The Tune Up

The illuminating glow of the room was filled by the fluorescent light. A creamy door with a contrasting dark grey ribbon strip running through its center opened ajar and flurried up with people. A chair situated in the room with a person sitting and holding in the hands a pear-shaped instrument with some lines of strings. The touch of the soft hands strummed the instrument with an even softer feel.

The sound vibrated from the instrument to the ends of the room filling everyone with awe. The calmness of the vibration stopped suddenly with an out of rhythm tune. The tune was a rhythm in itself like the letters of the alphabet and to others it was nothing but a string of gibberish words.

The player felt a bit of softness for the tune. The feeling was enough to change that overpowering yet fragile mind to tune the new words up. While the others rubbished about it being non-rhythmic, the player silently wrote up a beautiful string of these words in the mind.

Out came a few of these like a soft creamy flow of chocolate and to others it was like the hardness of a frozen bar. Slowly a few more strings came out and the layer of soft and hard closed out to each other gradually. The words now had a successful rhythmic effect.

A bounce here and a slide there was the general feel.

The slow yet gradual tune up was a beautiful experience. It was like writing a story having the adventure of a child to the thrill of an elderly, from the loudness of a crowd to the silence of the air, from the softness of a clear-writing to the curiousness of a shabby-writing, and from a mysterious start of a play to a clean ending of it.

The simple new words said all there is to say in a different way. The crowd applauded at the silent and serene ending tone in a light-hearted sway. The people left the room. The light was turned off and the door was closed.

The instrument lay on the chair to rest……as the tune up was complete.

© Aditya Subramanian, 2020