Shine in the Sun

My fingers nearly make it. As though they were climbing a building, they scale the fingerboard. But then at the last moment, they misjudge and fall off. The metronome keep ticking and I snapthe bow furiously against strings. Grating and melodius. That left over resonance of fifths. Always bringing me back, like a boy or a book.
I get back in position, bob my head for a measure, begin again. Repetition, everyone tells you, is key. It's also frustrating and defeating and leaves you feeling like it's never going to get better. Sometimes, after a day, it doesn't. Sometimes, you have start all over the next morning. It's a fickle thing.
I do forty more iterations and then look down at my watch. It's dinnertime and I weigh the pros and cons. Eating means fifteen minutes of walking, ten, more like twenty minutes of scarfing down food and inevitably getting sidetracked. Fifteen minute walk back. No extra practice time. On the other hand, food is nice.
I shake my head. CPA's don't pass themselves. I flip through some music, to the treacherous tarantella. Months from now, I will hear this in my sleep, when I come through the door of buses and whenever I play triplets. But my fingers will forget it.
I don't know when he appears in the small narrow window. It could've been a long time and I might not have noticed. But when I look up, my vision is blurry from staring at the same seventeen measures. He is smiling and it broadens when I look up, and he pushes open the door.
"You'd better go eat."
"I can't really do that right now,"
"You can't do anything if you pass out,"
"I'll grab something from the vending machine,"
He looks at me, with that sweet reproachfulness that only Sean can pull off. I sigh and put down the cello.
"Look, I'll go get a granola bar, right now," I smile and stretch. I push open the door, which is heavy, and Sean follows and grabs my wrists, yanking me down the opposite end of the hallway, toward that one fire exit that doesn't wail. I consider protesting, but, I don't know. Sean has this special brand of spontaneity that just makes you want to go along with him, no matter how unreasonable. He exudes calm reactivity. He pushes open the door and I say something about not going to dinner and he laughs. And the sun is blinding. I squint wildly and he laughs again. He releases my wrists. I'm not going anywhere right now. The light and the sticky heat is too good.
Our other friends drift by and form around us. Form around Sean. I've made myself a hermit and I suspect they all think that I am crazy. They may be acurate. But they gravitate to Sean, who will smile and laugh.
I look at my watch.
"You'd better get going. You're not going to have time," I say and Sean raises an eyebrow.
"Nope, I've got to go back," I say to the eyebrow. "See you later," I smile. He makes one more attempt to get me to go along and I shake my head. The group continues along to the cafeteria and I retreat back into the dark of the building, which has fallen silent. I can see Sean walking, through the blinds of the practice room. My dear friend, who will bring me apples and oranges later. A good, good boy.
He is the light, that boy. He is the light.

The Silhouette 3

I started working on this series a bit ago. I posted the first here, and then did some really rough stuff later, one of which I am now going to post.

The Silhouette 3
People really do mean what they say about sunsets, she thinks, as the fire sinks and bleeds into the horizon. She lowers her gaze, to his form on the shoreline, standing perfectly still, his shoulders held in a way that makes her certain that he is grinning on the brink of laughter. Like a hunter, she steps, once, lightly, and appropriately, he darts. She will not run to him, though, and he knows that. Instead she waits, knowing he may not come back, that that would be just like him.
She waits in a world that suddenly seems more dark than light, and he is gone a minute too long.

And now she begins to run, but her body is so heavy and unkempt. She runs with the momentum of panic for a long time, until it runs out, and even then, she pulls through beach forest, step by step, her chest heaving. She lands on the other side, and of course, he is not there. She falls on fours and vomits up strawberries and bile and hard candies.
And maybe somewhere, she is crying again, but she can't tell anymore, because the sun has gone down. The sun of a day that had been good, and lazy and so precious. So precious.
She doesn't hear him return, but she sees, blearily, his feet. She reaches out and touches his ankles with dull fingers and he recoils, stepping, away from her, without the expected grace. She bites her lip.

He turns away and runs again and she isn't even sure that he was there, ever. She breathes, and without meaning to, an unwelcome hope creeps up.

Because maybe he will be around to sell her things again, at Christmas. Maybe he will come back with the snow.