strings-1

The Strings of Time

The notes seemed to flow from the pen onto the paper, his mind visualising the music as it built up to a climax. He had always been able to ‘see' how the piece would turn out, even before he had started composing it, and the built in genius, resident in his brain, was always able to fashion a score for almost any occasion. He paused, to sand his composition, mindful of the many times he had rushed on without thinking; only to wipe a half page into near oblivion with his sleeve because he could not be bothered to obey the basic laws of a writer, “keep your work as dry as possible, Wolfgang” , he had been admonished. The quill pen, was chewed once more as he relaxed, hearing almost without notice as his wife prepared the table in the other room for some more of her tiresome visitors. "Why could she not realize that he disliked company intensely?" he mused as his pen once more raced across the page, "The only thing in my life which is important is music, all else should be and is subservient to it." The idle gossip and chatter of her friends, who seemed to delight in being so scatterbrained that he often wondered how they managed to remember how to eat, bored him to desperation; but she would drag him from his study and parade him for their delight; when all he really wanted to do was concentrate on earning some money with his music. "Music like this," he mused as he completed yet another fully annotated page, which besides being one of his best works would also bring him in a handsome sum of money. "Sad about this particular patron, with his disability," he thought, resting his hands before returning to the task, "Don't know what it would be like to go through life unable to speak!"

Ten days previous, he had been seated in the shop where he normally took a rest midday from his labours, idly sipping his wine and tapping out a tune on the plate with a fork, when he had been interrupted by a tall, pale youth, wearing a hat and a long cloak which completely swathed his slim figure. His visitor had bowed, and placed upon the table between them a paper upon which was written the words, in French, "May I take up a small amount of your time, upon a matter which may be of interest and profit to you, Monsieur Mozart? Pray pardon my wordless approach and interruption, but I have been mute, and unable to speak, all of my life!"