Something About Violins

Something about violins. Something about the strong and unchallenged resonance. About the draw of the bow, and how horsehair and metal yarn meet and make something so pure and clean and wonderful. How the hollow frame was nothing more than sanded wood, its interior unknown and visible only through the ∫-shaped holes.

How the chin rested on its maple frame and how the hand so carelessly caressed the scroll at the end. The design was intricate and simple, clean and beautiful. But more than all else was the voice, the beautiful voice.

Oh how she sang, this body of wood. The tone was so soft and so powerful. The voice throbbed with its majestic and flourished words and came together into one melody, one conversation. Like words exchanged with your childhood love, the violin filled your heart with excitement and warmth.

And oh, the greatest part, how it echoed.

I remembered her face. She used to love violins. She loved to sit late at night, strumming and tuning the chords. Hours later, deep into the night, I would awake out of a wishful oblivion to hear the most beautiful songs. I heard the songs sang by the sirens that ran sailors of ancient aground, and I heard the gusts of wind that crossed the Mediterranean with the smell of spices on the breeze.

I heard the lyre of Orpheus when he journeyed into the underworld, and I heard his sorrow at the loss of his wife. I heard the world grow, and the gardens of Eden of burn. I heard the wisdom of scholars and the might of kings. I learned everything I knew from four cords, a bow and delicate fingers. Fingers that remain somewhere out there, taking out core samples of some distant moon, or covering her eyes from the light of some distant sun.

She should’ve stayed. If she hadn’t gone, the world would have sent another up there to witness her comets and repair her machines. If she hadn’t gone, my heart wouldn’t be gutted and the windows wouldn’t sit open for eternity. If she hadn’t gone, the cornfields never would have burned and her son never would have died. If she hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have to wake up in the night and cry, not because I’m lonely but because I miss her voice and her melody and her conversations with the wind in the night through that damned hollow frame of wood.

Something about violins, and songs in the night, and childhood loves and the colors beyond the spectrum. Something about love and hearts and humanity.

I decided to burn the violin. I hoped it would do something, anything to heal. I hoped it would burn my memory of her, of her face and of her smile. Of her laugh and kisses and songs in the night.

But this hollow frame of wood was now a flame, and the smoke rose into my lungs and filled me, and the ashes of what had once been beautiful remained. The songs were still in my head and they would never leave. I thought back to a time light-years ago, waking up in the nights, hearing her sing in the living room.

I remembered hearing her songs and her stories. They weren’t just her melodies; they were the breaths of the world, of everything that would ever be. They were the rings of Saturn and the blazing of the sun. And I heard her playing, in some distant world on some distant planet where humanity would actually survive. I heard her look up, towards the bright suns in the sky and the new constellations of a new galaxy still open to interpretation. I heard her play a song of the universe. A song of me and her. I knew she was out there, thinking of me. Playing for me.

And oh, the greatest part, how it echoed.