The Violinist's Song
The intense sound of a violin being played with such force reached her ears, halting her in her tracks. She looked up to the windows of the building to her right, trying to locate where the sound was coming from.
One window was wide open, part of the curtains blowing in the wind. She listened again to the music, wondering who on the campus had such talent. The melody was played in a harsh, desultory way, though she didn't doubt that the person behind it was highly skilled.
The song was anger, frustration and sadness all at once.
It moved her, stopping her from reaching her destination. She was entranced by it, although the song was practically the violin wailing out for its player to stop before its strings snapped.
She closed her eyes, absorbing the sound into her soul, memorizing every detail of it, its pitch, the scale it was played in, the almost-undetectable acciaccatura before the G-sharp note.
Everything came to her mind.
And suddenly, the song stopped. Her eyes opened and she frowned. That can't be it, she thought to herself. That couldn't have been the ending. It was too abrupt.
She looked back up to the open window and made her decision.
Original destination forgotten, she dashed into the building, intent on finding the violin player.
~~~ xxx~~~
Nobody was there.
She let out a frustrated breath, cursing silently at her bad luck.
The player had already left.
She entered the room, going over to the window that was open a while ago. She was very sure that this was the room the violinist had used.
She looked out the window and noticed the spot she had stood earlier, where she would have seen this window. The room was exactly where she had looked at from below.
She expelled a light sigh and went over to the upright piano at the side of the room. She sat down and opened the piano's lid. Her fingers itched to the play the melody she had just heard and they hovered above the black and white keys.
But she was hesitant. It somehow felt... intrusive of her to play a song so obviously deep and heartfelt to the composer, which must have been the mysterious violinist. After more than ten years of studying music, she had never encountered a piece like the one she had heard. It wasn't a piece written by famous composers like Vivaldi and Bach; it was something new and strange but somehow discordantly beautiful.
She held down the G-sharp key on the piano, the sound immediately bringing her mind to the same note in the violinist's song, the one right after the acciaccatura. Her fingers smoothly slid over the three notes over the grace note and her left hand played out a short bass.
She let her eyes close for a moment as she breathed deeply. Slowly, by memory, she played the song as she had heard it.
The last, hanging note troubled her. Her eyebrows narrowed down as the sound of the note faded. She released the key and placed her hands on her lap.
It doesn't have a proper close.
For a minute or two, she just sat staring at the piano keys in front of her, her head full of thoughts of the song. Did the violinist purposely end it that way? Or was it still unfinished?
Finally, she stood up, closing the piano's lid before leaving the room.
~~~ xxx~~~
The violinist was a discreet person.
For days, she tried to search him or her out, but she would always return to her room empty-handed. She knew a lot of the students of the college, though none of them seemed likely enough to be the mysterious violinist.
She thought that maybe one of the lecturers had composed and played it. However, she dismissed the idea. Her intuition told her that it definitely was not a teacher and her instincts were quite reliable.
While she searched, she composed.
Whenever she could find time off, she would go to the music rooms to play the piano. It wasn't only for practice but also to finish the song.
The night of the day she had heard the violinist's song, the song's hanging end nagged at her, annoying her to no end. She had thought that listening to some calming compositions would soothe her, but they didn't work like they normally would have. She had decided then to continue the song and finish it properly.
She was getting there, a fitting finish for the melody. She tried to feel like the composer, take in all the emotions that he or she had put into the song. She didn't think that she would have been able to, but it had been quite easy considering the fact that she felt those emotions a lot these days.
Almost two weeks later, she was very nearly done. She walked across the grounds, making her way to the main building to get to the library. To her chest, she clutched some books and a folder containing the written notes of the song she was continuing.
As she walked, she heard it.
The song again.
Surprise filled her. She hadn't heard the melody being played by anyone other than herself in a while. She whipped her head around, trying to detect where it was coming from.
The tune drifted to her from somewhere in the grounds. She changed directions, walking towards the sound now.
Her legs began to run when she could hear the song coming to its sudden close. Panic fluttered in her chest and she ran faster still.
She crested a small hill as the hanging last note was heard. Her disappointment turned to shock when the song did not stop.
The violinist continued.
The notes were exactly the same as how she had written it.
Her shock faded after a while and she listened as the song went on, more beautiful and fierce on the violin than on the piano. The player stopped three bars before the last bar she had composed.
She looked around her, expecting to see someone, anyone at all! But the trees surrounding her were quiet, leaves dancing to the occasional breeze.
Her voice came out soft, asking if anyone was there. No reply came back to her and she wound through the trees, hoping to, at the least, catch a glimpse of her enigmatic player.
She found nobody.
Her frustration getting the better of her, she kicked at the trunk of a tree and stalked off, leaving in her wake her annoyance and the scent of strawberries.
~~~ xxx~~~
So, that is her.
~~~ xxx~~~
For the next few days, she couldn't get to work on the song at all. Studies and heaps of homework kept her busy and away from the work she wanted to do. She tried finishing the work given by the lecturers as fast as possible, but it always seemed like there were more unfinished ones sitting quietly on her desk, surprising her when she thought she was finally done.
It wasn't till six days after her close encounter with the violinist that she could at last make time for the song.
She made her way to the music room she usually used and shut the door behind her. She set down her things by the baby grand in the middle of the room and sat on the bench before taking out the sheets scribbled with notes from the song.
Placing the pieces of papers on top of the piano, she began to play.
It took a couple of hours before she had finally composed all but the last nine bars of the song. Despite being tired, she felt pleased with herself. But now she was faced with another problem:
How to find the violinist?
She had no clue where to start, she realized as she gazed out the window. Her player was so illusive, secretive. She listened to other musicians on campus and none of them sounded anywhere near her player.
Is he or she really among us?
She hadn't even determined the gender of the violinist, but thinking back on it, sounds as harsh and the careless-like method the violinist played in pointed that he most likely was a male.
She was also curious as to how the player had known what she had done to his song and had played most of it the other day. Had he written the chords by himself, and coincidentally, they had been the same? She very much doubted that.
She let out a breath and began packing away her things.
~~~ xxx~~~
She had finished the song.
She smiled, relishing the cool breeze that drifted into the room through the open window. She looked back to the papers in her hand, feeling a little sad that she still had not discovered the violinist. She wanted so much to meet the person and show him what she had done, ask for his approval.
Turning back to the piano, she began to play.
In the twenty-fifth bar, she got a surprise.
The sound of a violin playing the same song she was floated in through the window.
The shock changed to disbelief. She jumped from the piano bench and ran over to the window, sticking out half her body and looking wildly around.
The sound suddenly seemed to stop.
Was I imagining things?
She gritted her teeth before walking back to the piano. She sat back down on the bench, unsure and exasperated.
The song restarted and she straightened. She went over to the window as calmly as possible and cautiously peered down from behind the curtains.
She could see students walking through the grounds, some seated under trees and on benches alone or with friends. They seemed not to care about the song coming from the violin, but some did turn their heads to find its source.
Her own eyes searched. They finally landed on the shadow of a tree right across from her.
She could see movement behind the trunk of the tree, someone running a bow against the strings of a violin. She couldn't see any other distinctive feature of the player except that, even from a distance, she could see lean arms playing the instrument.
Her player was there and she couldn't see his face.
She wanted to run downstairs right that moment and face the violinist. But she was afraid he would vanish again, like the two times before.
Slowly, she went back to the piano and picked up from where her player was playing. She played an accompaniment of sorts, getting in more bass than she had initially written and letting the violinist play most of the higher notes.
When they finished, the dying notes of the song echoed around the campus. She could feel the general curiosity and amazement of the inhabitants of the college and half-smiled.
She stayed put on the piano bench for a long time, feeling exhilarated and unsatisfied. How can she ever meet with her player?
A knock on the door made her look at it. The doorknob did not turn though she could see a shadow from the window of the door.
Something slid into the room from the crack between the door and the floor. When she looked at the door's window, the shadow was retreating.
She jumped and wrenched the door open, looking down the corridor.
At the end of the hall was a male walking away from her. He was thin and tall, looking smart and clean even from behind. His hair was black and short. His hand moved in front of him, as if he was pushing up spectacles.
"Hey! Wait!"
As she ran forward, the boy disappeared around the corner. When she rounded it, she was met with another hallway with two stairwells on either side and some doors along the walls. He could have gone anywhere.
She looked through the rooms, but he wasn't there. He must have gone to the stairs.
Sighing heavily, she returned to the music room she had been using and closed the door. She picked up the envelope that was slipped into the room. The face of the envelope was white, nothing written on it.
She tore it open and took out the letter, or note, to be more precise.
Thank you for finishing it.
It is truly incredible.
~~~ xxx~~~
He gazed up at the leaves above him. His eyes slid close for a moment as he let the soft wind kiss his face.
He peered around the tree, looking up at the room with the open windows where he knew she was in. She would not see him, would not know it was him that had composed the song.
A boy approached him, tall and thin with black hair and smart clothes. His spectacles glinted in the sunlight.
"Thanks," was all he said to the boy.
The boy standing nodded before looking up at the open window. "You should tell her."
When he didn't reply, the black-haired boy snorted and went off.
He wondered if he should tell her, but he didn't exactly want to. He smiled a little, recalling their 'performance'.
It's like we're connected, some way, and you know all that I'm feeling in this song. You outdid yourself this time.
He laughed slightly and gazed to the leaf-dappled sky above him.
Someday, I'll write you a song of 'Thanks'.
~~~ xxx~~~
A/N: I find that I like this story, though it's very strange. I thought so anyway, after I'd finished writing it and reread it for editing. Not much was changed, maybe just switching or adding a word or two.
I have no formal education in music, so I wouldn't know much. I study it by myself and haven't gone very far. Any music theory that is wrong here sums up to my limited knowledge of music, so please excuse me for that.
The characters are nameless and have no identifiable descriptions (except of course the black-haired boy. You'd know who he is), so you have the freedom of choosing who they are. Of course, in my own head, the characters would be the stars of most of my previous fictions. If you've read some of them, you would know.
I'd like to know who came to your head while reading this story. It's interesting to know the different thoughts of people.
I hope you enjoyed it, in some way :)