The feather pen was light in his hand, but it refused to break.
His gaze was sharp, but the lines were sharper; the manuscript paper than overrun his life more than work did. They glared up at him and he glared back, unforgiving, until the lamp light gently turned his gaze away.
He'd never liked starters.
They were difficult during the times where nothing came to his mind. They were more difficult when he had the rest planned out. Starters decided the flow of the music, and there were times where no matter how much he tried, he couldn't turn it to his favour.
He sighed finally. Perhaps he should just stick to those he had gotten over and done with.
The lightness of the pen replaced itself with a solid wooden bow, and it lay tucked away snugly, resting on the frayed paper. It wasn't bright; the sun had long set and hard only turned on the table lamp. It felt empty, and the shadow of candles and hands passed him by, but he brushed it away.
He remembered a harder grip, a weight that pulled at his fingers, a glint of steel, a more satisfactory flutter as he ran his hand along its surface. He felt things tug at his thigh and he snaps his gaze down, jolting, horrified, confused.
These things kept happening, he absentmindedly mused. If he was only just losing his mind, it felt like he'd done it all his life.
But he must be, he thought. The reason why he'd stopped being adept at starters always slipped past him, as was why his gut twisted every time he passed a Mr Jaeger. The images of men falling left, rights centre pestered him, and never once was he able to comprehend the names in his mind. An arm, a leg, blue eyes, missing face. Carolina. Dietrich. Zacklay.
Smith.
The metal strings were wires, and often, he imagined them cutting into the sky. And then, he'd be soaring, flying, screaming, falling...
He plucked one gingerly. It vibrated and hummed, rang a solid note, yet at the same time it was fragile like the frailty of shattered faces he'd seen. A brooding blue darts through the stars in his eyes, and he wonders where he'd seen it before.
He plucks another string, then another, then another. The bow hangs quiet in his idle hand, like the remains of a sword he could not see. The sky had been a brilliant cerulean then- an unwitting blur, a shade of pristine ice brighter than even the eyes of the cadet who's dying prayer never left his mind. He flinches, but the world is silent, and the metal string rebounds against blackened wood. He relaxes after a while and the string slowly stills, the sound melting, so does his thoughts.
It was a monotonous procedure- take it by its neck, set it down, sit, lean. The weight was welcoming, the usual flutter of dust and rosin greeting him. He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, he thinks back to the phantom weight that rested on his unoccupied shoulder.
The bow draws over a string. The sound was pleasing; sharp, pristine, yet wonderfully rounded, like the delightful arc of blade through wind. His fingers creep up the wires, and he presses hard. He paints another circle on the canvas of air, another arc through flesh...
He chains the next two notes, then the next two, then another two. He varies the pressure through both hands, rise, ebb, rise, ebb. It reminds him of cutting grass, inconsistent wind, distant footsteps, distant growls. Moans that jolt him awake amidst his musing, the tang of rain and grass. Blood that ran down his hands, across the land, unconstrained, free like the birds they never were. He stops abruptly to calm a rage that unknowingly built up until he once again graces the strings with his bow.
The bowing steadily grows haggard, but it brings him ease. The notes start and end abruptly, springing up in their wakes, erased violently with no room for gradual fading. Like the spontaneous anchoring, the careless splinters, heavy cracks and thumps as they navigate through the woods. His mind travels to the plains, and he smooths it out, only to tense it up again following the distant footsteps. He pulls it back to a long rubato when the image of a graceful horse passes. The fluctuating sound was like release, and he reels his head back, allows his thoughts to fall- and then he remembers, and he takes a dive.
The war comes to him as quickly as the haphazard bowing does, and he moves just so naturally, the natural sharp smell of wood and earth melding into one. He strikes the strings like the heavy cantering of majestic hooved creatures, and he draws the bow like blades of war. He appreciates the violent tango, how it seems to dance like the screams of terror that barricaded his mind at night. The beasts, the sky, flight, wall, it crashes down upon him, it forces him to lean forward, but he reels in and pulls back. He sees it tumbling, he sees it healing, he sees children looking at the falling stone like it were the door of death. He remembers centrifugal force, he regrets not studying it a few years back and forgetting how to separate blood. He remembers the beauty of that wonder of physics, the grace, speed, the ribbons of sunlight glued onto steel. He remembers how fellow medical students complained of practical tests like cadets did of training, hubbub silenced immediately as always by his commanding voice. He remembers their faceless profiles, their seamless features, how marred they looked war after war, battle after battle. They scream pain, loss and denial at him. Kirschstein, Ackerman, Springer, Bodt, Jaeger, Wagner, a thousand faceless soldiers he'd held and passed. The smashed bodies of his squad, mangled, unnatural. It lingers long, their death masks, their fading breathe. Baffled Gunther, who hadn't even the time to comprehend his death. Accepting Erd, who died looking so natural that he might just be a dazed, dirty cadet. Regretful Petra, a crush he'd gotten over painfully, a young lady whose father was left behind. Restless Auruo, who despite his antics, fought bravely, for a cause he would never find out. His hands grew heavy and pained, but he carried on playing, carried on thinking, like the way he carried on walking deaf to everything but their parents.
Old man Pixis, General of the Garrison Regiment. Chief Nile, who even now still had a brain that didn't live up to his sorry excuse of a beard. The white buildings and glass houses looked too clean, too artificial; too big, too neat, too suffocating. Too far in the future, too dream-like, too impossible an ambition to achieve.
But here they were now, living in the age of modernisation, drowning in a sea of white.
The melody took on a wistful aggression. It spoke of guilt and loss, the uncontrolled yells of cadets gone and back from Hell. It spoke of unbelonging, the foggy mess that Man once named identity. It told him of the shells of Man, pieces he'd had to pick up, fix, return, despite the cracks he housed. And then finally, he remembers the piercing blue, the flaxen hair, the empty sleeve, the hideous shadow- and the piece ends, hovering on borrowed silence.
Urgently he set it down, the bow, the instrument, and he races over to his table. He dips his pen in ink, and hurriedly, he writes.
The notes come naturally now and he never stops, never dreams of stopping, filling line after line with the vigour of a desperate author. He brushes over the pieces, the restless dreams, the broad back, the sweep of a hand that marks a start and end. The nib of the pen cracks but he pays no heed, ignoring the straying spots of ink. The piece was there, the structure was there, all he had to do was to fill it in, colour it, name it.
His hand trembled and he dug his nails into the wood, and he threatens to shout from the overwhelming familiar faces. They were all around him- Why did he have to live in France? Their personality never changed- he felt like an old man recollecting bits and pieces of his life despite only being in his early twenties. A sad voice lingered in the back of his mind, and it sounded oddly familiar, but he ignored it.
At last the piece was finished. He leans back, his hand limp, sweating, panting lightly to make up for the breathes held in. The parchment before him was filled wonderfully, a pattern traced before him, a pattern no one else could copy. He throws a triumphant glare at the frayed yellow sheet, particularly at the beginning bars, and he tells himself that yes, this was enough, this was enough. The same voice at the back of his head echos it, a little louder this time, and he shivers.
He allows a small smile to reassure himself. He must just be tired. He picked up the pen again and he hovers above the space reserved for the title, but suddenly, he remembered nothing.
The war, the blades, the faces, names- everything was a hollow in his mind. They stared back at him like the abyss did, and the voice at the back of his head fades away.
But the recognition comes suddenly back to him and he whips his head around, only barely remembering a name before it escapes a second away from memory. His face falls and a certain dejection washes over him, but those eyes bluer than freedom haunted him incessantly.
He feels drained but he collects himself, gathers the papers, pushes it into a drawer filled with similar unnamed parchment. He places the feather pen back where it belongs and turns out the light. It was past bed time- he had a class to teach tomorrow. He should also check the fuse. He exits the studio, but when he peeks, he wanted to stay, wanted to make sure that the bit of grey-blue that hovered near the instrument wasn't just a figment of his imagination. But the door clicks shut, and finally, he forgets.
The cello lies silent on the ground, sleeping in starlight, knowing only the company of the black haired man.
And those eyes bluer than freedom close.