Jonny Cuba
The space-denizen Jonny Cuba was long considered an enigmatic personage.
Oolite whisperer
Oftentimes Jonny Cuba was to be found slouched on a stool, pushing his burly shoulders against the moderate G-force of a sticky bar surface, in a drinking establishment with a name leaving little doubt of its customary clientele. Barely moving, and gazing through narrow slits framed by heavily folded eyelids, one could assume that here was another soul lost in oblivion, but that would be a mistake, because Jonny Cuba missed nothing.
He noticed immediately the then-unknown, newcomer Aegidian as the latter shyly entered through the door. This Aegidian was clutching, awkwardly, a computer interface and some paper folders, and trying to orient himself to the unfamiliar setting. Quietly he made his way to a little table in the back. All of a sudden, Jonny Cuba was sat at the adjacent table, in the same motionless posture as before. One could perceive, barely, that his eyes were fixed to the edge of their narrow slits, closely observing the newcomer.
Henceforth Jonny Cuba was there whenever the tenderfoot techie Aegidian was. Whenever Aegidian leaned back from his terminal and looked over one of his shoulders, theexpressionless mystery man was present and, though it was impossible to say with certainty, seemingly studying him closely. Somehow the techie grew to feel that this man was in tune with the work on his screen. A sigh, or a growl, for instance, could be heard at moments when the timing relative to Aegidian’s keystrokes seemed too fitting to be coincidental. And at the very moment of completing some operation successfully on his interface, he would hear a deep rumble that sounded like, "Mmm, good".
And so it was, that while Aegidian never really knew how far the nearby presence comprehended work, he found comfort in the grunts of approval, and eventually came to think of the other man as a kind of muse.
There are reports that others, too, experienced the effect of the apparitional nearby presence. The young Murgh found in that presence a similar mysterious source of subtle encouragement, and perhaps manipulation, even to the extent that, with time, Jonny Cuba became an advisor and even a confidant of sorts.
Eventually it became known that Jonny Cuba was an accomplished musician, and with that revelation some of the mystery died.
Scoring
Better known that the subtle intellectual influence worked by Jonny Cuba is the music that he wrote. That music sweeps continually through the salons of the hOopy Casinoes. It has become lodged within the heads of many a creature. The composition is even harder to forget after one has witnessed it being performed. It is performed by holograms going by the name ‘Jonny Cuba & the Fierce Frogs’.
