This idea came to me one night before bed and I had to jot it down before I lost it. I'm thinking about expanding the character and plot in order to submit it to North Lake's literary contest:
There once lived a man who lived through a song. This wasn’t like other songs with an immediate beginning and an end…this was a life-song. A life-song connects all of the happenings of a man’s life through a melody. A man’s first kiss may be marked by a romantic violin solo. A man’s first heartache could be signified by a solemn and ugly trumpet. All aspects of life have their own distinct sounds.
You can’t go in search of a life-song; it is a gift from the gods. Only the very few are lucky enough to hear its beautiful melody and its unforgettable harmony. It is a continual reminder of the beauty and fragility of life, and only those gifted with a life-song can hear it.
The music kept this man alive. Each note moved with the rhythm of his breaths. As all of the instruments mixed together to form one fluid, graceful song, so did his heart and lungs and mind all work in sync with one another. He felt tied to the music, as if his life hung in the balance with the song…little did he know that it did. As the song grew quiet, his life too grew quiet and calm. His surroundings seemed to slow down completely. As the song roared to its peak, his life became chaotic and loud, like the crashing cymbals of the orchestra.
One day flowed into another, like the measures of a composed song fit seamlessly together. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and months became years, and still the song progressed, as constant as the sun rising in the East. But there came a day in the man’s life when the song grew strangely dim and quiet, more so than usual. He ignored it in the beginning, but after a week of continual softness, he started to strain his ears in search of the melody. Like a man in search of answers, this man was in search of his song.
After another week of searching, the song had become so quiet that it was near silence. The man had never experienced the sounds of the outside world because his life-song had drowned them out. Now he could experience the harsh words of an angry friend, the screaming in agony of pain and sorrow, the dry wind blowing through the leaves of the dead trees in winter. All this he had never experienced before, and he became overwhelmed…and then depressed.
He could no longer find the beauty in life because he had no music to reveal to him nature’s mysteries. He became ill, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. He lay in bed beneath the thick blankets, trying to protect his now frail and aged body from the cold world. He stared out the window, in search of inspiration or hope, but could find none. All he could see was a frosty window with leafless branches flailing out in the yard.
One month past and he became worse. He had become so weak that he could no longer turn his head to look out the window, but he had to look out of the corner of his eye. He would fall asleep and have nightmares of death and disease and pain and wished that it could all be over, but he would wake up the next cold morning and once again live through an unbearably silent day.
One morning he woke up and knew that he would die that day; he could feel it within his body. So, with all the strength he could muster, he turned his head to the side in search of one more sight of life before he passed on. The window was no longer frosted over, but was clear enough to see the leafless tree outside. There, on the top branch of the tree, was a single pink flower, and beside it was a mockingbird, singing the welcome-song of spring. Seeing this, the man smiled, closed his eyes, and once more heard his life-song quietly before he died.
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