Burke and the Polska Bassline

"Ain't no one likes us," the young man said.

"I'm sure that's not true," Burke O'Malley replied. "You just gotta meet the right people." He was laying on his back, staring at the stars above the desert horizon. He'd been living in this primitive city full of sand for a few weeks now and still hadn't made any friends.

The young man sat down next to him and took a long drink from his canteen. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and burped politely. "It's true, Mister O'Malley," he said. "We're all from different worlds, but we all got one thing in common: We were thrown out by our companies."

"That don't seem fair," Burke said. "You worked for those companies? I bet they could've found another way."

The young man shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not. At least here we can live as we want to without being watched or followed."

Burke thought about it for a minute before replying, "I reckon so! I ain't never liked bein' followed either." He sat up and turned to look at the young man. His face was smudged with dirt and his eyes were bleary, but Burke could see he had a friendly smile. "What's your name again?"

"Stu," Stu replied, shaking Burke's hand vigorously. "Stuart Jones. Mr Jones if you wanna be all formal." He perked up suddenly and looked down at his feet, where a small wooden box lay open on the ground in front of him. It too was covered in dust and sand, showing little sign of use until today when Stu began putting it together several hours ago. Now it was ready for its first test run, and Stu could barely contain himself as he placed the bow over the strings and began to play gently into the night air.

As soon as the first note rang out through the valley below them, Burke was mesmerized by its strange sound and fell into an immediate trance-like state on hearing it. His eyes glazed over as he listened to Stu play more notes, each one sounding better than the last and sending shivers down his spine each time he heard one ring out into the night air around him.

He swayed slowly from side to side as he stared at nothing in particular before letting out a loud sigh which startled Stu into stopping playing.

"I think you've given me something I didn't have before," Burke said softly as he looked at Stu with a confused expression on his face.