Autumn

By TsoCo Lat

30 October 2010

The autumn leaves are scattered all over now. The picture of bright yellows and oranges on a clear sky never leaves her eyes, all crisp and sharp. It was always her favorite time of the year though she cannot tell exactly why this season between summer and winter feels so comforting to her. She can just sit on the park benches  with her pen and notebook and write about anything that she can think of. Autumn was always in her writings and it was the most common theme she uses in her art.

She is alone in this life now. And she had been since her  parents have died from a road accident when she was nine. It was after her mother performed  in another state for a show. Her mother is a professional violinist and she grew watching her and wished to be like her one day. Playing the violin was so close to her heart and considered the instrument her playmate at a very young age of three.  All those years, she does not want to do anything but weave music in the air with her violin. 

\***

She then picked her bow and carefully placed it in the bow holder inside the case. Her violin was laying there peacefully, seemingly tired from the day’s practice. The performance night is still a month away but they were both in pretty good condition now. Ready and inspired.

It was her childhood dream to perform in a theatre, she cannot wait to see the crowd in front of her applause continuously. She always loved playing the violin. Its sound is the only music she knows but not until her mother left with her lover and never came back. She was left alone in the world at a young age of nine. She was hurt.

The maestro with the house beside theirs looked after her all these years and he kept convincing her to continue playing. But she totally stopped. She lived in a quiet world of her own. Not until she graced an occasion where the maestro asked her to go.

“I need a muse,” he told her. “You would not want me to go there alone. The officials will be there, the artists, the businessmen.. all with their wives and muses. I don’t have anyone. So you must go with me, my pretty darling.”

She is never interested in gracing social occasions. Though she knew almost everyone in town, she doesn’t like looking at their faces one by one to return their faux smiles. She enjoys doing her recreational interests alone and in silence where she can put the whole of her heart and soul to it.

Aside from being the maestro’s ‘daughter’, she writes and paints. She had the most recognition in arts at school and being an entertaining writer in the primary paper in town, everyone knows her, too. The maestro believes that in time, she will find in her heart the desire to play the violin again for it is innate in her. And nobody, not even the world, can change that.

***

At 24, she was a rose in full bloom. For 15 years, the maestro treated her like a real daughter.

After every recital, she will look up in the skies and smile. She knows that her mother is proud of her. If only she was here.

There he goes again, getting his act together and not showing any emotion. Always refusing to feel what he should. But his touch was the warmest.

***

And the violin plays.

He walked in the farther direction. His shadow slowly fades. He left without saying goodbye. And she knows that he will never come back. She knows that there won’t be another time.

She was staring blankly at the window.. and felt the warm tears running on her cheeks.

And there was the maestro at the dusk of the dawn ???, with his music playing in the hills.

A lonely drawling tone.