A Thousand Perfect Notes

by C.G. Drews

‘You are worth more than a thousand perfect notes.’

‘Every day is Monday.’ A perpetual string of Mondays

his bones are tattooed with whispers of you fake, you fake.

Beck purposefully doesn’t take note of the other kids, so their names and faces are a tangled confusion to him. He’s nothing like them. He has no phone, no internet, and he avoids sport in case he hurts his piano hands. And considering he’s forever lost in his head, his music, they’ve given up speaking to him anyway.

He has nothing but a piano and aching fingers.

Beck freezes. How did she – she couldn’t. He’s never breathed a word about the piano to anyone and no one would even catch him with headphones. She couldn’t possibly know about the piano. Unless … He looks at his worksheet, doodled with music notes. He flips it over and flattens his blood-crusted hand over it.

‘I’m sorry.’ His voice comes out way too high, strangled. ‘I can’t – meet up, I mean. It’s not going to work—’ ‘It’s not optional.’ August leans forward, bared Sharpie all too threatening. ‘We have two weeks and I’m not failing an assignment because you’re lazy.’ Lazy. It must be true if the entire world agrees on it. Beck tries to keep his face neutral. ‘I have to walk my sister home. Then I –’ play the piano until my fingers bleed.

‘Beck and I are working on a school project,’ August says behind him. Joey’s gumboots slap on the uneven footpath. ‘What project?’ ‘Project Make Beck Smile.’ Beck swivels, walking backwards, and smiles. ‘Done. We can go our separate ways.’

‘No, she only called you a moron.’ Beck takes Joey’s hand and charges across the road. ‘That’s unkind, Joey. Feel free to do it again.’

He doesn’t look back. But he hopes her smile returns when he’s gone, because it’s a cruel person who steals smiles.

Life would be unbalanced without sharp words to stick in your ribs like a thousand little knives.

Stay quiet and the dragon won’t wake.

Hate everything recreationally.

It’s easy to drag himself through life with his eyes closed and accept the hate – until someone bumps him and forces him to look up and realise life’s cutting him with broken shards while ever...

‘Dude,’ August says, ‘your eyes have this permanent devastated look, like someone stole your ice cream and stabbed your puppy and then told you sprinkles were illegal.

a hurricane of confusing emotions.

‘You shouldn’t kill things. Not dreams or happiness or animals.

If he were a piano, all his strings would have snapped.

If people cut him open, they’d never accuse him of being empty. He’s not a shell of a pianist – he’s a composer. Cut his chest and see his heart beat with a song all his own. Oh look, the world would say, this boy is hiding a universe of wonder in him after all.

It’s unnerving. Beck would like to rip his last name into a hundred pieces and throw them into oblivion.

But the notes inside him roil and break and press so hard against his skin they’ll rip the seams and he’ll burst and – maybe they’ll call him empty after all. Maybe no one can see his music, his own music, but him.

The world is a broken mirror, each shard reflecting his terrified face.

The bass crashes with something viciously violent in Beck’s soul. So he repeats that part because it feels so good.

Beck’s fingers calm and skate to the high registers, adding something sweet to the feast of darkness. It aches in minor, like butterflies and broken wings. If the audience doesn’t lose some tears over this, they have no soul.

He leaves the butterflies bleeding over their wings and descends back to the pits of volcanoes and terror.

He plays like it’s his last moment on earth. He plays so he...

sweat and tears and horror.

He snaps to his feet, ready to bolt off the stage, but his legs are weak and it’s all he can do to turn around and bow. That’s when he realises they are clapping. It’s not tentative or polite – it’s bold and excited and amazed. There are flashes of colour and jewels and glints of teeth in smiling mouths as they stand. Every single person stands. Each clap says what did we just hear?

The judge continues with, ‘Though Keverich’s performance was the most extraordinary thing I’ve encountered in thirty years of judging, it was not the required piece for this classical championship. Now, we move to the awarding of …’

Beck zones out. He touches his own forehead and despite the galaxy exploding inside him, he’s glacial cold. He feels dead. Bury him, please. What has he done? What has he done? He shuts his eyes against the burn of tears.

He won’t go to school tomorrow. He won’t even move. He’ll just fade into his bed and he won’t exist.

No one can tell a dead boy walks with them.

The Maestro has no words – not even a deluge of curses to outline his worth. She grabs him by the hair and slaps him. The sound of striking flesh is crisp, too loud, in the emptiness. Someone will see. Someone will stop her. Call the police, a mother hates her son. The pain in his eyes must be encouragement, because she slaps him again. Again – again – again.

The Maestro must see the sense. She lowers her hand and releases Beck’s hair so sharply he falls back and hits the gate again – this time with his skull. He grabs his head, spits blood, sinks to his knees.

You have destroyed me.’

If he opens his mouth, an ocean will escape and he’ll drown. He’ll drown. Please don’t make him answer.

Beck’s lips part and the last of his music slips free and dissolves in blood and tears. ‘Never,’ he says.

‘I’ve tried to be nice about this,’ Beck says, ‘but I really can’t stand your face.’ August peels her muesli wrapper. ‘You break my heart. It’s a pity I find your face so adorable. Well, the half that isn’t purple.’

‘You have such bad self esteem, it’s kind of sad but still adorable.

‘You’re like this overlooked shadow, always in the background, and you make me so curious. And your life obviously isn’t all peach pie and daffodils and I figure that equals a body needing a friend. You’re weird. I’m weird. Why not? Oh.’ She pauses. ‘Nearly forgot. You have freaking beautiful eyes.’

Self-conscious, Beck touches his scabbed lip, his swollen cheek, and drowns in the suffocating knowledge that someone notices. And cares.

Sharing music is personal because music speaks, it feels, it breathes. And it always says something about you.

His insides split apart.

He hates it because she is hope and tomorrow and he’s a goodbye and the end.

‘August. She does not love you. She loves broken things.’

‘No.’ His tongue is in nineteen knots. ‘It’s not – that’s not it. It’s – I mean. I like girls but not—’ ‘Don’t say “but not you”,’ August says. ‘You’ll break my heart.’

‘Beck is my nickname.’ That’s all he’s giving.

‘Short for Beckett? Or Beckham? Becker?’

Beck’s voice folds into a whisper. ‘Beethoven.’

‘Sorry? What was that?’ August cups a hand to her ear. ‘I could’ve sworn you said—’ ‘BEETHOVEN BLOODY KEVERICH.’ He yells it straight in her ear so she winces and nearly falls into the gutter. He gets a small amount of satisfaction from that.