Once upon a time there was a dark, dingy garden filled with brown grass and weeds. The soil was lackluster and dry. A few dead, fallen trees scattered across the paths.
Philbert liked to sit on the stumps in the daytime and ponder, muse, and think about life. It was the only quiet place he had, away from school and home, where no one would walk across his path.
He favorite seat was on the largest stump in the dead heart of the garden.
One night Philbert had to get out of the house, away from his fighting parents and siblings. He slipped out the backdoor and ran to the dry garden, but as he approached, he could see that the garden was full of life. He reached the edge and stepped across thick, green grass covering rich sod. Pure white moonflowers bloomed all around. The stumps had sprung tall, old, old trees. In the very heart of the garden stood a tall, tall, thick oak tree that towered over all the growth. Philbert felt miniscule standing among these night giants.
He could hear a song of many instruments emitting from the ground. He kneeled and dug with his fingers, and as he pulled away the dirt, out sprang lively music. He dug holes all around and out burst young saplings of song all around the garden, playing a vibrant, melodeous tune.
He didn’t hear a noise, but he felt something watching him. He looked over his shoulder and low-perched in the giant oak tree sat a nightingale. It ruffled its light brown feathers and turned its small head at Philbert, but it sang no song, made no sound.
Philbert waited, as though the bird might speak, but it only looked at him a few moments, then fluttered away.
Philbert soon forgot about the bird and continued to tend the music garden for hours until the song came to a slow, gradual end. Content with his work, Philbert returned home quietly, without letting his family notice.
Philbert returned every night after. Though most teenage boys snuck out of their houses at night to cause mischief, Philbert went to tend his garden. He still visited the place during the daytime, when he needed the respite. Despite the brown grass and dead look of the growth in daylight, it gave him a comforting feeling to be among nothing but places and nature, sans humans and their things.
Though he had a feeling it watched him often, he did not see the nightingale again until a few weeks later when he returned to the garden. It watched him from the tree as he kneeled and pressed his ear against the earth … but heard no music.
Philbert said to himself, “Where is the sound?”
“It does not flow as easily as when you first discover it,” the nightingale spoke without song. Philbert looked up and it was on a low, low branch staring him straight in the face, “you must dig deeper, but the deeper you dig, the greater the music.”
Philbert dug and dug with his hands to no avail, and the nightingale fluttered away. He leaned against the giant oak and pondered a while, then decided to return the next night better prepared.
He brought shovels and dug, and he dug and dug until he hit a vein of rich music that poured across the whole garden. The melody was sweeter than he had ever heard before.
He kept the digging tools in the garden and returned each night. The hole was getting deeper and deeper, and he dug until there was a great cavern filled with music that rang across his ears and poured out into the night, covering the town and his house and family with a song that made them stop and, as though they were not hearing it but thinking a thought to themselves, step outside in the night and watch the stars, thinking to themselves with a great sense of relief and respite that Philbert often found for himself in the garden.