The Cowboy and the Phantom

Chapter Thirty: Seeing the Beauty Underneath

We rode to another side of town that Cesar and I passed by earlier. It was an open park with a few trees, streetlamps that lit up the whole area, and it was next to a building that was closed so we had the place to ourselves. 

"We're here. I passed it on the way back," I said smiling.

"Why did you come back? Really?" Woody asked

I looked at him, "I wasn't as happy as I thought I was there. And I couldn't get you out of my mind. From our conversation to our confessions."

"I meant that," Woody said bringing Bullseye in front of me and Cesar, "I do love you."

"I know you do. But one day you'll get tired of this mask and ask for it off."

"I don't know what's so horrible about what's under that mask but I could see the beauty underneath."

"You don't know that and I've had enough experience to be weary of that statement."

Woody only nodded and moved Bullseye away. But that's when I heard music. Time for another musical moment. But this is what surprised me; Woody looked like he could hear it too. He looked confused and started to look around for the source.

"Can you hear that?" I asked him

"I can hear it!" Woody said looking at me

How is that possible? I got off of Cesar, confused

'He... how could it be? He hears the music,' I said

'You... you hear it too. You hear the music,' Woody said getting off of Bullseye

I had to test something, "Now, sing!"

Woody started vocalizing just like Christopher. Wait, is Woody musical? How did we both not know this?

"Sing... sing for me!" I said wanting to hear more

He continued to vocalize. I encouraged him to keep going over and over. I could listen to him for hours. But he seems so much like me now that I've seen this side of him. I wonder...

'Have you ever yearned to go past the world you think you know? Been enthralled to the call of the beauty underneath?' I asked, 'Have you let it draw you in past the place where dreams begin? Felt the full breathless pull of the beauty underneath? Can you taste it? Have you heard its music and embraced it? Do you crave the visions that it shows you? Do you wonder why it chose you? Like it knows you, knows you have a darkness running through you. If you're not afraid I'll show it to you.'

'You don't fear the darkness, do you?' Woody asked me

'Have you found yourself beguiled by the dangerous and wild? And been hooked as you looked at the beauty underneath? Have you felt your senses surge and surrendered to the urge? Tell me you know it too, know the beauty underneath. If it's in you, in your skin and bone and blood and sinew. If it doesn't frighten you and shake you there are places I can take you...'

'I can taste it, I have heard that music and embraced it, heard it in the wonders that you've shown me...'

'It's as if he's always known me,' I said to myself as Woody started looking around

'It's all so beautiful! So strange yet beautiful! Everything just as you say!'

'And he's so beautiful. Perhaps too beautiful. What I suspect cannot be... still, he seems so much like me, I can't look away...'