Overheard at Table 2: Grosse Fuge

Grosse Fuge

Damn this personal prison.  The mind.  This brain inside this skull.  This prison that has a window but no sound.  I can see the keyboard before me, I can see the keys, I can feel them, I can feel the pressure under my fingers, I know that these keys press mallets that hit strings that cause vibrations that make sound, that make music.

I used to be able to hear them.  Even as though only wet footsteps on some foggy moor, but now, only the pressure against my fingertips.  How many keys have I broken, slamming them with these furious hands?

Still I cannot rest.  I can never rest.  Haunted by melodies of infinite complexity and such raging passions!  I must write them, I must create them, I must give them to the world, to play and hear.

Oh!  To hear!  To hear the music!  To be able to see if the violins are in tune, or if the cellist presses too hard with the thumb!  To rely on the observations of friends does not help allay the absence of the joy of hearing the composition, as well as guiding the players to love the piece as I love the piece.

And now I am trapped.  Trapped inside this prison with notes and motifs screaming against the walls of this cell, and there is nothing else I can do now, in this life, for these notes are my life.  I have no other talent than this.  My ears are gone but the music remains, driving me mad, leaving me to wonder what cruel God would give a man such a gift of music and take away his hearing.

He who has ears ... let him hear!

 

[Inspired by the following tweet:

That Burnt Writer

@ThatBurntWriter

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Jun 19

I was too empty for words, #dead like a #crater on the moon. Trapped in a personal prison, haunted by a melody of infinite complexity, sadness. I seek an exit, a way out, an escape, but there is nothing. Solitary. Alone. Fading. #fromoneline 60 #2wordprompt #horrorprompt 465

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