Author's Note - New computer = reuploads of things. But I like this one. Thank you for my 2002 review, Margoth!

Author's Disclaimer - I don't own Yamato Ishida from season one of Digimon, but I think he's kinda neat. A big part of his character is found in his music and in that poorly animated little harmonica of his (can't they make it at least look like a proper harp?). Play an instrument - they are the ultimate outlet.

Weep for More

I play the harmonica. It's the most personal instrument that I can think of - it sits cradled in the nest of your palms and runs delicately between your lips. There's something ethereal in the way your own breath gives it life and how the smooth metal becomes warm at your touch. The sound it creates can be both savage and soothing, and if you give it it's head, it can have a mind of its own. To play the harmonica, to make music, can be both immortalizing and addictive, and can be found in breeds not seen in the carefully maintained worlds of the music classroom or the concert hall.

Music, I've come to believe, can be deceptive. At first, you assume that you are in control. I bring the silver instrument to my lips and begin what is only intended to be a short song, just a toot on the ol' harp. But once my mouth encloses shining metal, I have been committed to something that is out of my hands by the instrument that is in them. Now there is little to do but hold on with white knuckled fingers and watch the world dance fleetingly by, wondering all the while whether this time it just won't come to a stop.

But perhaps, deep beneath my beginning-to-perspire exterior, I don't want it to. My head pounds, my chest heaves, and despite the pain has begun to build I recognize something else, something beautiful in what is happening. I have become a part of so much more, something so much greater. I am more than just a teenager blowing through a fistful of reeds - I am the mover of the cosmos, the voice of my creation rises and falls on the air. My senses scream and I loathe and embrace everything in the world at once.

They go faster and faster; the world, the song, the beating of my heart, until I can see the melody before me and am sorely tempted to reach out to it. I'm seeing things that I know cannot be real, but I do know that I would be desperately unhappy if the visions should abandon me. I have spiraled higher and higher and have nearly forgotten what the ground looks like and have no desire to remember because I have finally escaped!

I have almost forgotten the ground, despite the fact that somewhere inside, in the part of me that is still reprehensibly rational and mortal, I know these feelings are not mine to define. That scares me. It is in the midst of this feverish stupor that a sudden awareness of helplessness begins to penetrate.

Perhaps that is what starts my descent, my inevitable and unfortunate fall from grace. My lips will crack, my fingers will blister, and as I know this I am abruptly and undeniably human once more. I remove my instrument from my mouth and just sit, still and catching my breath.

I have been to a place that few are able to visit, and seen colors that have not been allowed to exist. The price has been high- my time, my breath and my very essence. There is always the possibility that I may not return from such a harrowing height and that is a danger that I only care to recognize when I am safely on the ground.

The ground is safe, but it also has hurt and sorrow and a menagerie of other unpleasant sensations that cannot reach me in musical flight. My pain has fled from me, but its absence is temporary and I realize that the next time I will have to work harder to vanquish it, to reach the same elevation. I bow my head at the thought and my fingers begin to tremble. The choice is no longer mine - I crave to be mastered by the music. I weep for more.