The Lonely Player and the Sad Accordion

A Story by Eve

The story of how pain can build, and how it can be lost

As the light fades to darkness, there he stands. As all things, animals and humans alike, start to rest, he begins to play. The notes make their way through the trees, the rain failing to silence them. As the bellows absorb the water the music is distorted, though they still carry their melancholy message. As he plays, the sadness, the injustices, the sorrows, they make their way through the trees, the forest being sung to sleep by the grief of their lonely stranger. His accordion old, the wood marked by the ages, his clothes black and dripping. Yet there he stands, finally yielding to the overwhelming despair. All alone he reveals his agony to the sleeping world. They know not of what grieves him, or of his past. Only he holds that knowledge. And now, after so many years, he is finally… letting the memories go. Holding onto them no longer. But one tree, a mere skeleton of what it once was… absorbs his words. Understands his meaning.

***

The music sways me, the sadness catching my soul and holding it captive in the moonlight. I let all connection to my body go and allow my mind to take me away. I see a door, and then, as though by magic I am on the other side. There is a hill, and a small boy on the hill, and a tree next to that boy. A tree like me. It has no leaves and looks the spitting image of horror. Though the boy does not seem horrified. He only seems lonely.

I am drawn back to the music and see the man playing. He is dressed in black, his clothes too worn, starting to fray at the edges. Through the trees I can see a mustard caravan. I wonder if this lonely player really is alone. Is there someone in that caravan? Does he have a companion? But there is no light coming from his house on wheels. There is only the moonlight, the music, the sorrows.

Again there is the little boy and the tree, though, as they continue to hold my vision, I see time pass. The tree grows leaves, the boy grows taller. The seasons pass, the tree again becomes a skeleton, the ground becomes blanketed with snow, and as the boy grows taller, his clothes become darker and his hair messier. There is a break in the music, and the boy falls. The vision is gone and again I am in the forest, lost within the music that seems to no longer be playing. The silence wrenches the heart strings almost more than the music did. The emotions, they overwhelm. Black starts to blur my vision. The music stops.

***

The young musician has to stop. He leans against a tree for a small time, regaining his strength, and his courage to keep fighting the crushing emotions. The old tree becomes just a tree. No longer does the music move it to life and thought, for no longer is there creativity, imagination and powerful emotion surrounding its lost soul, and pulling it to the surface. All that is left of the tree is the wind blowing around it, the rain beating against the bark. Yet no longer does it feel, no longer is there light within its being. It is gone. And just like that, with the loss of music, the tree is gone.

Slowly, with the movements of a dying dragon, careful, tender and slow, the gypsy again begins to play. But this time… this time the tree does not move… there is no change from within… It is still… just a tree.

But there is one thought resonating through the air, compelled by the rain and the wind to find its way around the world. The final thought of this departing soul, its heart ceasing to beat; Now there is peace, and sorrow is gone. Lonely player, take my life… be strong for yours.

***

The stranger in the woods, regaining strength, more than he had before he started, faces the remainder of his terrors, fears and sorrows with ease. They no longer seem a struggle and a weight that he will eternally carry. He feels liberated to be free of them. Though their memory remains, and there is still the sadness that these memories hold, they are no longer all consuming, tying his soul to his sorrows. He is now able to move on, to let his life continue. The young man finishes his composition and returns to his home, and finally… after years of sleepless nights… the darkness accepts him, and he is free.