Fade

I ~ Beloved

I have no name. I simply exist. The world as I knew it disappeared 25 years ago this month.

I am but a shell, housing a beating heart. So. How do I know it has been 25 years?

The human heart beats about 42 million times a year. I know. I counted.

I am no savant. I am not crazy.

I used to go freely into day or night, heedless of wind and weather. The world was mine to explore, experience, enjoy. Are jungles and cities in all their cacophonous heights and depths still there? Are humanity’s utterances still flowing with layered pitches and harmonies? I do not know. I am locked away in this padded cell.

I remember. That last shaft of amber light triangulating, waning, and then no more for 25 years. Yes, that is right. There is no light here. If they open my prison today (tonight?) to that triangulating waxing light, I will be effectively blind.

My chains lie like snakes on the barely carpeted floor. I lie among them, taking cold comfort in their looseness, for I long ago ceased to pull at them.

I sometimes hear muffled sounds: a guard walks by, a door snicks shut, a device blares an announcement. Never music.

Ah! Music. That was my lifeblood, my reason for living. What I saw, heard, tasted as I explored, I wove into symphonies. The texture of a city’s streets. The cascade of crashing gravel – and crashing waterfall. The quiet reverence of cenote and cathedral. Sunrise, moonrise, star-rise. Thunder, avalanche, accident.

I am a composer. That was how I made my living then. It is how I survive now.

I wrote music that moved your soul to feel what I felt: the wonder of being a child again, pressing your face against the chill of the glass in winter as you stared out at snowfall illuminated in the lamplight glow. You would become an eagle flying above the cliff, soaring free -- and unfettered. Your heart would feel as if it would burst with triumph as the stands erupt with cheers and praise … or you would feel the agonizing sorrow of the loss of your child.

I loved the world in all its forms, you see. I saw it all and turned it into music. What do I see now? Nothing. What do I hear now? Nothing.

So how do I survive? I will tell you. Listen. Listen to your heartbeat. About 80 times a minute, give or take. Your family, each of them, 80 heartbeats a minute. The cat beside you; its heart beats twice as fast. The birds on the telephone and cable wires? Maybe 800 beats a minute.

Think of the people around you. Each of them, about 80 beats a minute. Their pets. Reach out further, include distant family, people you know. How many hearts beat now? Add these: blue whale, 6 beats a minute; cheetah, 150 beats a minute; hummingbird, 1200 beats a minute. Can you see?

Is it any wonder my symphonies celebrated the heart? Our world is full of hearts, and heart beats. Our world IS a heart. The tide beats. The seasons beat. Day and night beat.

How do I know that the world is still there, if I have seen and heard nothing of it for 25 years? Because I am still here.

If the tides, seasons, day and night cease, I would cease.

It is still there.

I am still here.

II ~ Choose

It gets darker in the huge auditorium. The koto plays, which always makes me think of the sun going to bed in the ocean.

I bounce on my seat. My favorite violist stands to play the “Come Home” as I call it. The notes circle around the hall and I watch people lean forward in response.

“Mom!” The orchestra is playing “The Day” and my favorite part is coming up. My mom puts her hand gently over mine, and I stop shaking the seat back in front of me.

“Sorry!” I whisper to the man in front of me. He smiles back at me, so I know he isn’t mad at me.

The percussionists strike the djembe, dundun, and tabla drums: that’s the sound of kids like me running home from playing. And there’s the sitar, it sounds like one kid laughing. I love that part! It always makes me happy.

I sit back in my seat as the young man plays the Native American flute and twilight settles in my mind. The cellist brings the night notes floating out, the lights go almost dark, and then the shakuhachi sings of crystal stars. I breathe, and … silence.

As the lights come on, the audience claps loudly for the orchestra and the famous conductor, who bows. I like him. I always like this part of the symphony too. It means everyone works together to make this music. He holds out his hand to his orchestra and they all bow, and I clap harder. I watch as he blows a kiss to my mom, exclaiming, “Our beloved Amata!” She blows a kiss back to him, always.

I proudly hug my mom, who leans to kiss the top of my head as she does every time. And then she is ripped away. I stand here, puzzled: my arms are still in a hug, but she isn’t there.

Some guards are dragging her to the exit and I run after them, yelling, blinking tears away. Another guard blocks my way. Mom looks back at me and mouths, “Hide!”

One of my mom’s friends grabs my hand, exclaiming, “Come, Tria!” We make it out to the street. I want to look for my mom, but the lady shakes her head sadly, wiping her tears away. She takes care of me now, and I call her Auntie.

I came to understand as I grew older. It was ingenious, really. Creativity lies nigh to madness, so they said. Move the fine line a little, and artistry becomes insanity. Therefore, imagination of any sort was to be feared, hunted, destroyed. They put the “insane” in asylums, and then when those were full, they emptied prisons to make more room. They justified it as: “There are more creatives than criminals.”

I hid my mother’s heart-shaped locket that same day, for all photographs, jewelry, paintings, tapestries, books, music, and film were to be hunted down and destroyed. All the creators, too.

That was the last day I saw my mother.

That was the last day I heard any of her symphonies.

I miss her.

III ~ Hope

My fingers have been cramped around the tension wrench and hook for too long. Burglary isn’t illegal, I just don’t like being seen doing it. OW. This third binding pin is being a …

“Sper! Someone’s coming!” My friend David taps my shoulder frantically.

There. It’s on the shear line now. “I’m almost there. Go distract them or something.”

“How?”

“Pretend you’re creative!”

“Again: How?!”

“I don’t know! Sing a song!” I silently urge him to just go do it.

“I don’t know any! MY mother never taught me any!”

I can hear heavy footfalls coming nearer. I mentally throw my hands up since I’ll lose the fourth binding pin if I actually move. “Sing a song of sixpence! A pocket full of rye!” Surely he knows that one.

I hear his feet running around the corner and skidding to a stop. “Sixpence, sixpence, I have a pocket full of rice!”

Gruff: “Yeah, yeah, okay. What were you doing back there?”

I freeze. Oh, please-please-please.

“Buying riiiiiiiiiiiiice, putting it in my pocket, sixpence, sixpennnnnnnnnnnnnnce!”

Wow. He’s really getting into it. Pretty convincingly, too. I grin. Even if he did mangle the words and tune. Ah! Fourth pin done!

I hear him coming back, singing dramatically at the top of his lungs, “Sixpence, sixpence! A paaaaaaaaaaaah - cketfulla rice!”

The fifth and last binding pin settles on the shear line. I crack the door and slide a pick in place. With luck, when we return, it will still be there. I stash my tools as I stand up.

“Go! Go, go!” David opens the door and shoves me inside. I round on him as he pulls the door shut.

His eyes widen in warning. I immediately launch into “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves,” and yeah, my voice wobbles when I turn and see a lot of surprised creatives staring at us. Some start to sing with me and others clap their hands in time.

The guards down the hall completely ignore all of us. This feels so weird! But it feels really good too, to just … sing.

We’ve been searching and I’ve been singing for at least a couple of hours; finally I see her nameplate outside her cell: Amata D’Angelo. My heart is in my throat as I push the handle down.

I see her just for a moment: she is lying motionless on the floor. The door paffs shut. Now we are in complete darkness, and I am afraid. Oh, God, please don’t let her be dead….

Brr. All right. I gotta do this. I swallow hard and drop to my knees. I don’t want to, but I do … crawl forward. I put the heart-shaped locket in her hand and sigh in relief as her fingers close around it.

“Tria?” she whispers.

“No, Grandmother. Speranza.” My fingers brush the scars on her wrists and ankles as I work at the locks on her cuffs. Good thing I practiced blindfolded!

I help her stand. She’s unsteady, but I think she’ll be okay. I hate them for what they have done to her.

I knock at the door with an elbow, covering her eyes against the glare with one hand and supporting her with the other.

David opens the door. “A paaaaaaaaaaaah-cket fulla riiiiiiiiiiiiiice!” The creatives clapping and beatboxing nod at me. No time for introductions. We start back, both of us supporting Ama, but making it look as if we’re dancing.

David holds his throat. Of course. He’s not used to singing. I open my mouth, but Ama sings instead. As weak as she is, “We are Family” rings pure and true. We just might make it.

Just as I edge the lock pick out of the door, we hear a shout. “Hey! What are you doing!” My head rests against the marginally open door … so close….

David tugs at my sleeve. I hold the door and turn -- to see my grandmother dancing lightly up to the guard. She takes his left hand and places it on her waist, and looking up underneath her lashes, takes his right hand and extends her arm.

The guard recoils and wipes his hands on his uniform in disgust. Another guard, a woman, enters the corridor and he gets a scared look on his face. He strides off, boasting, “I took care of them!” I watch them walk away and then we slip through the door.

The yard is deserted because it’s dinnertime. We walk as quietly as we can anyway. When we finally get to the locked gate, it is dark, but soon we are on the other side and now it seems lighter, somehow.

We reach the crossroads where my mother has been hiding all this time, waiting with the car. I see her pale, drawn face as she comes rushing toward us. She nearly slams Ama into me as she wraps her arms around her, weeping.

Ama says softly, “Shh, shhh, it’s okay, Tria. I’m all right. Let’s go home.”

Copyright (c) 2021 Jamie Brown. All rights reserved.