Muse 115: Fasting

Fasting is when people don't eat to regain their focus on what's important. I tried it once for 30 hours for the sake of starving children in Africa. It was a school event, sent home and notified on fliers. Our teachers locked us up in the gym, a room completely enclosed with bright lights and closed windows, so we couldn't know the time. It felt like a desert of empty buffet tables. We played games until our stomaches started to hurt. Some girl, tall and skinny, blamed it on laughing too hard, and so we forgot about eating again. There was a chase of boy and girl, and for a second we forgot about time and hunger. All I thought about was how I hoped Jake to chase me. Even if I was already seventeen years old these times were good excuses for wishes. When all this was done, someone meekly asked for the time. The teacher looked at his watch and grumbled, annoyed and hungry, "It's only been two hours." There was a community groan, but we were locked in and could do nothing about it. Our parents signed release forms for us to starve. So we played games, talked, gossiped and taped each other to the walls pretending they were enemy zombies. I don't remember praying once, but I remember hearing a teacher respond, "Yeah, I'm going to drop into bed once this is all over."

Muse 98: First Chairs

found via brunopostigo

She was a violinist and he played the cello. By the order of the orchestra, musical hierarchy and general  consensus, he sat behind her where his sound could support hers. She was first chair of the violins and he was the first chair of the cellos. They were musically a match made in heaven and he wondered if she noticed that too, but all he saw was the back of her head. Her black hair ran straight down like a waterfall, and his eyes dropped whenever her movements hinted at turning around. When he played, he didn't read the sheets because the notes hung delicately in the air. He knew the rhythm by watching her dance, and the song by hearing her hum. Her voice was like gold, and his voice went by unnoticed, just as it always had with the audience. While she played the alone, he played in the background, and when she packed up her violin to go, he watched, hiding low in the shadows, too afraid to ask for a solo.