Alya eases awake when the dawn arrives. Thin beams of light slip through the blocked window over her head to wash her covers in a gentle gold as the sun rises.
Still sleepy, she attempts to blink the tire from her eyes. It's a quick process.
She hears something outside. . . it makes her sit up and put her glasses on her face. She narrows her eyes at the shut window. The sound is soft and distant, like the beating of bird's wings, but unlike anything she's ever heard before. She yearns to check it out.
Alya leaves her bedroom and runs through the house out the front door. At her doorstep, her house casts a short shadow into the fields. The grass blows in the breeze and life begins to stir in the far trees. The sun is still rising, being pulled above horizon by the force flowing through it all.
What is that sound? That gorgeous melody. . .
Alya wanders down the dirt trail, the wind kicking up her skirts. She looks all around, tries to follow her ear, but the sound is coming from everywhere around her, coming from nowhere. She can't pinpoint a source with her ear alone. Her eyes catch the horizon line and follow it as she turns herself completely around, then once more, before she stops.
On a cliff overlooking the sea sits a boy at its very edge, the maple skin of his back bared to the sun. His legs hang loosely over the edge in loose pants, the curve of his spine as relaxed as the curve of his mouth. His body is pushed by the wind, his hair is tousled by the breath of the day, but he never falls over.
Alya takes several steps in his direction, the rhythm of her heart quickening its tempo, enraptured by him. But she doesn't go any further. She can't explain why, he just feels. . . other. Distant in a way that is not purely physical. A part of her knows that distance is beyond her to close, that he is beyond her. Just looking at him feels like she has gold coins laid over her sight, like he's sacred. She wonders what it is about him that makes them so. . . different.
Perhaps it's the way his lips part in a wide grin more handsome than any mortal's, his white teeth shining brighter than pearls in the summer, or the way his golden eyes gleam with vivacity and such unbridled peace, mirroring the sun's gracious warmth-giving; it lends him a beauty that transcends measure as he looks off into the distant sky. Above him, the wispy clouds brush shadows over his skin in vague patterns that disappear as swiftly as they come, and when they recede, Alya notices the sun's rays glint on something in his hands.
Before him, resting vertically between his legs, is some sort of instrument he holds upright with six of his fingers. His thumbs and forefingers move along its many strings with ease, swift and graceful as the tide. His notes are light, delicate. They play softly on the ears and on the heart, drawing every resting thing from sleep, out into the open world, out to him.
Alya is instantly in love with this music, the song of the dawn; a beckoning of renewal.
The boy creates this ethereal music masterfully. So masterfully, not a bird dares chirp while he plays. So tenderly, Alya can hear it as his own voice, calling for the sun to come and greet the earth, singing a serenade that needs no words. Every firm pluck of his hands brings the sun a little higher, the wind blowing a little longer, the sky turning a little bluer. Behind her, she hears her mother parting the doors on the windows and her neighbors opening their doors as soft voices of parents and children chime to one another. The village begins another day.
Around him and his sweet sound, everything comes alive.
And once he's finished ushering in this new morning, his fingers slow, and then they stop. A strong gust of wind comes to envelope him and he puts his head back to breathe in the morning air deeply. Alya can see his chest expand, the instrument hanging by the very tips of his curved fingers, his grin fading as he leans back and his hair crowds his face. The wind lifts him up, ballooning his pants, cradling his form softly. His arms splay outward to rest on the air with his instrument clutched in one hand. Alya watches after him with widened eyes, knowing what is to follow and already missing the sound of his music terribly.
The boy twists his body toward the sun to bask in it's shine to the utmost. And then, all at once and in the sweet, slow return of the breeze, he is gone.
The instrument the boy (Nino) is playing is based on a real instrument called a kora. I encourage you to go on YouTube and listen to some music played with it because it really is very beautiful.