“I went down on one knee because I thought I was going to be sick but the sound kept growing without and within me, and I was aware not only of the music and the people playing it and the dying woman in front of me, but of every living thing surrounding us; every weed, every insect, every animal in distant fields, the birds flying overhead...it was...I’m not quite sure how to—oh, hang on.

“I once met a schizophrenic who described what it felt like when he wasn’t on his medication. He said it was as if all of his nerves had been plugged into every electrical appliance in the house and someone had set those appliances to run full-blast. That’s what it was like for me that day in the graveyard. For one moment all life everywhere was functioning at its peak and I was ‘plugged into’ everything—but only as long as this music deemed me worthy of possession.”

I began shaking my head; slowly, at first, then with more determination, in order to rid my ears—both my ears—of a buzzing pressure that was growing inside my skull.

Knight continued: “I managed to pull my head up and look at the beggar woman. She had reached over and taken the violin with the broken neck and was holding it against the baby—both the dead infant and the instrument were slick with her blood—and she made the smallest movement with her head, a quick, sharp, sideways jerk that I knew meant ‘Come closer.’ I leaned over until my ear was nearly touching her lips and I heard her whisper three words: ‘Shakti. Kichar admi.’ It wasn’t until later, when I’d gotten back to the set and asked one of the Indian crew members about it, that I found out what ‘Shakti’ meant: Creative intelligence, beauty & power. The cosmic energies as perceived in Hindu mysticism, given to mankind by Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva so it might know some small part of what it feels like to be a god.

“Then she pushed me away with surprising strength. I fell backwards onto my ass and felt the music wrenched from my chest. I was suddenly separate from all of them, from the earth, my own flesh, the glow of the setting sun; the surrounding life had withdrawn from me, unplugged itself. I was being asked to leave, so I did. With their glorious music still spinning in the air behind me, I moved toward the road and did not look back until I was well past the gates.”

The smoke-players began to reverently shift their positions. I rubbed my temples and turned my head to the side; not only was I hearing the song Knight had described, but underneath it was the cumulative babble of a million whispering voices speaking in as many different languages.

“As soon as I stepped from the cemetery I heard a new sound join the music, a lone, sustained note that floated above everything, a mournful cry that sang of ill-founded dreams and sorrowful partings and dusty myths from ages long gone by, then progressively rose in pitch to soften this extraordinary melancholy with promises of joy and wonder—‘I AM light’s fullest dimension, I AM light’s richest intention, I AM, I AM, I AM the light!’—and I turned for one more look, one last drinking in of this gloriously odd, golden moment, and I saw the child standing in the midst of the musicians, such a beautiful child, the violin tucked firmly under his chin. He looked at me and smiled a smile unlike any that had been smiled before, full of riddles and mischief and answers and glee, and in that smile I knew his name: Shakti. He was giving me a final chord, a last bit of the music to remember for the rest of my life, and in that last moment he opened me up to the majestic cacophony to such a degree that I heard…Jesus Christ, I heard everything.