Music of the Mind - Writers Forum

sushi173 · 09-02-2007, 09:39 AM

The Music of the Mind

The music rose and fell like waves, the melodies and counter-melodies creating the faintest ripples that vanished within moments just to reappear with the next swell. He was slumped back against the high back of the chair, seeming out of place in the one room he really felt at home in. The medium-sized room was decorated in mahogany and red velvet, with a piano in one corner of the room and a collection of string instruments in another. A CD player and a tape player took up the space on top of a cupboard, but it was the record player which the music spilled out of, an antique given to him by his grandfather, who had been a great violin player. The boy was a stark opposition to the grandeur and grace of the archaic-looking room in his blue jeans and T-shirt, his dark hair messy over a young face and his eyes pinched closed as he listened to the music, slowly relaxing as the familiar melody filled his ears. He had found that ever since it seemed like his life was falling apart at the seams music was the only thing anchoring him down, keeping him sane. Music had become his life, his soul. The pulse of his heart was the eternal beat that kept him moving, the only thing that helped him to rise above what was happening.
He opened his eyes to look in frustration at the collection of instruments that sat silently on their stands, mocking him. It had been weeks since he had last played one. Every time he sat down, felt the warm wood in his hands or the gentle hardness of the ivory under his fingers, his mind went utterly blank. Playing used to be his escape, a way to be rid of stress and lose the world for a few moments to hear what he – a plain boy, an outcast in school – was producing. It was the only thing he was good at. Math, essays, science...it all escaped him, frustrating him beyond belief. If every other student in his class could do it, why couldn’t he? He came to hate himself, to be always angry that he couldn’t do better. He took out his anger in his music, dragging the bow across the strings or pounding the keys. Lately it had been impossible to let it out, and so he had become more sullen than usual and tended to snap at anyone who said two words to him. It was made always worse by his parents.
They had attended his concerts and recitals, his mother’s face always carefully composed with feigned interest, his father barely looking like he cared at all. He would look into the crowd and see this and it would simply encourage him to do better, to prove to them that he could do something.
But it felt like nothing made any difference, because every time it was the same expressions on their faces. There was no more a real degree of pride than there had been before, and slowly he came to the realization that they would never truly care. He began to not show up to his lessons, choosing instead to sit in his Music Room for hours, alone and depressed. His teachers, both of his music and of his high school, expressed concern to his parents who shrugged it off as a teenage phase and left it at that.
“Is something wrong?” his mother had finally asked him over dinner one night. “I haven’t heard you play your music in a long time.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he answered shortly, playing with his food.
“Are you sure?” His father’s voice was slightly hopeful, and he had felt a surge of anger towards the man who had raised him.
It was the year before high school when he began to love music, and threw himself into piano and strings lessons that his parents grudgingly paid for, while also learning band instruments at school. It was something he could finally do right, and he absorbed the lessons so quickly that his teachers proclaimed him a late-blooming prodigy. He was proud of his talents and begged his parents for the instruments that now sat in his “Music Room”, something they had done for his birthday to keep him happy. His father had put up a fight about every little thing, trying to persuade him to go into a “more stable career path” like medicine or law. He had stubbornly refused, insisting that music was what he wanted to do – what he needed to do. Because it felt more like a physical need to play music, like a drug he craved because he knew it would pull him up from the life he hated. Other kids his age turned to drugs and alcohol; he played his music, hearing the notes fill the room, sometimes so powerful it drove him to tears. Now that he couldn’t play it felt like a painful withdrawal, and he found himself sitting alone for hours, lost in thoughts of anger and depression.
Without music he couldn’t live his life. Music was the pulse of his heart, the rush of blood in his veins, the gentle sounds of his breathing. Music was his salvation, his saviour, come to rescue him during the hardest years of his life. And now music had abandoned him. Perhaps it had decided that it was no longer needed, that it had given him his three years of euphoria and that was enough, and had left him.
At this thought a white-hot wave of hate seared his veins and he sat up straight, staring at the record player in anger. In one swift movement he jumped forward and hit the needle away, leaving the old record spinning silently, cutting the music off with an abrupt cry of vexation and a shout of, “Why?” He ran to the piano and slammed his hands down on the keys, hearing the gross noise from something that could make such beautiful music. The dissonant chords hit his ears so hard that he almost felt a physical pain, but he slammed on the keys again and again, tears of frustration and hatred welling in his eyes until they spilled over and dotted the old, loved piano with water.
“Why?” he shouted again. “Why did you leave me? Why would you do that?” His voice rose until it was almost a shriek, and he ran back over to the record player. There was such a wailing of despair and antagonism in his mind that he didn’t realize what he was doing as he grabbed hold of the table it sat on and heaved. The crash, however, registered in his mind, and he froze, staring down in horror at the broken antique, the cracked record that had given him such peace so many times. He sank to his knees, unable to rip his eyes from the fate of his grandfather’s record player, staring until tears welled in them again and then spilled over.
There was a banging at the door, someone calling his name, but he hardly heard it. He closed his eyes tightly, dragging in a deep breath full of pain and sorrow.
Then, suddenly, through his self-hatred and sadness, he heard music. It was unlike any music he had ever heard before, the notes rippling through the air, and when he opened his eyes he could swear he could see them, blurred by the tears, but there. The beginning of a smile tugged up one corner of his mouth as he watched the notes float across the wall, drawing themselves out for him as if to say, We’re not gone for good.
His arm lifted from his side and began to conduct, and he felt his body fall into the rhythm as it did when he used to play. His heart began to keep count with him... One, two, three, four... One, two, three, four... He felt suddenly giddy and he leapt to his feet, his arm following the familiar conducting pattern as he watched the notes on the red wall with wide eyes, the drying tears on his face forgotten.
He didn’t hear the door open, and he didn’t see his parents standing there with wide eyes, taking in the broken record player that had been so precious to him, the mess on the floor...and watching him listen to music that wasn’t there.