Abian Sacks was born in 1761 in a farm outside of Geneva, Switzerland at the height of the Calvinist era where skilled tradesmen– watchmakers, blacksmiths, printers made their livings in the humble Puritan way. Abian's father was a watchmaker, who was apparently rarely on time for anything, in spite of his trade. Journals discovered in the twentieth century that had been kept by Abian's brother, Bartholemew Sacks, reveal that their father devoted much of his time to hobby architecture– secretly of course, because the strict Calvinist doctrines governing work in Geneva at the time would never have allowed such a diversion from one's vocation. Nonetheless, Mr. Sacks, whose name is not known and is referred to in Bartholemew's journals only as "father", attempted to design museums, city squares, homes, a church and even a prototype of a peculiar flying machine. It is safe to say that the sacks boys grew up well-to-do for their time, although when speaking of Calvinist Geneva, well-to-do is a relative concept. The boys never wanted for food on account of their mother's distinguished garden in which she planted a number of vegetables and herbs. And it was right there in their mother's garden that Abian and Bartholemew first discovered the mystical herb known as dagahnj. Little Barty had found a patch growing wild in a far corner of the property, beyond some foreboding, thorny shrubbery that concealed it from all but the bravest. Barty was attracted by the dank scent of the flowers and fetched his brother, who set out to make a potion with the mysterious, redolent plant.
Abian and Bartholemew surmised that dahganj might have acute medicinal properties and it was Abian's idea to brew it in butter, which could then be lathered on toast or used in the baking of sweets. The effects were sublime. Their father's clocks (hundreds of them about the house, always ticking, often a great source of anxiety) suddenly seemed to be playing together in a fantastic symphony. Where before they had seemed at times to Abian to be counting down the seconds of his life with heartless indifference, now they echoed their blithely satisfied tick-ticks in cavernous dimensions, and Abian became aware of how each clock with another clock, having been set off at different times created an endless parallelism, and how other mechanical ticking objects that moved at different speeds (the hand powered ceiling fan they had helped their father build for instance) created repeating loops of ticks that came together and went apart, expressing in circular form some fundamental difference– a sonic relativity. And it was when the boys were playing with their father's metronome and the mechanical fan and all the clocks after having eaten some dagahnj toast that it first occurred to Bartholemew to compose music. He soon asked his father for a cello and instead was given a lute, which he practiced for some time before winning an apprenticeship to an orchestra in Lucern, where he eventually did pick up the cello and become a distinguished soloist.
The Sacks boys were approaching their teenage years and they knew that with dagahnj, they had something very special. But their wild patch was going to run out soon and they needed to find a way of getting more. They would have to bring their parents into the know on this one, they decided, and so first they told their father, thinking that he would be impressed by the plants wild effects. But this was not necessarily prudent, because once Mr. Sacks had tasted dagahnj toast, it was just like another Sacks boy with an equal appetite for the plant had appeared and now the supplies were dwindling. Mr. Sacks was such a devotee of the dagahnj that by his first week on board with the boys, their supply was dwindling twice as fast. They had to talk to their mother. She knew how to grow things. Only she had the ability to renew their supply of the splendid herb, but would she do it? The boys knew that the experience of eating dagahnj toast was a distinctly un-Calvinist one, and they wondered if their mother would not be so appalled as to end the fun decidedly. So with the help of their father, they set out to feed her some toast covertly, so as to watch her reaction. It was fantastic. "Abian, Bartholemew, have you listened these clocks lately??" she called as she walked languidly about the house. Needless to say, once the boys were able to explain to her that dagahnj was responsible for her euphoria that night, she set out to salvage the remaining plant from the garden and grow more, much more.
It was lucky that this occured in Switzerland, for Mr. Sacks new a man in the chocolate trade (that perfect Swiss chocolate that even today has the power to conjure all the coziest sensations and sentiments of an alpine village in ski season) and before long the Sacks boys were manufacturing little dagahnj chocolates that would revolutionize Geneva. The clock makers stopped being on time, the architects started foreshadowing cubism in their designs for houses and city buildings, the printers were printing words all out of order and in groovy new fonts. It was an upheaval, and needless to say it was shut down by authorities before long.
But Abian earned enough money to go to Paris to study and it was there that he made two lasting friendships, predicated on a mutual love of dagahnj, and the fact that Abian's heightened sensibilities concerning aesthetics impressed many, but none so much as young Jean-Jaques Rousseau, and the man known only as Athos.
Athos you may know from his famous exploits with the musketeers Porthos, Aramis and young D'Artagnan. But shortly before meeting those auspicious characters he had been a prolific wino, a romantic, wandering the streets of Paris, living in a little flat, mingling with artists, scientists, whoever he found interesting, who he could engage in a little chat, always drinking, and often making a fine impression on distinguished members of society, so that he had cultivated a sort of bohemian fame. He and Abian first met in a cafe, aptly enough, where Athos was sipping a hot chocolate, and Abian, drawn to Athos' wistful manner, offered him a little helping from his basket of toast. It was not long before Athos was persuaded to leave the bottle behind and take up dagahnj as a healthier substitute. He and Abian would go on long walks in the countryside around Paris looking for a new wild stash, and to pass the time they would look at the birds too. Athos' father had been an ornithologist as a hobby and Athos seemed to know everything there was to know about the creatures, from distinctive markings to migration and mating habits right down to the birdcalls, and Abian took note of all of it.
Now, although Abian met Jean-Jaques Rousseau quite accidently, (in the same cafe where he first met Athos) Rousseau had been an absolute devotee of dagahnj chocolate in Geneva. He said it helped him to think, to throw off the shackles of oppression in the mind and be at one with his creator and with the object of his desire. He wrote the Social Contract under the influence of a generous supply of toast from Abian. Together they would discuss politics and women and music, but mostly Jean-Jaques would talk, as he was prone to doing at length.
It was during the Revolution that Abian decided to get out of Paris and he chose England as his next destination. He'd heard great things about the birdwatching there and decided he might make a book, cataloguing the taxonomy of birds. He was there for two decades, receiving packets of toast from Bartholemew in the mail, and cataloguing his many birds. Bartholemew was in Germany apprenticing in the studio of Johannes Brahms.
It was around this time that a young American upstart named John James Audoban travelled to England seeking culture and adventure and didn't care how he got what he wanted as long as he got it. When their paths collided one fateful day, Abian was birdwatching and John James was hunting game-bird and it made for an awkward beginning but Abian offered the man some toast and they soon met again and had a congenial friendship for a while. But cunning Auduban, always looking for a leg-up, got it in his mind to invade Abian's flat one night and steal the recipe for this magical toast that, by the way, greatly heightened his shooting abilities on the hunt. Abian was out at the cafe drinking hot chocolate and going over some notes when Audoban snuck into his flat, but he did not find any recipe, nor any considerable stash of dagahnj, which Abian only had in a small portion (whatever Barty could send him) on account of the scarcity of good growing conditions that time of year in Great Britain. Instead, the scoundrel Auduban found volumes and volumes of detailed notes and sketches pertaining to ornithology, and so he took what he could get. The volumes were intended to be published under the title "Hawkee-boos". Bartholemew had persuaded his brother to title the work "Abian's Book of Birds" but, now Abian's book became Auduban's book, and the scoundrel had great success. Perhaps it was for the best, for Auduban would return to America and begin birdwatching in earnest, finally publishing his seminal work, "Birds of America", but Abian would never be able to publish "Hawkeeboos" and for a time after the loss of his work he was depressed and so he decided to seek new surroundings.
If he had known that John James Audoban had gone back to America, Abian never would have gone there, but it is good that he didn't for many adventures and riches lay ahead for him there. It merely seemed the only step forward– the New World– a place where surely adventure must be waiting, where surely there were new ideas at play and things to be done. Well, Abian settled just north of New York City and it was not long before he realized that dagahnj grew in the New World in great abundance. He had come to the right place. And with the help of an Iriquois man he met on the birdwatch one day, a man named Winocki, Abian learned things about the plant he hadn't ever realized. For one thing, apparently it could be smoked.
Some years passed and Abian spent some time marketing a new dagahnj chocolate with Winocki called Hawkeeboos. They were shaped like little birds and packed with dagahnj, which Winocki called "Cheebers". The pioneer boys loved them. They were used during the civil war to treat a variety of injuries and ailments. And they were popular among a certain social crust in Manhattan– artists, writers, socialites. He had always been incredibly disciplined where it came to marketing his chocolates or the study of birds. And he maintained a boutique character in his business, refusing to take investments from outsiders, to have his company swallowed by the new titans of America, the corporations. He had offers from men who represented men who represented the gas company, the railroad, General Mills, toy companies, the company that made little instruments for dentists– it seemed everyone had been visited by a little bird who whispered something about a mystical flower and a man in the Bronx who could make into candy.
But Abian kept a low profile, in fact he scoffed at the attention and when it finally became too uncomfortable, he closed his business and looked for a new trade. He was 120 years old.
He decided to try sports and found he was rather good at it. He learned of a new game called baseball and quickly got into it, playing for a while on the New York Giants alongside Honus Wagner. When he retired from the game Willie Mays was on the team. Dagahnj has been connected to longevity in scientific studies especially when cooked in butter and lathered on delicious toast. The Sacks boys must be living proof. In the later part of the century, Abian became friends with a Soviet born painter and an old ex-hippy atheist debater, and the three of them collaborated on a number of stop-action animation films explaining some of the early flying machines designed by the senior Mr. Sacks, which were apparently quite functional and could be used in a new sport called urban handgliding. As for Bartholemew, he had long since changed his name to Charles Mingus and moved to LA. Abian still resides in the Bronx where he lives by the 5 train.
