Page 81 of Echoes of a Silent Song
I’d never thought about living in a mind without constant music.I hadn’t known it was even possible.But thanks to those pills I’d started taking this month, the music had faded to nothing.Melody and Harmony had gone on an extended vacation.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about anything anymore, because I didn’t feel very much at all.The medicine had muted my entire being.I didn’t feel sad anymore.But I also didn’t feel happy anymore.Or angry.I didn’t feelanythinganymore.
I didn’t struggle to get out of bed now.I didn’t take time to think about whether or not I wanted to do it or could do it.I just did it.I got up.I went to school.I sat in class.I did my homework.I spent time with Victor.I shuffled through the motions of life.
But now that my brain had gone silent, I didn’t feel like I was actually alive.
Was this what I needed to treat my “anxiety,” as Dr.Richards called it?Did I even truly have anxiety?Apart from that time when I’d had pneumonia as a kid, I’d never spent a whole week in bed before.But I’d heard of people being so sad they couldn’t get out of bed.Was that whathad happened to me?Or was the doctor right and there really was something wrong with me?
I’d figured out the text to my next composition, the combination of Psalm 69 and the Langston Hughes poem.I’d sketched a few ideas in my notebook.That treble-bass back-and-forth I’d come up with while Mother and Dr.Richards were talking.But that was all the progress I’d made.I’d started taking those pills the next day.And after following up a week in bed with a full day of school, I’d been too exhausted to even think about writing music that night.
Or the next night.
Or the next.
By the time I could make it through a day without my body begging for a nap, the music had fallen silent.
I probably should’ve felt pretty devastated that the thing that would cure me was taking away the thing that made me feel alive.
And I would’ve felt that way ...if I could’ve felt anything.
I had the song text next to my bed for whenever Melody and Harmony returned from wherever they were traveling.I’d clipped another copy into my music notebook in case inspiration struck during the day.
It was probably part of the adjustment process.My body getting used to the medicine.Dr.Richards had said there might be one.Just had to wait it out.
In the meantime I’d kept going through the motions.
My first day back at school, Victor had kissed me right there in front of my locker and told me he’d missed me.He’d tried to come see me, he’d said, but his father had been angrier and more drunk than ever, and Victor hadn’t felt safe leaving his mother alone with the man.
So what’s going to happen with your mom when you move to Chicago in six months?I’d wanted to ask but hadn’t.Victor would just have to figure that out when the time came.
Victor also said he’d tried to call me every night but that my mother wouldn’t let him talk to me.
They were all valid reasons, believable reasons, probably true reasons, but it still hurt that I hadn’t heard from him during one of the lowest weeks of my entire life.
Since I’d been back, though, things between us had gone back to normal.We went to Sammy’s after school most days, and this day was no exception.Mrs.Standridge, our math teacher, had given us a speech last week about how she knew we were almost done with high school and all our minds were on things like senior prom and graduation but that we still had work to do.“You’re not done yet.Graduation is not a guarantee,” she’d said.“You actually have to finish the work if you want to walk across that stage in June.”
I had no idea what I’d do after high school, but I knew I wanted to graduate and didn’t want to be stuck here in Peterson forever and ever.So I took her words to heart, and now Victor and I were working our way through both our math homework and a basket of fries.
Victor polished off the last of his Coke, the squawk of the empty straw cutting into the music from the jukebox, then stood.He said something about needing to use the men’s room, but I wasn’t really listening.I was trying to finish off the last equation:xequals ...46?
Was that right?It didn’t seem right.
Had Victor finished this problem?He was really good at math.Maybe I could check to see if he came up with the same answer.
I wiped my fingers on a napkin, then reached for his homework.Question fifteen ...question fifteen ...oh.Yes, there it was:x equals 46.So we were both right or both wrong.Either way, good enough.On to the next problem.
I pushed his notebook back to where I found it, but I pushed a little too hard, and the entire stack of his things fell off the table and onto the floor.In the past I’d have been mortified, but in my new numb state, I just stared at the papers and books scattered all over Victor’s chair and sliding onto the floor.
Were people staring at me?Did I even care if they were?
No.I didn’t.I just needed to pick up the papers and put them back where they’d been.That was the right thing to do.
Victor was one of the messiest people I’d ever known.A true feat, since I was pretty messy too.But he had papers shoved ineverywhere, in the most random places.A history assignment in his science book.An English assignment in his history folder.
And a crisp piece of paper with the Whitehall Conservatory seal jammed into his math textbook.
