Can you hear the music?\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s not constant.\u00c2\u00a0 It drifts to me on the lightest of breezes, a single note or a measure, sometimes most of a song.\u00c2\u00a0 I never hear it start.\u00c2\u00a0 Or end.\u00c2\u00a0 Far as I know, it\u2019s ceaseless, transcending time and altering my reality.<\/p>\n
It drifts over the graveyard by the church as the sun sets.\u00c2\u00a0 It follows in the wake of a passing SUV shuttling noisy kids to soccer matches and baseball practice.\u00c2\u00a0 It tickles the back of my ears.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s a flute, but sometimes it\u2019s something jazzier, a cornet or a saxophone.\u00c2\u00a0 I can\u2019t really be sure if it\u2019s the same song.<\/p>\n
I asked the trash man about it.\u00c2\u00a0 He knows things.\u00c2\u00a0 I said, \u201cDo you know where it comes from, the music I hear?\u201d<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cYour head.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 And then he said, \u201cYour heart.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 And then he said, \u201cYou\u2019re crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut do you know?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
He shook his head, then leaned closer to confide, \u201cDo not follow the flute.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, yes,\u201d I said.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cWait until it\u2019s the fanciful flutter of the piccolo, I understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cNot the piccolo, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the trash man left, I knew I would be waiting for the trumpet.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always a single instrument, whichever it is, and every night I hear it I can almost decipher the message.\u00c2\u00a0 The song isn\u2019t written for everyone.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s meant for an audience of one.\u00c2\u00a0 One night, perhaps, it\u2019s for a twelve year old girl still in pigtails dreaming of New Orleans.\u00c2\u00a0 She\u2019s got something of the dancer in her, and something of the poet, but after hearing, after listening, her soul will belong to the song.\u00c2\u00a0 Another night, it\u2019s the twenty year old college kid struggling for grades, struggling for acceptance, struggling to figure out exactly who and what he is.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe this wasn\u2019t the right path for him.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe he\u2019s gay.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe he\u2019s too young to know anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe, after the song is played for him, he\u2019ll find his path, or the end of his path, and the questions will haunt him no longer.<\/p>\n
Last week, the tune came for my neighbor.\u00c2\u00a0 An aging woman, white of hair but sharp of eye, and apparently of ear.\u00c2\u00a0 I saw her look, almost wistfully, toward the source of the music.\u00c2\u00a0 She didn\u2019t know I was watching.\u00c2\u00a0 She didn\u2019t know the wind brought errant notes to my ears, too.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven\u2019t seen her since.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u2019ve been picking up the mail for her.<\/p>\n
I wonder, sometimes, if the piper once played Hamelin.\u00c2\u00a0 Do rats and children answer his call?<\/p>\n
Tonight, I hear the most amazing thing: accompaniment.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u2019m not alone.\u00c2\u00a0 A girl plays the violin, though not capturing the airy notes so well.\u00c2\u00a0 She makes it mourn.\u00c2\u00a0 She makes me cry.\u00c2\u00a0 She weaves between the notes I hear and the notes I don\u2019t.\u00c2\u00a0 She seems to be in control of the rhythm, though I\u2019m sure that\u2019s only because I can\u2019t always hear the flute.\u00c2\u00a0 No, the sax.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s definitely a saxophone, a soprano, crafting notes so impossibly high I cannot trust my ears.<\/p>\n
But I can, and do, follow the violin to its source.<\/p>\n
She sits in the window of a third story apartment overlooking the street.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no lights behind her, and only the vaguest hint of streetlamp reaches her.\u00c2\u00a0 Long dark hair, dark complexion.\u00c2\u00a0 Her eyes are closed.\u00c2\u00a0 The violin arcs into her apartment, so her neck is exposed to the night.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s a beautiful neck, elegant and long and perfect, and it seems to mimic the essence of the song in its subtle curve.<\/p>\n
She plays a long while before I realize I can no longer hear the master of winds.\u00c2\u00a0 She pauses, briefly, opens her eyes, takes a breath, sees me staring up in wonderment, and she smiles.\u00c2\u00a0 She touches the bow to the strings again, caresses notes from them.\u00c2\u00a0 Tears leave cold streaks down the sides of my face.<\/p>\n
Then, naturally but still suddenly, she\u2019s done.\u00c2\u00a0 She brings the instrument down from her chin.\u00c2\u00a0 She looks out the window, smiling again, points at me with the bow.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cWould you like to come up?\u201d she asks.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cFor coffee, perhaps.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hear the song,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear it too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her smile remains.\u00c2\u00a0 \u201cSomeday,\u201d she says, \u201cI hope to hear it from the master of winds himself.\u00c2\u00a0 But this night, I think, it\u2019s only you and me and my fiddle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end,\u201d she tells me, \u201che\u2019ll kill us for his song.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019m in love.\u00c2\u00a0 I say, \u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShut up,\u201d she tells me, \u201cand come on up here.\u00c2\u00a0 I have the feeling we\u2019ll have much to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can you hear the music?\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s not constant.\u00c2\u00a0 It drifts to me on the lightest of breezes, a single note or a measure, sometimes most […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}