Staunch, hard notes landed in a jarring display one on top of another, forming discordantly uniform chords. Striking tones and deep pitches sent sound vaulting off into the air, leaping around the hall in a lofty dance. It pirouetted from the basses to the brass, chasséd through the woodwinds and winding reeds, before landing a grand jete right at the feet of the conductor.
Old Pyotr, may God rest his soul, liked things certain ways: his women like men, his compositions like bibles, and his symphonies like battlegrounds.
Her bow fought with the strings, sliding over one before rushing to the next. A quick burst of pressure in a slight incline of her wrist, and the sound shifted from airy to gravelly. Another trick of frantic movement from her fingers, and the note was being stretched and twirled in a long bout of vibrato. Her hands felt hard and heavy, pressing down in forceful punches against the wood. It moved her body instinctively, in the way all art moved the soul. The subconscious pull which guided humans into a dreamlike state where logic was replaced by pure feeling.
Pyotr was there, his love and grief and suffering all welding her into this piece, into this stream of vibrant emotion that interlaced its influence between notes and rests. She saw him. His powerful love which he wielded like a sword through the pages she stared at now, piercing into her heart. The dear one who had consumed him until his demise, living a torturous life in the dark recesses of his own mind, the one whose death weighed on Pyotr so. Drowning sorrow released its cries from the friction of taut hair over metal, screeching songs to wrestle with the rest and ultimately form the pinnacle of his being.
She felt his nails digging into the meat of her fingers, tugging her this way and that, bringing her chest up and down in great swells of breath.
Soft melodies turned cacophonous. His struggles felt as real and dear to her as those which plagued her own mind.
A breath, the briefest. One fleeting reprieve before the final note. She felt her eyes wander, she could not help it.
In that moment, every bit of love and loss Pyotr had ever experienced had become her own. Her vision focused on thick black hair falling down tanned shoulders, honey brown eyes slightly squinted with intensity, red lips pursed in concentration, beads of sweat dripping past wispy bangs, thighs covered by a long, black dress squeezing the body of a cello so hard it was sure to leave deep indents. The misery Pyotr felt over his dear one was so prominent in her own stomach, aching like a phantom pain.
Bows landed and breaths released all in one simultaneous motion as the great, single-minded beast of the orchestra ended as one entity. Her hands were not her own, they were the music’s, feeling its flow and drawing out the last chord in perfect synchronicity with the rest of the beast. Only her eyes belonged to herself, fixed not on printed lines and bars but black hair, brown eyes, covered thighs.
The moment passed.
A surge of raucous applause jerked her head forward again. Pyotr left, his presence fading as the memory of his work faded with every second they left their instruments untouched. But the pain did not leave, only shifted from his to undeniably hers.
Even though it was not Pyotr who guided her limbs, her movements still felt under some other distinct compulsion. Her body bent in a half bow, her lips rose in a trembling smile, and her feet carried her in assured strides off the stage. Black hair swished in front of her, lightly tanned arms strained under the weight of a redwood cello, but honey brown eyes never turned around to meet hers.
As it should be. As it was.
Zihe Chen is a high school freshman from Colorado. When she is not screwing over her sleep schedule, she enjoys reading, writing, playing the viola, volleyball, debating, and doing stupid things with friends.