It started with a single note
A single glance
A single step in the right direction
The wrong direction
It was a quirk of lips
A spasm of the brow
Which just jumbled up the melodies
Until we became an awkward duet
Not entirely unpleasant
The flat tones of the bass rang out
The flutes began to trill warning signals
I was already long gone
It continued with a text
Another measure
Another line
Another rest
The violin’s concerto still rips my soul
As I waited for the little black notes to begin again
As I waited for the rest to end
The silence to end
After that, it was the brass
And the winds
Shrieking
Warning
Sliding up and down scales
As my mind slid up and down
Up and down
Up and down
Until the cymbal crash sounded
And I thought it finished
Three measures later
Two octaves lower
The bass began anew
I can still hear it sometimes
Even when the broken flute chimed
I still listened
Even when the trumpet took the flute’s place
I still stayed
Beethoven wallowed
Mozart shrieked
Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich ranted
But I burned
What went from three melodies became four
Then six
Then twelve
Until I couldn’t keep up
Until every measure of silence stole breath
Until I couldn’t speak
The music never came to an abrupt stop
The cymbals didn’t crash again
The ending melody wasn’t raised an octave then lowered respectively
The music came to an end when the broken flute uttered one last line
With the musician out of breath
And the notes wavering like a whisper
And only one of us survived the finale
Only one of us remained in our seats
And it wasn’t me
***
A longer poem, but it’s a longer story. It feels stupid to continue to pull memories from this time, but my creativity knew no bounds more than a year ago. And I can’t express my utter surprise when I had my time epiphany. To think! A year ago this orchestra played and half of that time later I left that symphonic concert. Ah, well. There are better concertos out there.
Alice Griffin Writes 