Melody of death

CHAPTER-01

January.

A cold prequel of the year ahead.

Saturday.

A warm end to the week.

The blind date that my father set up wasn’t bad. But, it wasn’t much too good either. Countless arguments with him, and he still believes, whatever I speak, is stupid.

So, on one of the four Saturdays of January, I am here, at a Japanese restaurant with a guy with slicked back hair and black tuxedo. It’s been the tenth one by now, this month. And to be honest, all of them look like clones to me at this point. The same way of speaking, and the same dressing style, couldn’t be a mishap, could it?

And whatever the guy in front of me is saying, is in vain. His words are entering through one ear and exiting through the other. He is speaking something about robotics that I can’t understand. And I am pretty sure, talking to him about my fine arts is only going to make him a disdainful face and pitiful gaze.

I don’t want that.

So, I just hear him speak. His voice is coarse, and his glasses fall off every five seconds. All of his words don’t really have an accent, but they feel like they have one. He is mispronouncing words, at one point. And I can’t really wait to get out of this place as soon as possible.

I am spacing out more often than he speaks. And I wonder if he has still not caught the indifferentiation.

“After this, do you want to go with me to a concert?”

He looked up at me, with a coy smile. His question hung in the air like ludicrous kerosene, to be burnt anytime now. I didn’t take him as someone who would appreciate concerts, the heavy breathing and shouts and screams and light beams and posters and dancing and alcohol. But maybe, this could be that one point in him that can give him enough scores to be my friend at least.

To be brutally honest, he looks like a nice guy and someone that doesn’t deserve to be mocked behind his back. And somehow, I don’t want to be a bad guy.

“Sure”, I replied with the best possible shiny smile I could muster. “Great then”, he looks happy, so much so that he is even squealing in his seat. He picked up his wine glass and tried to gulp it down, only to fail. That action makes me chuckle, and he looks down embarrassed. He is meek and shy.

It is sad that I don’t remember his name. I decide against asking him since asking his name at this point seems...pretty bad.

Over the course of time, he listens intently to me, as I speak about art, about Van Gogh and Michelangelo and Pablo Picasso. And he listens. And somewhere while I am still speaking, he settles the bill without my knowledge.

I was a little agitated.

“Don’t worry. This restaurant is owned by my father’s friend, so we got a discount anyways”, he smiled and winked. Over the course of one and a half hours, I have just noticed that his cheek has dimples. And probably, my eyes have gotten used to seeing him, because now, I find him a little cute. A little clumsy, but a little cute.

“The concert is about to begin in the next thirty minutes and the hall is pretty far from here. You wanna come with me in my car?”, he looked at his watch and then looked at me and then at his phone.

Did he say hall?

“Well, sure”

Denying it at this point, looks pretty awful and cruel to someone sweet like him.

He walks out of his chair first, comes to me and holds out his hand for me to take. I take his hand in mine, and stand up. He takes me to his white car standing in the parking lot. I came by taxi anyway, because I wasn’t sure about the turn of events by now.

He unlocks the car and opens the door wide for me to sit in. His car smells nice, and there’s no trash anywhere. I wonder if he cleaned this only because he had a date to impress. There is one Winnie, the Pooh doll over the deck and a peacock keychain hanging overhead. When he enters the car and revvs the engine to life, he looks at me once, adjusts his glasses and smiles at me and takes off.

He would have been cooler if he just didn’t wear that tux for today.

By now, I was used to London’s turbid air and crowded stations. It had been long, since I felt the night air brush past me in solitude. The moon is particularly white today, and in a full circle too. It is radiant, as if it’s going to mark a special happenstance in someone’s life. It brings out the blue out of the black night sky and, it feels comforting.

“Do you have any hobbies besides painting?”, he asks and from the corner of my eyes, I see him try not to look at me.

“I am not really good at many things, but I like listening to music and the same old same old.”, I wave him off, sticking my head outside the window.

“I am switching off the aircon”, he flicked the switch off in an instant.

Aircon.

How many people have I heard say aircon?

And then, it is quiet. It is silent. And this breeze of winter is the only thing that speaks between us.

There are too many bad things in the world, too many bad thoughts in our mind and too much of bad rather than good; but the good always seems to sparkle through, like tiny white dots and sometimes a big blotch.

Marcus. His name is probably Marcus. It strikes me after he is midway through talking about something.

The car stops in front of an auditorium. There are golden lights hanging over the sign and the outline of the name of the hall is colored in red and pink and white lights.

The Orchestra.

That was the name.

“I have two front row tickets”, he grins, waving two flimsy tickets at me. I try to detail out everything, but at the same time, I can’t define what the place is like. It’s overwhelmingly bright...too classy for me. There are valets and coat lockers and people in black suits and red gowns and dresses. It is like one of those places that do not allow you to enter in T-shirts and boots.

Marcus comes to my side, smiling to his cheek, and nervously lingering his hand over mine.

There was a difference of opinions when it came to an enjoyable concert for sure. The concerts that I have been to with my friends required energy and adrenaline.

The lighting is all dim yellow and the tiles look finely polished. So much so, that the whiteness of the tiles are now reflecting the yellowness of the light. I can look at my reflection on the floor and know that my hair is now a wild mess, thanks to the wind of the night.

Amidst suits and coats and black and red gowns and dresses, I see a person, dressed in a black shirt tucked into a pair of white jeans. At first look, I thought he was some influencer, here just for the show. While Marcus dealt for the coats and stuff, I tried to move my gaze just as the man tried to move. There were men in tuxedos around him though, shaking his hand and smiling.

That smile looked forced. It was all just wide lips and white lips. If I were him, my mouth and jaw would start to ache.

I could say so, because everytime someone shook hands with him and left, the smile would falter and he’d scowl and look away. That is such a human thing to do. He looked frustrated with everything. Maybe he was a big shot. Maybe he was someone of a high social standing. Maybe a prince or an heir to some secret business world.

He was tall and yet somewhat…stout. Probably, petite would be the correct definition. He looked like someone who could kill it on the basketball court. And he looked like someone who would die if someone slapped him. He looked somewhat like him. Maybe, it was him. But, his figure has changed so much that it’s hard to tell, if he is the one who could kill or the one who would get killed.

Just the thought of him made me wince; made me want to slap myself out of memories. But, this traitorous heart, it beats for me, however, it doesn't shy away from chanting his name. I shook my head ferociously, trying to shake away such thoughts. And just then, I see Marcus approach me after he had had a talk with some old men around.

“Let’s go”, Marcus smiles, and stands beside me, lacing his fingers through mine, this time. He moves his gaze to the direction I am looking at. His grip on my hands strengthened, and he looked at me a little fiercely. “Do you know him?”, he asked, trying to keep his voice at a low pitch. “I don’t know”, with a little sternness to my voice, I glared at him from my peripheral view. He seems to be taken aback by my stern voice.

I wonder if I am overthinking this, but maybe me not speaking anything, made him think that I am some woman he could control. At this very moment, he irritates me. He irritates me to the point that it makes me want to punch him and run away. If my father didn’t set me up for this, then probably I wouldn’t be here at this moment.

The show is a piano concert.

And I don’t have a prejudice against pianists or something, but I want to fall asleep. At one point, I used to love piano. I loved piano to the point that I was willing to throw everyhting away just to spend one minute extra with him. My piano instructor.

I was fifteen. And my piano instructor was seventeen. I had watched him through windows and rooftops at school. I had talked to him just over the melody of the piano. My admiration for him ran deeper than the blood in my veins. And then suddenly, one day he stopped playing. He stopped coming over. He stopped caring. And then, there was no trace of him. My admiration of him, just remained admiration for him in the end.

I had prepared myself to confess, when I turned sixteen and he turned eighteen.

I wanted to confess when I was sixteen, because people tend to take you a little more seriously when you turn sixteen. Until you are fifteen, people think, everything is plaything to you. They don’t take you seriously.

The definition of too young is being at the age of fifteen. But, sixteen was just perfect. They know that you aren’t too young anymore. And they know even if you are not an adult, you have started working like one now. They see you in a more mature light. And maybe, just maybe, I had a tiny hope that when he said, he’d be moving to New Jersey for further education, my confession could make him stay, at least for long enough till I was of age and we could move together.

But, he was gone even before I could ask him to stay.

The night I got to know that he was gone, I had sulked under the bedsheets and I had cried, for three days continuously. So much so that I was tired of crying anymore. I lost meaning in learning piano, because everytime I touched the keys, the sound of the keys weren’t enough to cover the sounds of my breaking heart. Because, the melody and the rhythm were the witness of every smile that I gave him and every touch he had over my fingers. Father had flown over to Boston for some work. And my mother was preoccupied with her art in some of the corners of the house. And at that moment, the only person who could have calmed me is the only one who caused the ruckus in the first place.

I didn’t really listen to most of the music.

The old man orchestrating the music looked so immersed in the music that he had his eyes closed, and he played like it was the last time he was touching the piano.

If I had known that it would be my last time playing a piano, I wonder if I would have been in pain; if I would have created a harmony of pain and projected it out the same way.

Aurelius Martin.

I want to forget his name at this very instant. Because, me, describing every moment I spent with him would cross over the word limit of the essays I wrote for my college.

Before I know it, people are filing out before I know, and by the time I come to my senses, Marcus is shaking me wildly. “Down to earth, Anastasia”, he flicks his hand around, dancing them in front of my eyes. “Ughh, is it over?”, I asked, stretching my limbs out. “Yeah it is. Though I regret that you didn’t like it”, he said, standing up and laying his hand out for me to hold on to.

“It is just that, it is not my cup of tea”, I replied and he chuckled. “I understand. Many of my friends don’t like this too. But what can I say, music is music. No matter if it is quiet or if it is loud.”, he shrugged his shoulders a little.

I smiled at him.

The person in black shirt and white pants is standing right behind me, looking in my direction, before looking away. The sharp green gaze is something that I wouldn’t forget even if it was a hundred years since I last saw him. That person chews on his bottom lip, and then looks up at me again.

I walked away, for he might be a stalker that I don’t know of.

“If you enjoyed tonight, do you think we can exchange contacts?”, Marcus is weirdly rushing right now.

“Marcus, this date was great and all, but I think it’s too fast for that”, I said. As much as I thought that he was a nice guy, I don't think I can tolerate his persistence for even one more hour, let alone one more week or month. I collect my coat from the lockers as he collects the car keys from the valet. The mood is sullen as he said nothing and just looked down at the floor.

Marcus stopped in the middle of putting his seatbelt on, and then looks at me for a second with a confused gaze.

“What happened, Marcus?”, I asked again.

Slowly, he opened his mouth and then closed it, and the next time he opened is mouth, he said, “My name is not Marcus. It’s Michael.”