

“Let me guess,” the shopkeeper said once the ring of the bells died away. “He bought you a tea, said a few words and you’re back to leave a message about how it changed your life.”

Dustin looked around the shop with wide-eyed approval. It had to be one of the coolest little stores he’d ever seen. Glass jars of dried everything lined the shelves. Vials of liquids, beads of every color imaginable, fabrics, burlap bags that contained only God knew what, all manned by a clerk that could, by the looks of it, have been somewhere around three-hundred and ninety-two. “Uh, yeah, something like that.” Dustin walked deeper into the labyrinth of packaging, feeling very much like he’d stepped back in time. Perhaps to another dimension even. “How’d you know?”

“Recognized you.” The old man nodded. “Hard to miss a young man standing in the rain like an orphaned kitten. Especially one wearing a jacket that looks like it’s worth my mortgage. One wonders why a man with those kinds of funds is standing waiting for a cab.”

Dustin ignored the prompt. “How did you know he told me something?” The old man smiled slowly. “Happens all the time.” And for some reason that answer made Dustin’s heart sink a little.

The man waved Dustin over impatiently, almost irritated. “One day it’s a raspberry blend to a woman in pain, the next a licorice mix for a cranky child. There was a homeless man out front last year, sleeping in the snow. Nicolae picks for him a herbal tea, I don’t even remember the kind, walks out front, kneels down beside and says whatever it is that Nicolae says, then…” the man snapped his fingers, “Nicolae ups and he leaves. The man sits up. He drinks the tea. He leaves too.” The shopkeeper eyed Dustin, confirming attention before continuing. “Three weeks later the homeless guy is back. Tells me he got himself a job. A decent one too. Gives me a hundred bucks and tells me to pass it on with his thanks.”

“Oh?” Dustin intoned, doing his best to appear interested while his mind clung to a single word: Nicolae. The man’s name was Nicolae! “So, you know what our Nicolae does? This man who barely has two dimes to rub together? He gives me back the bill, laughing, and he says to me ‘Suko, pass this on to someone who actually needs it.’ If you can imagine.” Dustin looked over quickly, gnawing at his inner cheek to still his tongue and not blurt out, “Shut the f**k up and let me talk because if I don’t find out about this strange blind man who won’t leave my head I’m going to go insane!” Instead, he smiled sweetly. “‘Our Nicolae?’ Then you know him personally?”

Gossip darkened into suspicion. “Well enough, da. I came over to offer my tired and beaten bones to Lady Liberty about the same time his parents did, when he was still a boy. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Dustin said, feeling a blush creep up his neck. Another shock for him—the last time Dustin blushed he was probably two. “You don’t know why you ask? Well, then.” The old man nodded. “I guess I am not the one to tell you what you should know.”

Embarrassment, confusion, the fact Dustin didn’t even really know himself why he was there, activated his flight instinct. “I…no. I suppose you’re not. Well, never mind then. Thanks for the tea. It was good.”

Once again, a puzzling head bob met Dustin’s words, paradoxical agreement flanked by negation. “Not mine. I told you—Nicolae picks his own blends. Takes a good long look, sizes up what he needs and goes from there.”

Dustin was already at the door when the words caught him. He stopped, frowning. “Wait…how? Nicolae…” He had to pause and let the name linger on his tongue for a moment. “Nicolae is blind, no?”

A grin warmed the worn face. The old man pulled a pad of paper and a pen from underneath his counter and pointed at it. “Leave what you need to leave, boy. And yes, Nicolae’s eyes are broken. But that does not mean he has no sight.” A thick chuckle rattled up the man’s throat. “As God is my witness, young man, the fact is that no one sees better.”

Dustin’s escape was usurped by interest. He walked over and picked up the pen. Stark white paper mocked Dustin’s lack of motion as he stared at the page and tried to focus. What to write? To the man he couldn’t forget? To a man who had spoken no more than a dozen words but refused to leave Dustin’s mind? That reminded Dustin every time he looked in a mirror that a light existed behind the dark? So he wrote the one thing that he hadn’t written down for anyone since high school: his phone number.