Francis didn't come out to busk for the rest of the week.
At first, Arthur tried not to think much of it. Why should he, anyway? Francis was probably busy with something else. Or maybe he was just trying busking out, something. But he did come to care. When he woke up, he hoped that it was brass that had woke him up. When he returned from work, he hoped for brass to greet him back.
Sadly, he didn't see the blonde man named Francis after that encounter at all. And on Saturday morning, he decided that he should forget about it. Either he could pine after a fleeting memory for who knows how long, or move on for more important things.
On the bright side, it was a Saturday, no work. (thank God) Instead, Arthur got up, got dressed, had some breakfast, and sat at his desk. He turned on his laptop and stared at the blank screen. The cursor blinked.
The
Delete.
A
Delete-
A blare of brass snapped Arthur out of his trance. He blinked, and looked out of the window. It was Francis again, playing another tune.
Francis! Annoyance filled him at first, but he calmed down when he realised that he was acting irrationally. Hell, they didn't even know each other properly yet. He took a deep breath in, and sat down to focus on writing.
It was a
His mind wandered and refused to stay put. He concentrated more as he tried to wrangle some words out. In the end, he gave up and looked out at Francis.
He never thought that saxophones could sound so… vibrant, expressive and alive. It painted colour onto even tunes that he had heard a million times before. No wonder. Francis always put so much energy, whether it was how fast he pressed the keys, how often he jumped a little with the music, or the sheer amount of vigor put in to produce the music alone. It was a marvel how he still had the energy to move afterwards.
He liked it.
He rubbed his face. What was he thinking? Music was music. He shouldn't get himself too involved.
Music was music.
A spark of inspiration flicked on. And he thought. The spark evolved into a flame that lit a fuse.
Throughout their lifetimes, writers had many fuses within their heads, just begging to be lit by a spark of inspiration. He himself had arrived to London with many fuses within his head, but they all collected dust and mildew as he set aside his aspirations to be a writer for work.
He opened a new document and wrote down whatever he could think of. His fingers flew across the keyboard and the clicking keys filled the apartment. Arthur didn't notice; he was too busy filling the page with all his thoughts thoughts, they were multiplying, like wildfire!
This euphoria, this excitement, oh how he missed this feeling!
Five hundred words.
One thousand words.
This was madness! Never before had words come out this fast!
One thousand and fifty!
One thousand and sixty,
One thousand and seventy six...
One thousand and seventy seven.
And then the words trickled down. Just like that, the ecstasy disappeared, and the fire extinguished. No more words would come out after that.
The chair skidded back as he collapsed onto it, spent but satisfied. It had been a long time since he wrote like that.
He skidded forwards and read over what he wrote:
Never had I thought that music can be so beautiful; for me, it was just something to be perfected. But who knew that music can mean so much to some people whos whole life devote around loving music? I never felt the same way with the violin. Expectations everywhere force me
Less impressive than what he had imagined, to be honest. Grammar mistakes, awkward phrasing, the list went on… Again, this was more of a dump of what he thought rather than a proper summary. He saved the document and opened a new one.
The fuse stayed unburnt as Arthur stared at the blinking cursor, though.
One
Delete.
Sometimes
Delete. There it was again.
He wanted to write more. The urge just poked him on and on. But… there was nothing.
He realised that there was a big reason why he couldn't continue yet; a lack of knowledge.
Writers lived a million lives to make their stories feel real, and so they needed to be an expert in a wide range of subjects, be it superstitions, folklore, psychology, or history. Arthur was an expert on all of these, but music? No. Of course, he remembered some technical things about music, like scales, (courtesy of piano lesson he got when he was seven) but that still left a blank space for, well, everything else.
He could call Dylan- no. Did he really want their first conversation in six years be a conversation about music trivia and violins? Granted, he was the more forgiving of his brothers, but that still didn't guarantee that he would go after his throat for leaving them for six years.
Maybe Francis- no, no no. Hell, they were still strangers. Moreover, he played the wrong instrument.
He shrugged off his thoughts, and searched up some facts about music instead.
…
An hour passed.
By now, Arthur had learnt at least something about violins. The fuse still remained unlit, though.
How come? He knew some things about music by now, shouldn't that prompt him?
A theory popped up, and he realised why nothing really flowed: he hadn't even thought of the story yet.
That was a good point, he thought. He got off of the chair, headed for the door and grabbed his coat. He could use some fresh air; that may give him some new inspiration. Even if it would do nothing about his knowledge of music, at least it could help him develop the story itself.
And tis my love for violins is showing heh. After a year, I've finally decided to continue this story. Let's see how this goes.