andave's place

(There are probably at least two people here ready to clobber me for taking so long to answer their pm's/entries but I wanted to get this done and off my mind. Don't eat me! )

We leave for Lebanon on Sunday! I can't believe how fast time went.

I know I'll have internet access during the month that we're gone, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have to answer emails/blog. I'm hoping to be able to blog consistently but as I'm keeping a journal, I can blog when I get back if I can't make it.

Anyways, remember the short stories I posted a while ago? Well, Rich's suggestions inspired me and I totally rewrote the one I'm sending to the fair. My Mom read it and really liked it, but she said it might be too intense for a fair. What do you think?

The Maestro
Amidst hushed anticipation, the Maestro walked onto the stage and bowed, baton in hand. The woman in the front row watched him take his place on the conductor’s box and begin. As he conducted, she couldn’t help feeling that nothing else existed to him as he evoked the emotions he wanted from his musicians. Only he and his music existed, echoing its solitary notes, a man and his orchestra playing atop an empty world.
His music wafted round the auditorium with that first crystalline note, sounding elegantly in the silence unmarred by words. It flowed onward, growing in a primal ascent to crash out of the school with a sudden high note sounding clarion in the hush, the note of victory after battle. Soon the city rang with his melody, coming now in wild array from his unstoppable playing. But even the city was unable to contain the bleeding melody; it escaped from its confines, engulfing the continent in its inescapable embrace. Finally it reached the sea, lingering lovingly on the sand for moments before seeping into the water and spreading wildfire round the earth. The wind carried it to the sky, and it reached still onward, swallowing the sun and moon until the music held dominion over them and made them rise and set in measured rhythm. Day followed night, night followed day, until like the whelming flood the music dominated time and stopped it.
Only when it controlled all did the discordant note of stagnancy enter its dire message of warning into the melody. Life reclaimed itself, pushing out the elegant sobriety of the music until all that was left was one single high note, dying away into the minutes before being swallowed up by an all consuming hush.

Moments passed in the startled silence before the audience recovered sufficiently to rise to their feet in boundless applause. Only she sat in mute incomprehension, tears streaming down her face, her mind grasping erratically at the strangled idea that the music neatly summarized her own pitiful life. Ever since her entrance into the world of performing her career had grown by leaps and bounds, until only two years ago any major orchestra would have been glad to give her the position of first violin. But then! She was accused of stealing a Stradivarius. No one wanted an accused thief for first violin, not even if she had been acquitted of her supposed crime because the real thief had been discovered.

So for the last two years she, Anna Svyetlov, had been reduced to living in mere reality. Since then she laid her violin away and quashed the longings that threatened to overwhelm her so carefully built defenses and expose her grief to the world. But now the music had done to her what she would not do to herself, and now she wanted nothing more than to go home and play her violin savagely until the early dawn.
Realizing belatedly that she was the only one left in the auditorium, she picked up her belongings and rushed out of the doors, running headlong into a tuxedoed musician and sending his belongings flying.
“Oh! Your instrument! Sir, forgive me, I am so sorry!” She cried, kneeling and helping him pick everything up.
But he noticed the way her long fingers unconsciously clung to his violin case. “Oh, not at all!” he assured her, smiling. “Do you play?”
“I did.” She muttered. “His music?” she asked, picking up the sheets lying at their feet.
He accepted the change in conversation. “Yes.” He answered.
She nodded. “You…you all played brilliantly. I—well, never mind.” She said, offering a timid smile. “Again, I’m so sorry.” She handed him the music she had collected. Surprising both of them, he waved them away. “Why don’t you…keep them. I can get another copy.”
She looked disbelieving at him. “May—May I?”
He nodded. Smiling, he went on his way, sans papers.

Afterwards, Anna was never sure how she reached home without having an accident while driving. She could barely even remember taking her instrument out of the attic and tuning it. All she could remember was the violin, beckoning to her, soothing her as she played deep into the night, caressing its strong oaken body with the soft scrape of her bow. Deep, deep into the night – her fingers had not forgotten their old skill. She had walked, too, as she played, pacing through her house and her garden in the pitch black of midnight, her violin a living thing in her hands that spread its warmth into her body and keep her oblivious to the cold air that kissed her face through the long hours of night. Not until she serenaded the dawn did she finally lay down her violin and throw herself on the couch to awaken many hours later as from a dream. But for the first time in a long while, Anna Svyetlov felt like a living human being.

She found the phone number and the name on the sheet music later, while she was drinking her coffee. Thinking to thank the young man who had been so kind, she dialed the number. “Hello? Is this Michael Riley?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes. Who am I speaking with?” he asked, sounding rushed.
“I’m the woman you gave your sheet music to yesterday, after the concert.” She replied.
“Anna Svyetlov!” He said.
“You know me!?”
“I looked you up when I got home just to make sure.” He answered.
“Ah. Well, I just wanted to thank you so much for your gift to me. I learned them all last night.” She said.
“You learned them all!? Well, of course, you’re only the greatest violinist in the world.” He hesitated. “Miss Svyetlov, we…I…Well, any way I say this it will sound queer, so make what you will of it. My mother two states away is ill, and I have a rehearsal in an hour. Would you like to go in my stead? I told The Maestro that I couldn’t come today but he would be absolutely elated to see you – I told him about meeting you yesterday. We’d be delighted to have you.”
“Who are you?” she asked roughly after pause. No one asked a thief to play; why did he? “Why do you take pity on me? Do you not know what I was accused of?”
“The Maestro isn’t going to give up having Anna Svyetlov in his orchestra simply because she was accused and acquitted of a crime. Will you come?
“Will I come? Of course. Of course I’ll come. I—I never thought to play professionally again!” she said, nearly in tears.
“Symphony hall in an hour, then.” He said.

At the mentioned time, Anna Svyetlov took the position of first chair. Shortly after, the conductor stepped up on the conductor’s box and smiled at her. “John Shore is my
professional name.” said The Maestro, the man she knew as Michael Riley. “Michael
Riley is my real name. Glad to have you on board.”