Like every great love story, this
one began even before it had begun. Or perhaps just like everything
that is embodied by love is blurred, so is this. The beginning or the end,
there is none and there never could be one.
‘The curtains began to pull as the
soft cadence of the orchestra was dying behind it. Every eye in the theater was
damp , their breath held under the heaviness of a desperate sigh and they sat
on the seats like a candle spent and exhausted to the very core. As the roar of
claps rose crushing the vacuum of silence, everyone stood up in awe of
not just the musicians but the music itself. In the flirt of the guitar, in
the romance of the piano, in the longing of the saxophone and in every
nuance the audience lived a lifetime’
The next day as he was reading the
review, he pulled out a dictionary and searched for the word cadence.
'Ah Cadence!a modulation or
inflection of the voice.’ Or a ‘a sequence of notes or chords comprising
the close of a musical phrase’
.
'Beautiful beautiful… ' and
lost in thoughts he wondered if someone would remember him.. if someone would
look him up. A long shot because he knew he was the poetic kinds. He wasn’t
usually invited to fancy, big parties. It were the drunk poets, running high on
liquor and emotions that called him up. Every time he thought he had seen a heart
in the worst state the next summon would prove him otherwise. But he
could never change what he was. A replacement for ‘little bit’.
She woke up like a blossom. Reached
for the newspaper and greedily gorged her eyes into the
review. Yeah she made it. She was there. That piece was special, she cut it and
pasted it in her journal and while at it, she tried to read so well so as
to memorize every word of it. That’s when she laid eyes on Nuance. She
wasn’t sure how to pronounce it. Noo-ance? Nu-aaance? (N) Unace? N
(u) ance? She had to look him up.
'Nuance: a subtle difference in or
shade of meaning, expression, or sound.'
She had always been a fan of
Subtle. The word was a beautiful mystery to her. It means a slight, delicate
distinction between things, but look at it.. it carries an extra ‘b’
with it that has no voice to it. And now Nuance. So unheard of like the
quality of imperceptible it embodies. One needs a keen eye to spot it and a
curious heart to understand it.
Tonight she is invited to
a big fancy dinner party. Ever since her mention in the first line of the
review, she has become quite a popularity. Somehow she finds herself
in paragraphs she has no business being in, or in some speeches from such foul
mouths that even she cursed under her breath. But this is going to end soon..
she is too heavy a word to stick and too beautiful to turn up in rough use.
Tonight he is invited to
a grandiose party. That's strange. He’d know a couple of fellas yes, and he’d sit by
himself in the corner bar drain down a few bourbon and drive back home. Not bad
a plan…
Until he saw her. Just as beautiful
as ever. Her softness glows on her, she comes over to for her martini and he…
well he hiccups! Umm… rhythmic hiccups.
‘Well that’s an everlasting
first impression’ he mutters to himself in the interlude, of course.
Everyone is gathered around and the
typing begins. It’s a roller coaster. The highs and the lows. The frantic typing
like thunder banging a door and then the serenity of the sea.. they
are all up all night. When the writer types in the last sentence.
“their footsteps in the woods shush the
elves as they disappear in the nuancescadence.”
‘Oo’ squeaks Cadence. ‘He missed
the space bar!’. She blushes. He is embarrassed.
And then the back space hits.
“their footsteps in the woods shush the
elves as they disappear in their dying cadence.”
As the writer slowly drifts off in
a slumber, the words begin to leave. Cadence reaches out to Nuance.
‘Sorry you couldn’t make it’ she
says.
‘Yeah its okay, he wasn’t drunk
enough I guess.’
She doesn’t smile. So he
continues..
‘He’ll probably shred this one.
There was more in his head than what he let out.’ he says unable to keep his
eyes off her.
‘Of course you’d notice!’
He looks at her quizzical.
‘I know what you mean’ she says
shyly.
He is astonished and some
more.
As time passes they get to meet
more often. Sometimes both just as passing thoughts of the author or either in
desperate failed attempts. It was so difficult to place them together in a
paragraph!
They knew and they understood, both
had flaws and both had trouble fitting in and both were hauntingly beautiful.
When they’d meet in the author’s mind, acknowledging their acceptance to
be far fetched, they’d dream of lying by the ocean looking at the stars when Nuance
would slip his hands in Cadence’s and she’d let them slowly grip hers’.
They'd smile and sigh and wish upon a shooting star. Aren’t love stories just
adorable?
Time flew fast, as it always
does. One question disturbed both. Their oblivion. Everyone knew how words got
lost into some irretrievable mesh. They loose meaning and are replaced.
They had found each other but they hadn’t met their own destiny. And this
hollowness, sweet promises of love couldn’t fill.
When one day.
In an ally that reeked of
hopelessness, of regrets, of choked emotions, of trapped cries, of vacuums that
sucked life, they were invited. Both held onto each other, too
scared to run off and build their own world, they stood close.
“the labyrinth caught up to her,
but so did her wings,
which no one took notice of,
until she jumped from the
cliff,
For as long as the curtain rose and
fell,
someone smiled,
someone all along knew the
brave nuance,
all along after the cadence
died.”
Thus Cadence dies to her fate still
holding hands with Nuance. Everytime.
Nothing is immortal, nothing can
be. But what passes on is often just the last two lines of an obscure poem.
:)
