Colours Of The Music Man

• Maeve Mcbratney, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2019

The world was a much darker, duller place that day. There was a hole in the world, a strange and terrible absence. It seemed so silly to mourn an invisible force, an invisible Music Man, but I was. Music can take the humblest person and allow them to help and touch millions of others. But sudden and inevitable as always, death took the Music Man away.
My bare feet dug into the coarse sand. It was a darkish grey and mimicked the sickened sky above where dull, uncoloured clouds choked the heavens. The bay was removed from the general hustle of the city, and the area was almost completely secluded. It was gravely silent. I pressed the button on the music player and waited.
There was an impossible aching that began at my very core, at the depths of the substance that was me. How could one feel such pain for someone unknown? Would someone ache the loss of a song they had never sung? That aching climbed up to my throat, scratching and tearing my insides on the way up. It had settled there, an uncomfortable lump that begged for attention, as thoughts of the Music Man swam in my head.
It was then that the song started, unravelling slowly, then surely. It was real music, rooted in a past long gone, and long before my time. It was like a beautiful experiment: a mixing of poems, images and orchestras that transformed into magnificent bright colours around me. There was a deep swirling red, accompanied by a mustard harmony, and thick, emotional navy blue vocal. The different components mingled, swayed and painted a visual seen only in imaginations. The colours danced around me in a trance, the water slapped the shoreline, and music filled the once-silent beachside.
There was a certain lulling in the steady rhythm beside me. It was impossible to forget the loss, but everything slowed down with the music. No other thoughts were needed but of steady, mindful contemplation of the world around me, and the swirling colours. I cried and the music helped, just a little bit. I cried at the missed opportunities, the incredible genius, and impossible loss of the Music Man.
The grey landscape was still grey, no doubt, and the loss of the Music Man throbbed in my heart, and would for eons longer, but at least a splash of colour was made. A few reds and yellows and blues took over, just for a few minutes, and I could finally appreciate life. I still had time for living, though his time was gone.
When the music slowed to a stop, the colours hung in the air for a few moments longer, and I could say goodbye: to all the laughs and cries and emotions entangled with the lyrics, and to the Music Man. As the colours faded, he was taken away too, but the music, his music, would live on. The colours of the Music Man would always be remembered.