Light From Uncommon Stars(102)
Lan took her chopsticks and poked at her broccoli. She didn’t know how to even articulate what she had heard.
“Ah. Well some of it is the violin itself. Some say that the violin, due to the way the sound is played—not hammered like a piano string, yet not limited by actual breath or range—blends the music of the natural and the divine.”
“So it elevates us.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not everything?” Lan ventured.
“Of course not. If it were, then Hell would be empty. In fact…”
Suddenly, Shizuka stopped and pointed at Lan’s phone. “Wait. We’re not speaking Korean,” she said.
“Of course not,” Lan said. “Those people by the window are Korean. Why do you keep assuming it’s Korean? Well, not that you’d be able to tell; the scrambler has a negligible latency. But yes, we’ve used Thai, Malay, Ilocano, Hokkien … Last time, we were speaking Khmer.”
“Khmer? Oh … so what are we speaking now?”
“Japanese.”
“日本語？なんてこった！”
“That’s probably why you sensed a difference, since you are being scrambled into language that you already speak.”
Ah, that made sense. Right?
“By the way, why aren’t you having the duck?” Shizuka said, looking away from the scrambler.
The duck?
Lan hesitated. They had just been feeding ducks at the park. Ducks that had been gliding like spaceships, fighting for her donuts as if they were the most delicious things in the world.
Of course, they were not the same birds. But still …
“Lan, how can music lovers be so hateful when they find a musician is transgender? How is the person eating waffles with her grandchildren the same one who calls me a Chink? Yehudi Menuhin plays Mendelssohn, and people smash his records and call him a Nazi sympathizer. The person fighting for racial justice believes ‘God hates Fags.’ Proud, happy parents change the moment the car door is closed.”
Shizuka grabbed a golden piece of duck and held it in front of her.
“Too many sections.”
“Sections?”
“One usually learns to play a piece a section at a time. Within each section, the musician will memorize passages, phrases, movements, until the sections reach from beginning to end.”
Lan nodded. That made sense. Of course you would break a large task into smaller ones.
“And so many live the same way. One becomes a good plumber, or mother, or Christian, or Dodger fan, or teenager. One lives section by section, one stage to the next.
“But sometimes, sections change keys, tempos. They change moods. Timing … Some melodies don’t resolve in an expected way. Some don’t resolve at all. So people begin to fear playing beyond the sections they have played out of habit, out of fear.”
“And eventually one runs out of sections,” said Lan.
Lan thought of the Endplague. Running out of sections summed it up perfectly. After progressing, building, level by level … breakthrough by breakthrough … war after war … what comes next?
Nothing. And at the end of nothing, what is left?
Shizuka nodded.
“With the right gift, and the right training, the transitions between one section and the next can become almost unnoticeable.
“Musicians who achieve this can build careers, win international prizes, travel the world. Their works shine like magnificent timepieces that others can examine and appreciate for skill, for their effortless complications, for the graceful ways that each section finds its place.
“The very best can cause listeners to dream, to cry, to relive the happiest and saddest moments of their lives.
“But still, the seams are always there. And when the piece is over?”
Shizuka ate the piece of duck, then took another.
“However, imagine if one works in a completely different way. Imagine a music with no sections, with every note resonating with the whole composition. Whether it is at the end or the beginning—it does not matter.
“In such a music one can listen anywhere and instantly experience the entire work. Even as the piece progresses from season to season, from movement to movement, there is no anxiety about how the next section may or may not fit. Instead, the whole piece is always realized and complete—in that note. That chord. That rest. That ornament.
“And should that music also resonate within the hearts of their listeners, imagine how these listeners might awaken to their own music!
“Imagine what would happen if they could perceive their lives not as separate sections to be entered and left behind, but with a continuous forward, backward and all places in between?
“Lan, what would happen if someone played their existence not only to its inevitable end, but also to its inevitable beginning?
“What if someone played their music to its inevitable everything?”
Lan tried to remain calm, but her mind was racing. What if instead of despair, one could hear this? Lan picked up a piece of duck. To the sugar, the five spice, the honey chili.
To next Saturday. To the Saturday before.
Yes, our universe will end, but between now and then, how many civilizations have come? How many more will rise? To the glistening ducks on hooks. To those like starships gliding upon the lake.