Fantasia

XX

Since Eddy wasn't a very social person, there wasn't much he'd do on a regular Saturday. There were no plans for brunches, farmer markets, hikes or visits to various points of interests Eddy hadn't seen yet. Normally, Eddy Chen would be sleeping in, go for his morning (or in many cases lunch) jogging round, get some sort food into himself and catch up on work he hadn't been able to finish during the week and read the news. If he'd have a really good day, he would go out for dinner. Sometimes with Theo if he was available, sometimes alone.

But not so today. Sleeping was out of the question after THAT dream, even though it was a despicably early hour for a weekend, so Eddy set up his small, Italian Bialetti coffee pot he'd once gotten from his sister as a souvenir from her trip to Italy, started his laptop on the desk by the corner and sat down.
He didn't really have a plan of what and how to look for more information regarding his old friend or his dreams. First, he started the note app on his laptop which was linked to the one on his phone and typed down the happenings of the night. He wrote down their conversations as far as he remembered them, the canvases he'd seen and the pieces Brett had played.

And then, his fingers stopped moving.
If there really was a Beethoven Romance, or at least two in this case, shouldn't he be able to find them in the depths of the internet? Eddy faintly remembered how Brett had once mentioned a service or website, which provided free music scores for everyone and mostly poor students like they had been to download, print and use. Would he be able to find the score like this?

Eddy inhaled, opened his browser and quickly typed in the name of the piece. A first scan of the search results looked promising already. Apparently, a Romance number two, written by the deaf composer, really existed! And it was in F major, like Brett had said. The first hits consisted of Youtube recordings of the piece, but since it was still early, Eddy refrained from clicking and listening to it through his laptop speakers. Instead he scrolled down until his eyes caught a site called IMSLP. Was that the website Brett had been talking about? He motioned his mouse over the section and opened the page.

It took him a minute to find the actual download button amongst the information, recordings and other things the site provided. When Eddy finally had the actual score in front of him, it was like someone had sucked out all the air available from his apartment. His wide eyes stared at the page while his brain almost automatically translated the information he saw into notes he heard inside his head.
And it was the exaxt melody Brett had played.
"My God...", he muttered.

There was no way, no way in hell that Eddy would be able to recreate a melody in his dream he'd never heard before. Which meant, Brett had to be some kind of entity which acted independently from Eddy's mind or subconscious. Why and how that was possible was beyond him.
"My God...", Eddy said again, a hand covering his mouth.

Maybe Eddy'd guessed similar already without being fully aware of what it meant. It was weird anyway, that an old friend would randomly pop up in his nightly visions, talk to him about great composers and pieces Eddy hadn't cared about for a long time, or at least had pretended not to care about. He had once, which was why Eddy had assumed it was still his mind making the whole exitless world up in which Brett was wandering around. Eddy had still been able to name the Paganini Caprices himself which Brett had played and even though the one melody Brett had labeled as "important" and which had brought Eddy back to Brett's side could have just been a product of Eddy's fantasy.
However, Beethoven's Romance proved that this wasn't the case. Couldn't be. Or at least not only.

What did all of this mean? What did it mean for him? And what did it mean for Brett?

There had been a moment where they had reflected upon what Brett's presence at that place indicated. A moment of silence, where both of them had been too scared to voice out one of the admittedly very likely, but also so very scary explanations.

Eddy's hand holding the mouse turned white as he tried to anchor himself in order to not freak out. No! There had to be some other reason! No way that someone so talented would be gone already, his joyful, lively, sunny personality and his wonderful musicality being ripped away from this world.
There was simply no way. Eddy refused to believe that this was the case. And for that, he had to look for the actual Brett Yang in the "real" world.