* = play the attached video now. Read slowly. :)
//
I dream of her almost every night. I drink to her almost every night. I succumb to the hazy opiates that linger in the room after the show has long ended. It has been so long.
The truth is, I am scared. I came back to Manchester over a year ago believing nothing would be different, but in reality, everything was different. She outgrew me. And I haven't even made a mark on her. I don't even run along her skin like a small creek.
I try my best to avoid her in my head, I and envelop myself deeply into the alcohol and music that beckons me back to their beds. I feel so useless without her.
The stars do not shine the way they used to without her.
I believe passion for a certain thing can be familiarized with the infinite expanse of the cosmos. And Marcel had a passion to find the best in everyone, and to find bridges between emotions that would have never come together otherwise. She could find a galaxy in everything, everyone, including me.
I just want to feel her against my bruised body.
//
"Ticket, please."
"Uh? Oh, yeah, sorry mate."
"Doors will open in just one minute, make your way, please."
"Fanks,"
My hands are shaking. My sweaty upper lip quivers and I can no longer feel the beat of my heart in my chest; I'm going to burst through my fingertips. The doors are opening. This is a mistake. This is not a mistake.
I make my way into my seat. I am terribly dressed. One hour passes by and people are still making their way into their seats, stuffed with plastic personas, milky white pearls, and porcelain faces. I try and calm myself down before the lights fade away and all I can manage to do is grip onto the armrest next to me.
The lights are dimming. Clapping. Seated percussion. Grazing winds. Whopping brass. Delicate strings. Where is she? The armrest is creaking. I'm about to scream.
More clapping, people are standing... I can't see anything; I get up, and try to peer past the starched suits and steamed dresses, and I can't see...there she is. She's in front of me.
A delicate pink dresses her from her lightly dewed shoulders down to the floor. Why, she is woven in silk. Her hair flows down with an elegant bounce that reflects the light that is already seeped into her soft, glowing olive skin. Her eyes, so dark, so blue, show nothing but peace. And her smile, oh god, her smile. Crafted by the purest of pearls, and shone with the utmost innocence a person could have ever mustered through a mouth so delicately posed on a face so angelic as hers. Her smile could move mountains. She waves, looks up, and doesn't scan over the crowd.
I want to scream. I want to move, past this crowd, and jump and run and throw myself in front of her and tell her I've missed her and break down and see in colors again. The way she looks...I feel myself falling, and before I know it, I'm in the chair, gasping for a breath. Sprawled across my face is a chilling sweat that drips from my temple to the edge of my trembling mouth. The audience continues to stand for another minute or two.
She gracefully sits down, in the front of the orchestra, alone. She looks at her instrument, and positions herself to bloom. The crowd, already sitting, tenses, and so do I.
An older man, standing in front of the excited musicians, locks his eyes into her calming gaze and blinks twice slowly. Marcel grips her bow and places it on the strings, as she lifts her violin up. Her arms are elegantly muscular, yet so strong. Her dainty fingers find their way on the bridge, and apply the slightest pressure to craft the right note as she closes her eyes... inhales slowly...exhales...she opens her eyes. And they start.*
