Prologue
'Tis you that are the music, not your song
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
You, spirit's harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
One music with a thousand cadences.
-"Listening" by Amy Lovell
In the midst of the ice, the moaning, the souls leaving bodies, floated a violin. It had sprung free of its case, desperate to make the music that had been so rudely interrupted earlier. But what the violin did not know was that its master was gone, the bow that once glided across its strings now submerged at the bottom of the ocean.
The instrument had been assembled with great handiwork. Not a stray drop of glue or splinter to be seen. The neck was worn after many years of playing and the underside faded ever so slightly from being nestled on its master's shoulders for many a waltz or sonata. Near one of the edges were the initials A.H., barely legible as the ink was now smudged by the saltwater.
The violin continued to float away, searching for its purpose, unaware its master floated just a few feet away, the last breaths leaving his body.