Shor story

The jar where I kept my favorite song broke this morning.

I was able to listen to it one last time as it escaped through the pieces of broken glass. I’ve spent the whole afternoon humming the song, so I don’t forget it. Over and over I sing it in my head, trying to keep each note in its place, just like the first time I heard it. I’m afraid to leave my room, I’m fearful that if I accidentally hear some other tune, it will make me forget it.

I wish I could preserve the song somehow. I wish a fly would come and catch the notes that have been scattered in the air, and then played them with its wings. Until a spider would eat it and then played the song with its web until it broke, and the song would fly again. I wish a bird ate the song dispersed in the wind and came to sing it every morning at my window until a cat ate it and then the cat would meow the song every night on the sidewalk in front of the house. Finally, the cat would sing the song one last time, whispering it into my ear as I fell asleep before leaving life.

Refusing to think that the song could be lost forever, I keep the window closed hoping the notes are still out there, in the air in my room. I’d try turning on the fan to play them, but I’m afraid they’re out of order, and listening to them like this might make me forget the correct tune.

It has started to get dark and I start to forget little lines of the song. I’m afraid, I think if I fall asleep, I’ll forget it. The thought of never hearing it again terrifies me. In my despair I started to walk across the room, waving the notes. I accidentally put my bare foot on a piece of broken glass and cut myself. One of the notes had been trapped under the glass and I could feel it getting between the cut and seeping into my skin until it reached my blood. Now every time it passes through my heart, I hear the note being played.

Now I have found a method to preserve the notes, I have taken the glasses from my room, and some used to keep notes like the first one. My heart starts playing snippets of the song with each cut. Those notes that fluttered in the air stuck to my skin when they listened to the chords that sound with each beat of my heart. I have cut my skin with the glasses to allow them to enter.

The song is almost complete. My heart interprets the notes with singular pleasure. Each time, it sounds slower, more leisurely. As if my heart wanted to give space to each note and each chord so that they could be engraved in him.

I made the last cut with relentless perfection, despite the little strength left in my fingers. I listened to the whole song again, and after that, it started again from the beginning, each note lasting longer than the last, and each time the song gets slower. Listening to it like this I can’t understand why I liked it so much, it’s a depressing sound. If the song played faster, maybe I’d like it again, I’d like to hear it again as I heard it the first time. But that will not happen again.