To kick off my string of original posts, I want to share something really really recent (like I wrote this in November 2017 for a competition) that I'm proud of (even though it didn't win), just because I wrote something that I wanted to write and that it turned out better than I expected. I mean, there are some places where I'd like to improve it now that it's been a few months and I've moved on to other works, but I just want to share the version as of 12/4/2017.
Also on that note, something I wanted to share about finishing stories: I had this English teacher in 8th grade, which might or might not have coincidentally been the same year that I started writing seriously (if you're reading this, thank you for all of your support! It's been over three years, but I haven't forgotten yet!) who said to our class, "Good writing is never done, it's just due" and that's something I think about a lot, especially when I send my work to competitions.
Anyways, on to the story: This is Summer Dance, the story of a violinist who is a little down on his luck playing for cash, and a dancer with some time to kill before her show.
Summer Dance
Bene could have sworn that his evening could not get any worse. He was struggling like an amateur to play a dance that he had practiced for this festival for weeks. He could probably blame it on the humidity or his violin being uncooperative, but he knew that it was entirely his fault. His runs were sloppy and he could not seem to keep the beat in his body. As he felt the music slip away from him, he could sense the disinterest of others forming a bubble around him. Obviously no one wanted to give money to a musician who could barely even play his music.
He mentally scolded himself for thinking so critically. It was a festival day, and the midsummer festival at that. He had no right to spoil this night of music and dance for himself.
A young girl stepped casually towards him, seemingly from out of nowhere. She appeared in a dreamlike state, lost somewhere in her own world. She tripped into his wire stand, causing it to fall down with his sheet music. Bene stood in awe as his papers scattered on the ground, some flying away in the hot summer wind.
The girl stood clumsily, making quick, apologetic eye contact with him before running to pick up the flying papers. She refused to say a single word throughout, not even ‘I’m sorry’. A thick, awkward silence hung around them as Bene felt embarrassed that the girl was making all the effort to gather his papers and he was just standing there in shock.
She handed them back to him in a neat stack, smiling all the while. It was the first time that he had really gotten to see her properly as he took the music. He looked her up and down as he pretended to count the pages. Her figure was definitely strong, but light. Her legs were smooth and well-defined, save for a large scar below her knee. He could never bring himself to admit it, but she was beautiful. She was one of the most beautiful girls he had seen in a long time. Her physical appearance was starting to bother him as they gazed into each other’s eyes, staring soul to soul for just a moment. He looked away shamefully, thinking it would be too creepy on his part, seeing as he was significantly older than her. “I’m so sorry that I did that to you,” she said, breaking the silence. “I usually don’t do that to people, I don’t know why it happened.”
Bene put a hand on her shoulder, finding it difficult to hold his violin and music all in his other hand. He wasn’t even smiling, even if something about the way she spoke made him deeply want to. She was a stranger. There was no reason to get all happy around someone he didn’t even know. “It’s fine. It’s only my music.” He placed it back on his stand and took up his position, deliberately watching her as he tuned one pitch by ear.
To his surprise, the girl sat down on the dirty ground, watching him shuffle his fingers with growing interest. “What’s your name?” she asked when he had finished tuning.
“Does it really matter? It’s not like we’re going to see each other again.”
“No, but you can come see the ballet tonight and at least feel happy that you know one of the dancers and that one of them knows you.”
So his intuition had been right after all. She was a dancer “Fine,” he relented, feeling sorry for her and the trouble she had gone through to collect his papers. Giving his name was really the least he could do. “My name is Bene.”
She immediately straightened her back to introduce herself. “I’m Melody.” She cocked her head to the side, looking at his face from another angle. “Well you look like you’re not having a fun night.”
He sighed, playing random notes to occupy himself as he thought of what to say. It wouldn’t be fair to dump all of his problems on a girl he had just met, but she had asked. “I usually play for cash, but I guess I kind of suck right now.” Bene gestured widely at the crowd around them with his bow and stuck out his tongue in frustration.
“Then play for me,” Melody suggested, standing up. “I can be all of your adoring spectators and honestly, if one person likes it, almost everyone will.”
He couldn’t see anything to lose from it. It was free entertainment and all the more reason to practice his music so he could get it right at least once in front of a decent crowd.
Bene lightly touched his bow to the string and the first high A screeched as if to mock his sudden fear of performing. It settled a little as he moved his bow with more pressure and let the note take shape. His hands felt stiff as he knew that they shouldn’t, but his nerves were working against him and there was no way to let his fingers glide over the fingerboard the way he was sure they should. Out of the corner of his eye, he finally noticed Melody standing so close to him. She smiled and motioned for him to relax.
Although he had only just played one note, making it sound strong and in tune had completely exhausted him. He looked for Melody’s smile again, hoping that she would agree to leave. The last thing he wanted was to bear the shame of being unable to perform on a night where people came solely seeking performers and their arts.
Even though he looked for the comfort of running away, he saw Melody standing there only a few feet away with her dancer’s grace, lightly tapping her foot to a beat that he could not discern. She glanced up at him briefly before looking back down again to keep her foot tapping at the same speed. The metered rhythm calmed him, bringing back structure to their dance.
Bene felt all of his impulses leave him as he took one large breath, launching into his dance at the speed of her feet. He soon found himself straying from the counting and settled between the beats as he prepared for his attempt on the high A yet again. As he dragged his bow against the string, he pressed down a little harder with his other hand and felt the note resonate more. Although he wasn’t too satisfied with it, it would have to do. At least for now.
Moving on, he felt his fingers gradually loosen as he moved his whole body to the subtle measures of three. Where he stumbled over notes, he felt something invisible encouraging him to keep going. He would have to thank this invisible force later for keeping his perfectionism at bay.
His eyes strayed from the papers below to see Melody taking her starting position, letting her arms reach out almost towards him as she stood with her feet at angles. Through the haze, he was convinced that she was ready to make some kind of leap. It was no leap but a step in his direction and then to the left and to the right, moving her arms in some nonsensical dance with herself as he fought to keep playing to their original tempo.
Melody saw him struggling to keep the beat as she moved around. With a chuckle, she finally understood how much of a distraction she was being. Still, she sped up her footwork. Bene responded by playing faster, although his fingers were beginning to cramp from sliding all over the fingerboard. Every note spilled out of him, forming a chaotic melody that he suspected was far different from what had been written on the paper by some dead man hundreds of years ago. Just stop dancing, he willed, hoping that Melody would let him take the tempo that he wanted and keep his fingers from falling off. She stopped and tapped her feet roughly on the ground, giving him momentary relief. He found himself settling into their original moderate beat without any complaint. In an instant, she had completely discarded that tempo to spin around at a completely new pace. She threw her arms out like it was best night of her life as they both wrapped themselves in the music and let themselves be free.
As the minutes went by, Bene was becoming increasingly convinced that he was dreaming. Even in the stickiness of the intense summer humidity, he moved like he had never felt music before to the beat of this girl who had danced so beautifully into his life. From every angle, he felt that it was too good to be real. For a moment, Bene had the haunting feeling that any minute he would wake up again in his cold bed, completely alone. He furrowed his brows in response and continued to push out every note that he could hit.
Melody reached out to jab at him playfully, shaking him abruptly from his thoughts. “You’re too stiff,” she teased as Bene fought to keep the tempo up to where she had set it before. Just as swiftly as she had appeared in front of him, Bene could feel that she had wedged herself between his back and the wall to smack him on the back like his teacher. “If you relax, you can probably play at the speed of lightning if you try really hard.”
With that, he threw down the tension from his shoulders like a horse, straightening and allowing his bowing hand to drag across the strings with more intensity as he felt himself take control of the beats. He shifted to accommodate the change in speed as Melody resumed her part in their dance. It wasn’t really a dance in the sense of performance, but a harsh comparison of the fluidity in her motions to the way he stumbled over notes and runs as he tried to make a nineteenth-century dance sound the way he thought it should.
Bene felt the tone of the last note slip out of his hands as he could only be glad that the piece was over. His shoulders slumped as he felt the weight that he had previously shrugged off return and weigh him down further. Melody’s enthusiasm had completely worn him out. In an instant, his knees buckled and he felt himself fall to the ground in exhaustion.
“Wasn’t that fun?” Melody asked happily. Somehow she was still jumping around like a child. This whole ordeal was unbecoming for a dancer of her stature, having performed in prestigious opera houses and concert halls around the country. If anything, Bene deeply felt that this performance was unbecoming of himself. He had never earned less than a hundred dollars per performance at a gathering like this. Still, Melody clapped like an adoring audience member, shouting, “Bravo! Bravo!” She gave him a standing ovation like he was a famed soloist in some concert hall far from here. Even though she didn’t really understand much about violins or their music, she was sure that this was a performance she would never find anywhere else.
“Why are you making fun of me?” Bene muttered to himself, not speaking to anyone in particular. He felt himself on the verge of tears and shoved his violin in her face, hiding himself. “If it was good, people would have stopped by to listen. I couldn’t even make a single dollar off of this nonsense.”
Melody took the violin and set it down on the ground next to him. She didn’t want to believe that her dancing had caused him any pain. He looked like he was having fun, so she had gone with it. She put one hand in his perfectly gelled hair, trying not to ruffle it around too much as she thought of a way to make him feel better. “It was only a joke,” she said soothingly, still stroking his hair. Watching Bene start to cry made her feel even worse. “I just thought that you wanted some company. God knows it’s never fun to perform alone.” She felt herself tearing up as she fled like a child, afraid that she had really hurt him in their small game.
Bene spent the next few minutes in the lingering blurry haze after his crying fit, but he saw Melody run away, possibly crying as he had been. She had quickly become another face in the crowd as he struggled to get his bearings. Bene could have sworn that he had dreamed the events of the last two hours, but even if it was so, she had been the most beautiful thing his mind had created in a while. He knew that he would be waiting for the next hot summer night when they would meet again, whether in this world on in his own.
Still, something about their experience stuck in his mind. It was unlike any performance that he had partaken in before. Theirs was technically flawed, but he felt the hole in his chest of where his heart had been connected to hers. Bene stood up on shaking legs and picked up his violin, wondering where to go from here. His head ached and his vision was getting foggy, but he had to keep moving.
After a few minutes of aimless wandering, he found himself at a long queue for some performance. From the amount of people that had gathered around the ticket booth, it had to be a really big deal. He couldn’t read the entire title and the only word he could vaguely make out was ‘ballet’, but Melody’s words about the ballet were the first thing that came to mind as he gave up the few dollars in his pocket for a ticket.
As the chattering of the crowd died down, the curtains opened and the orchestra began playing the same festival dance he had heard for years. He wondered what exactly was so special about this time, but did not leave. Maybe in this case, heartache caused by music could only be remedied by more music.
A single young girl stepped on stage, wearing a bright yellow mask that glittered in the spotlight. Bene couldn’t help but see Melody’s shape in her. He rubbed his eyes, looking at her again. He was still unable to shake the unmistakable resemblance to her, with the same blotchy scar on her knee. He was certain that it was her.
She slowly lifted the mask from her face, letting it fall to the ground. They locked eyes from across the arena. He felt inclined to look away, but her warm eyes kept him watching as she took the same starting position as Melody had when they had danced. The girl began moving as the music picked up, seemingly never breaking eye contact with him. Bene felt his heart drop as he wondered if maybe he hadn’t gone as crazy as he had originally thought.
