Harmony

Shinji loved to play the cello. He had not loved it when he was first beginning to play, but now that he had been playing for several years, he found it to be quite enjoyable. The music which he played would often linger in his mind hours after he had finished playing. Occasionally it followed him all the way into his dreams.

Tonight was such a night. In this particular dream he was outside, seated in a wooden chair and surrounded by trees in what appeared to be a park.

His dream self noted nothing strange about this setting. He shut his eyes as he thought of which song to play. After running through all of the music he knew by heart, he finally settled on one of his favorites, Cannon in D.

He carefully placed the fingers of his left hand on the fingerboard of the cello and with the right he started to draw the bow across the finely tuned strings. The slow, even strokes of the bow made him think about why he enjoyed playing this song so much. He turned the question over in his mind for a short time and decided he enjoyed the song because it was soothing and predictable. Exactly the opposite of his current life.

Asuka's sudden intrusion into Shinji's fragile order of life had left him constantly off balance. Anything and everything he did seemed to annoy her, and he could never figure out exactly what she wanted from him. As he was thinking about this, a new set of music joined his in addition to the soft sounds of birdsong and wind.

Shinji opened his eyes and his bow stuttered to a halt as he realized that it was Asuka who had appeared beside him and was the source of the music. He shrank back into his chair as he waited for the half-expected insult to come his way. After several minutes of only continued music and not a single insult, Shinji shrugged to himself and picked up the beat again.

The instrument Asuka was playing was a viola and the sound meshed well with Shinji's cello. As they played together Shinji thought to himself that they were only missing Rei; if she was there then all three pilots would be together.

His gaze traveled around him as he searched for the expected pilot of unit zero. After several minutes he spotted her walking through a grove of trees. She moved fluidly towards him and soon was next to Shinji and Asuka. She put her instrument under her chin and started to blend in her music with the other two. Rei's violin, Shinji's cello, and Asuka's viola all played together and blended to form the same song.

As Shinji slowly started to relax in the presence of the other two pilots, he enjoyed the rare feeling of peace which came over him. It was not very often that all three of them could be in the same place or even the same room without one of them getting angry at the other. Even their breathing seemed to be in sync. Shinji could hear the gentle movement of their breath on either side of him.

Once again he closed his eyes and concentrated on the music. Cannon in D was a piece which could be played by a single person or it could be played by several people. Both ways were beautiful, Shinji thought to himself, but when several people played the song together it had a greater depth than when the song was played by a single person.

He opened his eyes again when the sound of footsteps crunching through leaves caught his attention. He had been expecting another person he knew to join them with yet another instrument, but the person who was walking through the leaves towards them was not carrying anything.

Shinji watched carefully as the older man with dark brown hair came close to them and sat on the ground to listen to their music. Shinji lowered his eyes to his feet and studied the man out of his lowered lids. There was something terribly familiar about this person, but Shinji was unable to figure out what it was.

The strange man continued to sit and listen to their music as other people began walking through the trees towards them. The ages of the people varied, but all of them had that strange familiar quality which Shinji was unable to put his finger on.

He watched as they all came close and sat to listen to the music. An old man with a baby, an even older man with white hair, and a younger man who looked like he was in his late twenties. When a boy about Shinji's own age finally came close by, Shinji was finally able to figure out why they seemed so familiar. All of the people coming to listen to the music seemed to look very similar to Shinji except their ages were different.

Once he realized this Shinji stopped playing and looked on in amazement at all of the people still streaming into the clearing. The two girls on the side of him continued to play. Three of the people from the small crowd were making their way towards the front of the group.

The three young boys stopped in front of Shinji.

"Err, who are all of you?" Shinji asked.

"We're you" the first boy answered boldly. "We're each a different part of your mind." "I'm Confidence, this is Reliable" he pointed at the second boy, "and this is Insecurity" he pointed at the third boy who was trying to hide behind the second boy. "All of us think you play music more often." The other two nodded.

"It brings everyone together" said the second boy as he indicated the crowd.

"And we enjoy it" said the last boy softly.

Before Shinji could reply an intense ray of light suddenly filled his vision. He held a hand up to block the light and found that he was no longer dreaming. It was the real sun which had woken him up. He let his hand slowly fall to cover his eyes as he gathered together the remaining fragments of the dream.

Harmony, he decided, was kind of a nice feeling.