|
Gina Thayer
E♭ Blues for the Quiet in the Trees
E♭
Maybe the perfect, powder-blue sky and the last warmth of a golden summer made me do it. Maybe it was the thrill of the upcoming band concert, or the lull of an uneventful day. Whatever the reason, on my way home from school, I did what they always tell girls not to do, and took the path through the forest home.
G♭
Trees grow dense in these meandering woods of middle America. I hummed a tune from band as I walked, a regal trot of trumpets and drums. I held my saxophone in its case at my side, leaning slightly opposite to balance out its weight.
I walked and walked, and my saxophone hung heavier and heavier, and the sun sank and sank, a long, slow march, all oboes and clarinets and whole note after whole note. Finally, I had to admit that I should’ve made it home by now. I had to admit I’d noticed, some unaccountable distance back, a hulking Quiet following my progress through the trees.
A♭
Never stray from the path—everyone knows that. But suddenly, the well-mulched track had vanished. Errant roots and leaves crunched beneath my feet, as though the trail itself had led me astray. I froze—cut off mid-verse—and listened.
The forest was laden, stiff with silence. No flutes fluttering like lost birds, no ominous low brass, no conductor with arms raised and white baton in hand. Just a looming Quiet filling the trees. A Quiet that listened. A Quiet that grew.
A Quiet like that doesn’t let girls leave the woods. A Quiet like that means you’ve already hit the wrong note, bungled the rhythm, botched the second ending.
A Quiet like that must surely be lonely. And a lonely Quiet grows hungry to be filled.
A♮
I’d been instructed on more than one occasion that a woman should always trust her intuition. A woman’s intuition, people said, was a powerful thing. But I was just a girl, and a lost one at that, stranded with only my wits and my saxophone.
I wondered if I should play for the Quiet in the trees—flatter it with melody, charm it with a song. Perhaps if I played long and loud and sweet enough, the Quiet would be sated and would let me go home.
I knelt on the forest floor and unbuckled my case, the latches snapping open like rim shots off a snare. I licked a fresh reed, fit neck to bell, and looped the neck strap over my head.
Then I stood, dirty-kneed beneath the setting sun. With shaking breath, I started to play.
B♭
What music does one make for the Quiet in the trees? I started with tenuous strands of jazz—the type of thing I hoped the Quiet might like. I riffed a little on E-flat blues, trying to find what my band teacher Mr. Hutch called “the groove.” I only fumbled a little, and who could blame me for that? After all, night was falling, and the air had turned cold, and the Quiet stalked deep and menacing through the woods.
I tried to imagine a big band or a symphony behind me, all swell and decay, accent and legato. I played long, lonely notes. I’d been working on my vibrato. I kept flubbing the octave, and each time I did, I feared the spell would break and the Quiet would take me.
And yet, my heart sensed that the Quiet liked my music. Even though in band I was only second chair. Even though in Jazz II, I desperately averted my eyes whenever Mr. Hutch’s finger started pointing around for solos. Even though my empty case lay open in the dirt like a body flayed, a ribcage snapped in two, its velvet innards growing damp with night.
I surprised myself with a perfect arpeggio, and a new fear took root. What if the Quiet proved too fond of my playing? All girls know, in some shrouded corner of their hearts, that the only thing more dangerous than displeasing is to overcorrect, to please too much. To lose yourself and become a refrain.
D♭
A twig cracked behind me and I let out a little honk. The Quiet had snuck up to claim its music, claim the silly girl who’d wandered into its midst. Everyone knows what they say about girls in the woods. A girl in the woods is a song with no repeats, no starting over, no make-up auditions.
A girl in the woods has to get herself out.
E♭
It was hard to breathe and play and walk all at once, but I did it. Melodies bloomed discordant from my bell, bouncing off branches, muddling through leaves. I lost control of my imaginary symphony, chaos erupting between members of the band—a cacophonous ruin, measures skipped, codas missed. French horns raging at trumpets, trombones sliding to despair, timpani pounding, triangles a shrill clatter.
I started to run.
Ahead, a streetlight’s glow split the trees. A hopeful cadence, a swelling of horns. I ran faster, felt the bite of my mouthpiece against my teeth, felt the Quiet in the trees reaching out to steal me. The edge of the woods drew closer by the second. Harmonies took flight like joyful birds, shimmering forte, triumphant resolution—
D♭
Did I make it?
B♭
A girl’s story always ends with a moral, a lesson.
“Practice makes permanent,” Mr. Hutch likes to say.
What timbre would accompany retellings of my tale? Sleek bassoon? Ripe euphonium? The tinkle of glockenspiels? Foreboding chimes? Bands have played themselves to death over girls like me. When the song ends, the crowd leaps to their feet. They banish the Quiet with wild applause. Some nights, I rise ghostly from my seat and bow for my solo. Others, the auditorium sits vacant and dark. The song fades out. The concert is long over. The sheet music has been collected and filed away.
The story about the girl in the woods never changes. We all know the tune. We all play along. Do not stray from the path. Do not hit the wrong note. The Quiet is waiting. The piece has begun.
Gina Thayer's work has appeared in The Rumpus, hex, Barrelhouse, Cotton Xenomorph, Sundog Lit, trampset, Five South, Lunch Ticket and HAD, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is an Associate Fiction Editor at Okay Donkey Magazine. Gina lives in Minneapolis with their partner and cat. Website: http://www.ginathayer.com/.
|
