Chapter 1 – The Swing and Kira

“Chapter 1 of ‘They Say I’m Crazy.'”

I’m sitting there, staring into nothing. I’m on a bench, a cold bench. A kid’s park slouches in front of me. One swing taunts me, swinging back and forth, back and forth. It can’t stop.

I’m numb inside. No, that’s not quite true. It’s more of a dull ache. The swing is still moving ever so slightly. Why was the world so…dumb? Idiotic? Dismal? I could come up with a billion adjectives. None would ever describe it perfectly. None could be the perfect word.

The swing. It was starting to creak.

But that was the thing. It isn’t enough for me to say it’s horrible. It’s just so…dull. So empty. It isn’t anything. I can handle horrible. I think. At least that would add some spice. Then I could cry. Should I try crying now?

It has a red seat. One of the plastic ones. The chain is covered in plastic too. It is still squeaking.

I tried. It didn’t work. I rub my hands together. They’re cold. They should be. It’s 40 degrees out here. I suppose I should have put a jacket on. Something to cover my arms. But I hadn’t felt like it. So, I sat. On the cold metal bench, watching the cold plastic swing, shivering absently in my thin tank top and shorts.

I look down at my feet, mostly to stop looking at the swing. I’d painted them. The toenails are black. I drew smiley faces on top of my skin. I thought it would make me happy. It hasn’t yet.

I glance back to the swing. Why won’t it stop?

The rest of the playground is brightly colored. I try to smile at it. I fail. I sigh. This is boring.

I stand. I look down at the sidewalk. I shrug and lay down. Is this better? It’s hard and cold. Annoying…but I don’t move. I stare up at the sky.

It’s blue and white. Just like it always is. Those same colors. Never changing. Boring. Except for sunset. I didn’t mind sunset. My body shivers.

“Kira!”

That is what they call me. Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira…I don’t like that name. Why should I? I don’t have a say in my name. Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira, Kira.

My parents’ son’s face appears above mine. He isn’t happy. I stare. I’m not ever happy. Why isn’t he happy? They tell me he is older than me. But how do I know? They could be lying. I don’t know why they would but they could be. I think they hate me.

“Kira.” He says again. He sounds upset. I don’t understand why. What could I possibly be doing wrong now? “What are you doing?” He says it like he’s accusing me. Accusing me of what? I haven’t done anything wrong.

There it is again. That knot in my stomach. Right behind my belly button. Why’s it there? Why does it always come when someone’s upset? I don’t understand.

I stare up at him. His face is nice. Especially upside-down. It makes him look like he’s smiling. I know he’s not. He never smiles. Not at me anyway. He smiles at other girls. He smiles at them. Why doesn’t he smile at me? The dull ache isn’t so dull anymore.

“Kira. Let’s go. Come on.” He’s moving to my right side. He’s picking me up. I don’t want to be picked up, but I let him. I watch the world shift up and down around me. I watch the houses that all look sort of like mine. I watch them pass me by. Actually I’m passing them by.

Tears fall out of my eyes. They fall through my eyelashes. They fall onto my eyebrows. They roll down my forehead. They fall to the ground. I wonder what that would feel like, or if it would feel at all.

Sculpture + Painting = Amazing

I love that we still have wonderfully creative people in the world, people who will make this.

The Final Beauty

 

This is the fate of all those who take the violin.

A life of loneliness.

Of pain.

And torture.

The brown eyed girl was the first to fail.

She was the first to be overcome by her loss.

She was the first violinist

To die a violinist.

***

 

Legend of the Violin:

 

In a time and place far far away, when the first musician graced the worlds, she came with a violin. The violinist had never known love nor pain. She had never felt the sun, or wished on the stars. She was neither new nor old. Innocent nor wise. She did not fit into our worlds.

 

The violinist came, the first violinist, and she played for the hearts of men. She traveled the worlds and times and healed her audiences. For the violinist was kindness and love. She knew no other way.

 

Her violin was her only companion in her travels. They were passion. They were ardor. They were beautiful.

 

On a certain world that would become her fate, she fell in love. She fell in love with a man that was strong and dark. A cynical heart and a handsome face. And he fell in love with her passion and beauty. They loved forever and would have loved for an eternity more. The man was human, and so in the way that we take as natural he died.

 

The woman had given her heart to the man, her soul, her being. When he died, she ceased to exist. The violin was abandoned and forsaken. The violin had been robbed of her heart long ago and now of her soul. It’s passion turned to a flawless torment.

 

The violin ached for a lover. It ached for the warmth of a woman. And it would be satisfied. No one could resist such a beautiful thing. It commanded love and adjured adoration.

 

It was a terrible thing what the violin did. It was bitter and malicious and would have everyone broken as it itself was. It was wickedly beautiful though and every girl took and loved the violin willingly. The first time the girl would heal, the violin would give a man her heart. And then steal her away from him. The girl would live in agony, torn from her own pulse.

 

She would curse the one who gave her this love, and swear never to give it up. She would vow never to give this melodic agony to anyone else.

 

Only until she was so desperate to have her heart would she choose another girl, another victim for the violin. And the Legend would begin again.

 

So, it is up to you, dear broken soul. Did the last violinist fail?

Beauty 6

 

Big brown eyes are her constant feature. 

Innocence is her contradiction. 

Love is what has stolen her.

The boy with gorgeous blue eyes is still staring at her.

His selfish heart belongs to her.

He knows her.

He knows her loneliness.

The violin has given her over.

She now knows heartbreak.

She now knows self sacrifice.

A single tear falls from her eye.

This is the meaning of the first.

This is the cost of the violin.

She’s just a girl.

The first soul she healed, is broken forever.

Glitter and snow. Sparkles and rain. They consume her.

She is taken from him.

She is torn from her first love.

From her first audience.

She will never visit this world again.

One cannot love and play.

The violin is a jealous lover.

Such a cruel instrument.

Giving her heart without consent.

And leaving it with gorgeous blue eyes.

A violinist cannot return to the one who holds her heart.

She can never return as long as the violin is hers.

Beauty 5

 

 

A young girl stands in a square. No one pays her any attention. 

No one sees the nervous clenching of her fists. No one sees the girl with the violin case.

Her big brown eyes search the crowd. They search for a face. A heart. A soul.

She sees a boy. His eyes are downcast. His shoulders slouched. His hair hides his eyes but she knows they are a gorgeous blue.

She takes a breath and drops to the concrete. She is ready. She must be ready.

This is her first world. Her first set of hearts to heal.

She pulls her violin from it’s velvet case. 

It still feels fragile in her hands, even after her years of practice. 

She takes a breath.

She plays. She plays for him. The music is dark, majestic. It feeds him.

He looks at her. She knows though her eyes are closed. She can feel him stepping closer.

She can see him relax. She can feel him healing.

Her nervousness fades and the music takes her.

***

A violent boy clenched his teeth, growing angrier by the minute. The world was so up-side down. So twisted and dark, and no one seemed to see it. No one but him. He stared at the concrete. If looks could kill, he thought with dark amusement.

 

He looked up sharply. His eyes found the source of the music that had pulled him from his shadowy muse. A girl with a violin commanded the square.

 

The notes that touched him were dark and powerful. He gaped at the girl. She seemed so young, so innocent. But her music revealed her. It told her story. It spoke of pain, loneliness, and power.

 

He could hear her story in her screams, screams that did not pass her lips. He took a step closer, now raptured by her tale of sorrows, and pity that she would not take. The music slowed for just a few notes.

 

He saw her smile, just the most subtle upturn of her lips. And then it was as if she came alive. Her violin seemed to possess her. Suddenly the music dramatized. She was spinning her leg drawing the notes in the air. Her body danced with the music, as if it were her invisible partner. Her head rolled and her fingers trifled with the strings.

 

Her hands so small, worked so much magic. The world was opened to him. He saw her pain and his did not compare. He could see shadows in her music so much scarier than he had faced.

 

The music changed again. It soared. He had to open his eyes just to make sure she was still here on the earth with him. He was glad to see she was.

 

***

The music leaves her in a rush. Her supply of notes runs out.

She is relieved, happy to be empty of  the music that rages within her. 

With a contented sigh she finishes her piece and bows to the crowd that surrounds her.

But really, she bows for her audience. She bows only for him.

She opens her eyes to see him still staring at her. 

She has to suppress a smile, averting her eyes. But somehow they find their way back to his.

He gives her a shy smile. She can only help but smile back.

He is her first. The violinist will always remember his shy smile and selfish heart.

Beauty 4

 

In this world there is no audience. There are no cheers nor chides. It is simply the violinist; the violinist in the body of the woman she once was. The violinist and her instrument. Her bow glides across the strings. It sings. It soars. It heals.

 

In this time though, it does not heal a stranger’s heart. It heals only her own. The music cheers her. It dreams of her home. As does she. So close, so close.

 

She does not rise and fall with the music; She dances to it. She spins and soars. Her body flirts with the sound. She is smiling. She is living, for the first time in a hundred years.

 

The burden and ardor of this beautiful violin are no longer hers. This is her last performance. And she’s happy. Life is a sequence of change. She’s loved this violin, but now it’s past time for a new life, and a new love.

 

She will give this violin to a girl with big brown eyes. And that girl will live the life she has loved and cursed.

 

The brown eyed girl will travel, place to place, time to time. She will make the violin sing to hearts and souls that are broken. She will heal. She will be the beauty in so many worlds that have none at all. She will bring people together. She will introduce lovers and intimate friends. She will give her life to this violin. She will give her soul.

 

She will give her love to this violin and the haunting beauty of music.

Beauty 3

 

The violinist again tears at her instrument. 

Anger fills her though, the long torment that has become her life pours out of her soul and onto the strings. 

Tears stream down her face as the bow screeches her sorrow to the world. 

This world is dark and cold. There is not light nor passion within it. It’s killing her. 

She misses her home. Her hopelessness is profound in the notes that scream beautifully to the night. Where is home? She cries tears of fire onto the strings of her lover.

***

 

A small child looks at the beautiful violinist. She stands apart from the crowd. No mother searches the night for a missing child. No loved one screams a desperate name. No one longs to kiss her bloodied knees or wipe the dirty tears from her face. The child is alone in this dark night.

 

Tears fall from her large brown eyes as she watches the torment of the beautiful woman before her. The tears on the beauty’s face match her own. The woman tears at her violin. Her body falls and rises with the perfect anguish of her music.

 

Her hips sway savagely and her eyelashes flutter. She feels her music before it reaches her audience’s ears. The girl understands. She knows this woman. She understands her pain, because it is her own.

 

The woman rises, her toes lifting her to the sky. And then she falls, but no music accompanies her. People chide and scold the woman for losing her note. Not a single coin is thrown in her direction. But the child understands. The violinist did not loose her note. The song had never meant to be finished; It was waiting.

 

Everyone disperses. Everyone leaves the woman to her torture. Everyone but a single brown eyed girl.

 

The woman sobs against the night. Naked without a melodic cry to accompany her own. She feels alone.

 

But she isn’t. The girl approaches her, a steady gate betrays the life she’s lived so young. She touches the woman’s shoulder. The violinist looks up at the child, water distorts her unique eyes.

 

They stare at each other. They are not alone. They are understood.

 

The violinist reaches out, touching the small child’s face. And she knows, she knows she has found her home. A tear falls from the woman’s eye. She can see the child’s future. It was her own so long ago.

 

The child tilts her head slightly and puts another hand to the woman’s cheek. “It’s all going to be okay.” And the child knows it is, she can see her own future now too. She sees it in this woman’s past.

 

The woman nods, taking the child’s cold dirty hands into her own. “I know.”

 

Taking a breath, the woman takes her fallen instrument and packs it away safely. She stands, looking down at the child. With a special kind of sadness she takes the child’s hand and they walk away into the night.

 

A girl, a violinist, and an instrument disappear into an unnatural fog.

Had to share.

My favorite is number 17. Why kids suck.

The Couple in the Rain

Cold and Wet.

Yet somehow, it makes me happy.