Outside of Our Universe

Chapter 10

Morning light slips in through the window and enters the dark room. I am awoken by the sound of sizzling and the smell of bacon. I open my eyes and unzip my sleeping bag.

"Do you want me to make you some breakfast?" Nathan asks from the kitchen counter.

"Yes please," I say.

"Are eggs and bacon okay?"

"Not eggs. I don't like eggs."

Nathan laughs. "Okay then. What about sausages?"

"Sure," I reply, ripping my hairbrush through my hair in frustration, trying to untangle the mess.

I take out my mirror and look at myself in it. My blonde hair falls over my shoulders, looking almost white in the light of the sun shining in the room. On the contrary, my skin is slightly tanned from the days of carelessly playing in the garden. I focus on my eyes, which are a striking grey, a carbon copy of my mother's. They look tired, surrounded by blue and purple circles underneath them. But still, as the sun shines into the room, circles of light appear, sparkling on the surface of my eyes against the dim grey.

From the kitchen, I can hear Nathan setting plates out on the island counter. He holds out one of the plates carefully and lines each sausage up next to each other on the white plate. He flips the egg and then cooks it for a bit longer on the pan.

He reminds me of my mother.

Every day, my mother would get up in the morning and cook for me. She made me the same thing every day when I was little: three pieces of bacon and a bowl of cereal with the cereal poured in first.

"Breakfast is ready!" Nathan says cheerfully, setting out the last piece of cutlery next to my plate.

I walk over to the table and sit down on one of the chairs.

"I haven't had a sit-down breakfast like this in months!" Nathan exclaims as he picks up his fork.

"Why?"

"Well someone sure is nosy," Nathan jokes. "I've just always been too busy with my work lately, with all my research and my new paper I have to write..."

"You have to write a paper?" I ask excitedly.

"Yeah, I do."

"That's so cool!" I say.

And then we retreat back into silence as we eat.

"How is the food?" Nathan asks.

"It's good," I say quietly.

"You don't talk much, do you?" he says.

I blink. How am I supposed to respond to that?

"Talking ... is ... scary," I murmur.

Nathan nods understandingly.

"I know," he says. "But it's nice to talk to people if you try. Talking is how humans communicate. It's how they express themselves and open up to each other."

"Express... yourself?"

"Yeah," Nathan replies. "Talking is a way to express yourself and let other people know what you are feeling," he explains. "What do you do to express yourself?"

I stop eating to think about this for a while.

"I don't know," I reply.

"Well, what do you do in your free time? Like, for fun?"

"I read, I study, I use my telescope and look at the stars... I really like music," I think hard as I speak. "I play the piano."

"You like music? That's nice," he says. "I used to play the violin in sixth grade. Probably still have that thing lying around here somewhere."

I watch as Nathan gets up and starts looking around the apartment. He looks everywhere before opening his closet and pulling out an old violin case. He opens the case and takes out an old wooden violin, dirty and unpolished. He places the violin under his chin and picks up the bow.

Then he starts to play it. Melodies start to fill the room as he plays the song. The music flows through my ears and into my head, the melancholic song dancing in my brain. I know this song. I know this song because it's my favourite song. Nocturne in C# minor.

Talking isn't the only way to express yourself, because if it is, then why does this song communicate so much to me without containing one word at all? Each note is a word, telling a story I don't know how to describe with language.

I close my eyes and listen as he plays the song, carefully playing each note, each trill, moving the bow against the strings, moving his fingers swiftly across the neck of the violin. The song fills my heart with a certain happiness that I can't quite understand as the melody plays on, whispering the stories in my ear: stories of joy, stories of sadness, stories of love, and every other feeling that someone can have.

"It's beautiful," I finally say when the song ends.

"Well, I never knew I could still play so well after such a long time," Nathan laughs, putting the violin carefully back in its case.

I stay sitting in front of the kitchen counter, mesmerized.

"I guess you really do love music," he says, looking at me as he starts to clean up the kitchen.

I smile.