Post by Arihant on May 28, 2008 21:13:33 GMT
The green case creaked a little when Arihant pulled it open. It was showing its age now. He’d have to get a new one soon, but then… He was attached to this one.
He didn’t know exactly why.
For a moment, he didn’t do anything, he just… he looked at what was inside. He didn’t know why it held such sentimental value for him. It was the only thing from after his powers manifested – the only memory – that he could even stand to think about. It had kept him through his solitude. It had staved off his madness; he knew that, without it, he would have gone mad. There was no question about it. He knew himself. He knew the grief. He knew the importance of… of forgetting, even if it was just for a second. And this simple object had… What had it done? It hadn’t let him forget, specifically – he had never gone to use it with the express purpose of forgetting. He had wanted to, many times, but he’d never let himself. He was afraid that if he tried to forget, the spell would be broken and that would be it: his last release, gone.
That was what it was like, come to think of it. It was a spell. It wrapped him up in a world of beauty and creation – a world which the pragmatic Arihant had never thought would be open to him – and in that world he could…
He couldn’t forget. While he was himself, he couldn’t forget.
So why did he forget with this?
He didn’t forget, that was the simple answer. What he did was… he just stopped being. Arihant didn’t exist in that world. Neither did his family, Kira, Kennedy, Lynn, Orchid, the war… None of it existed, because none of it mattered.
All that mattered was the music.
He pulled off his gloves, carefully checking that the door was still safely barricaded shut by the piano stool, and softly touched the pitted mahogany of his violin. The wood was cool against his skin.
He loved the instrument for this. It didn’t make sense, he knew, but he did. Just for the simple fact that he was able to touch it, that it wasn’t affected by his disease, that one pure and innocent thing wasn’t destroyed by him. But still, he always hesitated before he touched it – just for a split second…
He always wondered if today would be the day that the escape was lost to him. He didn’t doubt that one day it would be. For all he knew, he could be getting more powerful. Some day, he could touch that violin and the wood could rot away from his fingers, and then all he’d be left with would be…
Himself.
The stuff of nightmares, surely.
He carefully fitted the shoulder-rest to the bottom of the violin, tightening it with all the delicacy he was capable of, then pulled his fingers along the strings, plucking each one in turn.
Unfortunately for him, they were all horribly out of tune. There was no way he could leave all this behind when his escape sounded like that.
He tried hitting the G on the piano, but his ears, well-accustomed to this task, recognised that as being out of tune as well. It wasn’t a surprise. Most schools got their pianos tuned only once a year, in September, so by late May they were more than likely a little rusty.
Luckily, he had a backup. He rummaged in the case for a moment, then found what he was looking for. He skilfully hit the sturdy prongs of the tuning fork off the side of the piano, then placed it against the bridge. He loved the sound that came when he did this, the clear, almost supernatural vibration that issued from the wood. He guessed anything could sing when it wanted to.
…Hell, that was almost profound.
He quickly adjusted the tuning pegs, without need for the fine tuners – having learnt without a teacher to do these things for him, he was well-used to having to work this out for himself. As soon as each string sounded perfectly, exactly a tonic apart, he was ready.
He picked up the bow, flicking the adjuster round with his little finger to tauten the hair, and raised it above the string…
… and couldn’t bring himself to press it down.
Because d**n it all if he wasn’t doing exactly what he’d forsworn against. He was doing it to forget. He was…
He shouldn’t have read that bloody book.
It had absorbed him completely. Interview with the Vampire. He’d read it in a single sitting that afternoon, leaving his mountains of homework to accumulate under his bed. He hadn’t been able to tear himself away for a single second.
He’d absorbed every single word, his eyes darting over the pages feverishly and his hands turning them so fast that most people probably wouldn’t have even been able to see them moving. He didn’t know why. It hadn’t been having a pleasant effect on him at all – he’d sat in the same position for hours, his spine tense and his entire posture rigid, stiff, his stomach churning with some unknown emotion that had almost been fear – in fact, it must have been fear. It couldn’t have been anything else. He was afraid to stop reading, because he knew that when he thought about what he’d read…
He could see himself in the vampires in the novel. He could see their sin reflect his own. He might as well have been one of them…
It was one line that was still ricocheting around his thoughts now. He hadn’t allowed himself to register it until now, but… but he had to. If he started to play without addressing it, he’d destroy it all. Destroy the music. The freedom.
“What constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die tomorrow or the day after or eventually… it doesn’t matter. Because if God does not exist, then life… every second of it… is all we have.”
He was in control of himself now. He wouldn’t let himself break like he did the night with… the night with that dream. The nightmare.
He set the violin down on top of the piano, each gesture measured and overly calm, as slow as he could make it. Then he walked evenly across the room, and sat on the stool that was keeping anyone from walking into the music room. Keeping anyone from learning what he was for themselves.
He sat motionless for a moment, then in one fluid, lightning motion he jerked forward and rest his head in his hands. His fingers curled around the waves of his hair, the texture feeling alien against the digits that had rarely touched anything save the worn inner fabric of his gloves for years.
It made it all feel a hell of a lot more real.
This wasn’t grief he was feeling. It wasn’t guilt, either. It was despair. Hopeless, cloying despair that was shimmering through him in a haze, deadening his limbs and freezing him in that vulnerable position.
Where did he go from here? The words in that book seemed to have been plucked from his own mind, seemed to show him the true helplessness of his own situation. He saw himself in Louis – but then, Louis had chosen to become what he became, hadn’t he? Arihant would never have chosen this, not in a million years.
At times like this, it didn’t matter what was going right in his life. It didn’t matter that he’d made friends here, that he’d met all the wonderful people here who’d shown him so much kindness, it didn’t matter that they all knew what he was and that they hadn’t run anyway, it didn’t matter that Kira had forced him to stay – that she wanted him to stay because…
Where could any of it go?
It could only be so long before it ended. Arihant had been brought up as a Hindu. He believed in karma. And he believed that before long he’d be punished for all the good things that were happening to him here – punished for the sin of forgetting, because in the name of all that was holy, he didn’t deserve to forget.
And he knew by the dread that filled every crevice of his being when he thought of leaving that that would be enough – leaving would be punishment enough. The idea scared him.
It was too late for him to leave now. It had been too late ever since that night at the fountain. That had been his last chance to go, the last chance to tear himself away; and even then, it would have been horrendous, it would have taken months for everything to get back to the way it used to be. That numb, guilty monotony that had been his life for four years.
Now, he knew, if he went back to that… it would end him.
How could someone who had seen this – this splendour, this fantastical way of living that Arihant was really only beginning to discover – and someone who had spent four years of his life living entirely ostracised… someone who hadn’t felt another human being’s skin in four years, but who was now accepted…
How could he leave all that behind?
Sometimes… sometimes, when he was with his friends here – few though they may have been in number, each one was a profound blessing for him – he just…
He wondered what it would be like. What it would be just to be able… to reach out and clap Kennedy around the back, or sit beside Lynn without fear, or to feel Kira’s cheek beneath his fingertips…
He flushed a little when he thought of that last one, but his overall stance didn’t change.
He couldn’t even remember what it felt like, he realised. What had it been like before? What had his mother’s lips felt like when she’d kissed him goodnight? Had Bhadraksh’s scrabbling hands hurt him when he tickled Arihant mercilessly? How had Vidya’s small shoulders felt in his grasp when she came sobbing to him after a hard day at school?
His fingers clenched tighter on his curls, and they would have pulled his hair out of his head if that hadn’t been ‘enhanced’ too. He’d forgotten. After all this time of not letting himself think about them, he was starting to forget the time they’d had.
He didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not. He felt a kind of perverse satisfaction from his guilt – at least when it was hard, the times when tears rolled down his cheeks and his lungs heaved and his throat retched – at least then he knew that he did have a conscience, that he was at least human enough to feel guilty for the things he’d done.
But he realised as soon as he thought that that he wouldn’t forget the guilt. Everything else would fade, but the guilt would always be as fresh as if it had all happened yesterday. All he could do was learn how to control it.
And what else could he do?
Even if by some miracle he wasn’t thrown out of Orchid, or killed in the war (although that may have been a blessing more than anything else), or tracked down by the police… Even if by some miracle he managed to stay until the end, how long was that? He was seventeen already: he was in lower sixth. In another year he’d be leaving anyway. And then what?
Who would have him then?
No one. That was the simple answer. It was enough of a shock that anyone would have him now. At least here he could put it down to teenage stubbornness and idealism. Adults were sensible. Adults looked out for themselves. Adults would know to stay the hell away.
Before, Arihant hadn’t minded thinking of the future. If anything, it had been more secure than most people’s. He’d wanted to be a doctor, sure, but he’d had the sense to know that chances were he wouldn’t get into a university – his parents couldn’t afford it. Still, he’d known that he’d have more opportunities than most people, thanks to his relatively high marks and the prized ability to speak English. And he had felt lucky when he thought about that. At least he hadn’t taken that part of his life for granted.
And there’d been the issue of marriage, too. That had been arranged when he was still in his cradle. He’d only met the girl he was to marry once, sure, and they had been twelve, but she had been nice enough… a little vacuous, maybe, but good-natured, and they probably could have been happy. After all, his parents’ marriage had been arranged, and they had been happy.
Or he thought they had been. He’d never really got to know them properly.
God. Every moment of his life just meant more regrets. They were going to choke him someday.
When he’d looked at his future before, he’d seen hope. He’d seen stability. He’d seen… well, he’d seen a life.
He couldn’t see anything now. The landscape of his future was desolate and uncertain. He never knew where he’d end up.
Well, consider the chances. What was he? A murderer. And murderers go to prison. Or they go mad. Lots of them end up dead themselves.
Sometimes it seemed like it would be a hell of a lot easier just to end it. Or at least, it had done. The prospect of suicide wasn’t so appealing here.
This thinking thing wasn’t working, he realised. It didn’t matter whether he thought about it or not, the guilt would still be there.
The urge to play his violin was too great now. Far too great. Maybe he could play to forget… maybe, just this once… One time wouldn’t ruin it, right?
He leapt up suddenly from the seat as if he’d been scalded, his sudden purpose making him move faster than most humans could dream of. (He hadn’t considered himself as human for a long time now.) He strode across the narrow room, then bent down and began rummaging desperately through the file of music he’d brought with him. He knew what he wanted to play. He knew what was appropriate for this.
He flicked through the dog-eared sheets quickly, and stopped when he found what he had been seeking. “Theme from Schindler’s List.” ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRkug_5711I )
A song about needless death. A song about murder. About cruelty. About regret.
He didn’t bother setting up the music stand, just propped the file against the piano, and threw the violin against his shoulder, more roughly than he should have. The desolation was turning into something different, maturing, growing. It was fast turning into bitterness.
Well, that happened sometimes.
He didn’t give himself time to think, just tossed the bow down on the strings, pressing harder and infusing the beginning few notes with more tension than they really should have had.
The music was different to how he’d played it before. Every other time he’d played it technically… robotically. That had been more fitting, he guessed, for him. Without emotion. Without hope.
More machine than human.
But this time the notes resonated desperately, almost madly. The bow cracked as he pressed it too heavily on the fragile strings. The low notes rumbled with the urgency of an approaching thunderstorm, the high vibrated with a frequency that, combined with his frantic vibrato, pierced through the empty room with hideous precision.
And he was swaying with the music, wildly, frantically, the wood creaking slightly with the pressure it was suffering between his chin and his shoulder. But he didn’t notice, wouldn’t have cared if he had…
As the melody cascaded higher, he couldn’t stop himself from groaning slightly. This music was helping. This music was helping him. It was… It was him, now, wasn’t it? He could no longer distinguish between himself and the instrument. He was gaining some of that… that clarity, that basic knowledge of purpose that it had, and it was singing his story, it was singing his remorse…
The highest notes wailed inhumanly. There was proof, then. He would have done the same if he had the courage.
He was out of breath by the time he reached the last note. His hands shook – the slightest tremor as he drew the bow across the soaring A.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Deafening, and he rushed back into himself. The music over. The release was over – or was it release at all? No. No, it was… it was retribution. The intensity, the madness; it was payback.
Maybe madness was the only release left to him.
Maybe this was all there would ever be.
He didn’t know exactly why.
For a moment, he didn’t do anything, he just… he looked at what was inside. He didn’t know why it held such sentimental value for him. It was the only thing from after his powers manifested – the only memory – that he could even stand to think about. It had kept him through his solitude. It had staved off his madness; he knew that, without it, he would have gone mad. There was no question about it. He knew himself. He knew the grief. He knew the importance of… of forgetting, even if it was just for a second. And this simple object had… What had it done? It hadn’t let him forget, specifically – he had never gone to use it with the express purpose of forgetting. He had wanted to, many times, but he’d never let himself. He was afraid that if he tried to forget, the spell would be broken and that would be it: his last release, gone.
That was what it was like, come to think of it. It was a spell. It wrapped him up in a world of beauty and creation – a world which the pragmatic Arihant had never thought would be open to him – and in that world he could…
He couldn’t forget. While he was himself, he couldn’t forget.
So why did he forget with this?
He didn’t forget, that was the simple answer. What he did was… he just stopped being. Arihant didn’t exist in that world. Neither did his family, Kira, Kennedy, Lynn, Orchid, the war… None of it existed, because none of it mattered.
All that mattered was the music.
He pulled off his gloves, carefully checking that the door was still safely barricaded shut by the piano stool, and softly touched the pitted mahogany of his violin. The wood was cool against his skin.
He loved the instrument for this. It didn’t make sense, he knew, but he did. Just for the simple fact that he was able to touch it, that it wasn’t affected by his disease, that one pure and innocent thing wasn’t destroyed by him. But still, he always hesitated before he touched it – just for a split second…
He always wondered if today would be the day that the escape was lost to him. He didn’t doubt that one day it would be. For all he knew, he could be getting more powerful. Some day, he could touch that violin and the wood could rot away from his fingers, and then all he’d be left with would be…
Himself.
The stuff of nightmares, surely.
He carefully fitted the shoulder-rest to the bottom of the violin, tightening it with all the delicacy he was capable of, then pulled his fingers along the strings, plucking each one in turn.
Unfortunately for him, they were all horribly out of tune. There was no way he could leave all this behind when his escape sounded like that.
He tried hitting the G on the piano, but his ears, well-accustomed to this task, recognised that as being out of tune as well. It wasn’t a surprise. Most schools got their pianos tuned only once a year, in September, so by late May they were more than likely a little rusty.
Luckily, he had a backup. He rummaged in the case for a moment, then found what he was looking for. He skilfully hit the sturdy prongs of the tuning fork off the side of the piano, then placed it against the bridge. He loved the sound that came when he did this, the clear, almost supernatural vibration that issued from the wood. He guessed anything could sing when it wanted to.
…Hell, that was almost profound.
He quickly adjusted the tuning pegs, without need for the fine tuners – having learnt without a teacher to do these things for him, he was well-used to having to work this out for himself. As soon as each string sounded perfectly, exactly a tonic apart, he was ready.
He picked up the bow, flicking the adjuster round with his little finger to tauten the hair, and raised it above the string…
… and couldn’t bring himself to press it down.
Because d**n it all if he wasn’t doing exactly what he’d forsworn against. He was doing it to forget. He was…
He shouldn’t have read that bloody book.
It had absorbed him completely. Interview with the Vampire. He’d read it in a single sitting that afternoon, leaving his mountains of homework to accumulate under his bed. He hadn’t been able to tear himself away for a single second.
He’d absorbed every single word, his eyes darting over the pages feverishly and his hands turning them so fast that most people probably wouldn’t have even been able to see them moving. He didn’t know why. It hadn’t been having a pleasant effect on him at all – he’d sat in the same position for hours, his spine tense and his entire posture rigid, stiff, his stomach churning with some unknown emotion that had almost been fear – in fact, it must have been fear. It couldn’t have been anything else. He was afraid to stop reading, because he knew that when he thought about what he’d read…
He could see himself in the vampires in the novel. He could see their sin reflect his own. He might as well have been one of them…
It was one line that was still ricocheting around his thoughts now. He hadn’t allowed himself to register it until now, but… but he had to. If he started to play without addressing it, he’d destroy it all. Destroy the music. The freedom.
“What constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die tomorrow or the day after or eventually… it doesn’t matter. Because if God does not exist, then life… every second of it… is all we have.”
He was in control of himself now. He wouldn’t let himself break like he did the night with… the night with that dream. The nightmare.
He set the violin down on top of the piano, each gesture measured and overly calm, as slow as he could make it. Then he walked evenly across the room, and sat on the stool that was keeping anyone from walking into the music room. Keeping anyone from learning what he was for themselves.
He sat motionless for a moment, then in one fluid, lightning motion he jerked forward and rest his head in his hands. His fingers curled around the waves of his hair, the texture feeling alien against the digits that had rarely touched anything save the worn inner fabric of his gloves for years.
It made it all feel a hell of a lot more real.
This wasn’t grief he was feeling. It wasn’t guilt, either. It was despair. Hopeless, cloying despair that was shimmering through him in a haze, deadening his limbs and freezing him in that vulnerable position.
Where did he go from here? The words in that book seemed to have been plucked from his own mind, seemed to show him the true helplessness of his own situation. He saw himself in Louis – but then, Louis had chosen to become what he became, hadn’t he? Arihant would never have chosen this, not in a million years.
At times like this, it didn’t matter what was going right in his life. It didn’t matter that he’d made friends here, that he’d met all the wonderful people here who’d shown him so much kindness, it didn’t matter that they all knew what he was and that they hadn’t run anyway, it didn’t matter that Kira had forced him to stay – that she wanted him to stay because…
Where could any of it go?
It could only be so long before it ended. Arihant had been brought up as a Hindu. He believed in karma. And he believed that before long he’d be punished for all the good things that were happening to him here – punished for the sin of forgetting, because in the name of all that was holy, he didn’t deserve to forget.
And he knew by the dread that filled every crevice of his being when he thought of leaving that that would be enough – leaving would be punishment enough. The idea scared him.
It was too late for him to leave now. It had been too late ever since that night at the fountain. That had been his last chance to go, the last chance to tear himself away; and even then, it would have been horrendous, it would have taken months for everything to get back to the way it used to be. That numb, guilty monotony that had been his life for four years.
Now, he knew, if he went back to that… it would end him.
How could someone who had seen this – this splendour, this fantastical way of living that Arihant was really only beginning to discover – and someone who had spent four years of his life living entirely ostracised… someone who hadn’t felt another human being’s skin in four years, but who was now accepted…
How could he leave all that behind?
Sometimes… sometimes, when he was with his friends here – few though they may have been in number, each one was a profound blessing for him – he just…
He wondered what it would be like. What it would be just to be able… to reach out and clap Kennedy around the back, or sit beside Lynn without fear, or to feel Kira’s cheek beneath his fingertips…
He flushed a little when he thought of that last one, but his overall stance didn’t change.
He couldn’t even remember what it felt like, he realised. What had it been like before? What had his mother’s lips felt like when she’d kissed him goodnight? Had Bhadraksh’s scrabbling hands hurt him when he tickled Arihant mercilessly? How had Vidya’s small shoulders felt in his grasp when she came sobbing to him after a hard day at school?
His fingers clenched tighter on his curls, and they would have pulled his hair out of his head if that hadn’t been ‘enhanced’ too. He’d forgotten. After all this time of not letting himself think about them, he was starting to forget the time they’d had.
He didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not. He felt a kind of perverse satisfaction from his guilt – at least when it was hard, the times when tears rolled down his cheeks and his lungs heaved and his throat retched – at least then he knew that he did have a conscience, that he was at least human enough to feel guilty for the things he’d done.
But he realised as soon as he thought that that he wouldn’t forget the guilt. Everything else would fade, but the guilt would always be as fresh as if it had all happened yesterday. All he could do was learn how to control it.
And what else could he do?
Even if by some miracle he wasn’t thrown out of Orchid, or killed in the war (although that may have been a blessing more than anything else), or tracked down by the police… Even if by some miracle he managed to stay until the end, how long was that? He was seventeen already: he was in lower sixth. In another year he’d be leaving anyway. And then what?
Who would have him then?
No one. That was the simple answer. It was enough of a shock that anyone would have him now. At least here he could put it down to teenage stubbornness and idealism. Adults were sensible. Adults looked out for themselves. Adults would know to stay the hell away.
Before, Arihant hadn’t minded thinking of the future. If anything, it had been more secure than most people’s. He’d wanted to be a doctor, sure, but he’d had the sense to know that chances were he wouldn’t get into a university – his parents couldn’t afford it. Still, he’d known that he’d have more opportunities than most people, thanks to his relatively high marks and the prized ability to speak English. And he had felt lucky when he thought about that. At least he hadn’t taken that part of his life for granted.
And there’d been the issue of marriage, too. That had been arranged when he was still in his cradle. He’d only met the girl he was to marry once, sure, and they had been twelve, but she had been nice enough… a little vacuous, maybe, but good-natured, and they probably could have been happy. After all, his parents’ marriage had been arranged, and they had been happy.
Or he thought they had been. He’d never really got to know them properly.
God. Every moment of his life just meant more regrets. They were going to choke him someday.
When he’d looked at his future before, he’d seen hope. He’d seen stability. He’d seen… well, he’d seen a life.
He couldn’t see anything now. The landscape of his future was desolate and uncertain. He never knew where he’d end up.
Well, consider the chances. What was he? A murderer. And murderers go to prison. Or they go mad. Lots of them end up dead themselves.
Sometimes it seemed like it would be a hell of a lot easier just to end it. Or at least, it had done. The prospect of suicide wasn’t so appealing here.
This thinking thing wasn’t working, he realised. It didn’t matter whether he thought about it or not, the guilt would still be there.
The urge to play his violin was too great now. Far too great. Maybe he could play to forget… maybe, just this once… One time wouldn’t ruin it, right?
He leapt up suddenly from the seat as if he’d been scalded, his sudden purpose making him move faster than most humans could dream of. (He hadn’t considered himself as human for a long time now.) He strode across the narrow room, then bent down and began rummaging desperately through the file of music he’d brought with him. He knew what he wanted to play. He knew what was appropriate for this.
He flicked through the dog-eared sheets quickly, and stopped when he found what he had been seeking. “Theme from Schindler’s List.” ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRkug_5711I )
A song about needless death. A song about murder. About cruelty. About regret.
He didn’t bother setting up the music stand, just propped the file against the piano, and threw the violin against his shoulder, more roughly than he should have. The desolation was turning into something different, maturing, growing. It was fast turning into bitterness.
Well, that happened sometimes.
He didn’t give himself time to think, just tossed the bow down on the strings, pressing harder and infusing the beginning few notes with more tension than they really should have had.
The music was different to how he’d played it before. Every other time he’d played it technically… robotically. That had been more fitting, he guessed, for him. Without emotion. Without hope.
More machine than human.
But this time the notes resonated desperately, almost madly. The bow cracked as he pressed it too heavily on the fragile strings. The low notes rumbled with the urgency of an approaching thunderstorm, the high vibrated with a frequency that, combined with his frantic vibrato, pierced through the empty room with hideous precision.
And he was swaying with the music, wildly, frantically, the wood creaking slightly with the pressure it was suffering between his chin and his shoulder. But he didn’t notice, wouldn’t have cared if he had…
As the melody cascaded higher, he couldn’t stop himself from groaning slightly. This music was helping. This music was helping him. It was… It was him, now, wasn’t it? He could no longer distinguish between himself and the instrument. He was gaining some of that… that clarity, that basic knowledge of purpose that it had, and it was singing his story, it was singing his remorse…
The highest notes wailed inhumanly. There was proof, then. He would have done the same if he had the courage.
He was out of breath by the time he reached the last note. His hands shook – the slightest tremor as he drew the bow across the soaring A.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Deafening, and he rushed back into himself. The music over. The release was over – or was it release at all? No. No, it was… it was retribution. The intensity, the madness; it was payback.
Maybe madness was the only release left to him.
Maybe this was all there would ever be.
