Fantasia

LI

Time seemed to have come to a halt since Eddy had told Brett about his condition. About his body being in a state of constant sleep. Brett had proceeded to quietly sob into his hands and Eddy's legs were falling asleep for how long he was remaining in the same kneeling position right in front of his best friend.

But he didn't care. If it took an eternity of kneeling just so Brett would feel better, he'd do it without a second thought. That's what he owed him, or so he felt.
"Brett?", Eddy mumbled eventually, stroking his back, "It'll be fine. I promise."
Those and similar words were repeated again and again, until Brett's crying subsided and at last ebbed into an occational shrug.

"Fuck!", Brett hissed, face still hidden from the world.
"I know..."
It took another soft pat until Brett finally lifted his head. Eddy pulled the sleeves of his default suit he was still wearing to the front and wiped those tears away; and he hoped also some of the pain, the hopelessness.
"We'll find a way, okay?"
"... Okay..."
"There you go!" He tried to smile at him encouragingly.

"So, what do we do now?", Brett asked eventually.
Relieved that Brett had caught himself, the taller stood up and held out the cracked instrument.
"Maybe check your vioilin first? See if everything's fine?"
Brett hesitated. "I really just dropped it, huh."
"Brett. Anyone would have with hearing those kind of news."
"I guess no one ever heard they were in a coma, right?"
Eddy couldn't believe his ears. A joke? Under these circumstances? His jaw dropping to the ground must have been a hilarious sight in itself.
Brett shrugged. "You handed it out on a silver platter, mate."

They looked at each other, not straight out laughing just yet, but a smile tucking at the corners of their lips.
"Wanna give me this thing or stand there and stare all day?"
Happily, Eddy handed him his violin. Brett picked up his bow on the cold stone bench with his free hand, placed the instrument on his shoulder and drew the horsehair over the strings, producing a tone equal to before, as far as Eddy could tell.
"Will do", Brett declared and inspected the side where Eddy had found the crack. "Damn! How sacrilegious of me to let it fall to the ground."
"A tiny bit", Eddy admitted, causing Brett to snort.
"Cut me some slack man! I just found out about my near-death state."
"I am! I did say 'a tiny bit', right?"
Brett grinned a bit broader than before, placed his bow on the strings and started to play Pag 24. And once again, Eddy was amazed by Brett's clean playing, articulation and bow control. And those left hand pizz... damn!
When the last note of Brett's violin rang through the air, Eddy just shook his head, chuckling.
"How is it possible to play this well when you have been wailing five minutes ago?"
Brett smiled sadly and Eddy already regretted his dumb mouth saying dumb things. Screw his brain letting pass unfiltered stuff just because Eddy felt so very safe around Brett!
"Figured I play something flashy after you saw me crying my eyes out", Brett meant and lowered his instrument.
"Hey!" Eddy laid a hand on Brett's shoulder and waited until their eyes locked. "I'm fine with seeing you in whatever state you need to be in, okay? In fact, back then you were always so strong and upbeat. I don't recall ever having seen you cry. This...", he motioned his head towards Brett, "this is good! And important! So don't hold back, okay?"
Was it his imagination or was Brett's smile a tiny bit less sad than before? Then suddenly, it hit him. The joke Brett had just pulled, the energetic way how he'd bantered with Eddy, Eddy had seen that before. It was the way Brett acted whenever he didn't want to bother anyone with whatever was eating at him.
Of course he'd pull that after letting Eddy see him so vulnerable. However, never did Eddy want Brett to feel like he couldn't be real with him. Eddy also knew there was no way to push Brett though.
So he simply settled with, "I'm here for you. Okay?"
Brett nodded once, his eyes sober, clear. "Okay!"

"But, where do we start from here?"
Eddy wrecked the analytical part of his brain and, probably for the first time really, thought about the connections and possible explanations for all this.
"Well...", he made, ruffling his hair and glancing at the two paintings opposite of them, "there is one thing that always pops up whenever there is some progress or change, and that's the violin."
"Hmm...", Brett made, looking at the instrument in his hand. "You're right. You came here because you started playing it and the other musicians appeared once when you were playing especially long."
"It was only my violin playing outside this place though. Did ever something weird happen when you played anything? Other than me hearing it on the other side..."
Brett deliberated on Eddy's question and finally shook his head. "I don't think so. All I do is play the violin. If anything would have happened because of it, I would have noticed by now."
"I see..." Eddy tapped the side of his head with his index finger, pondering hard. "What about the pieces? The books you have lying around?"
"On the bridge thing you mean?"
"Yeah!"
"Let's go see!"

They both got up in one swift movement and practically ran to the place where all the notes were scattered on the floor. Eddy recalled Brett saying he had tried to stack them neatly, but everytime when he'd come back, it had been a sacrilegious mess again. Eddy was the first one to reach the books. He crouched down and scanned through the blue covers, trying to make out a pattern.
"Let's sort them by composers", Brett huffed when he arrived next to Eddy.
"Good idea!"

They started with Bach on one side, made a Beethoven and Mozart pile, as well as Mendelssohn, Paganini, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Shostakovich. It was soon visible, that no composer seemed to stick out by numbers of scores or any other characteristic.
"Pretty equal, huh", Eddy stated when they were done.
"But it's just the super big composers. For violin at least. No Chopin or Liszt, or like Verdi or even Schubert or Schumann."
"True... but what does that mean?"
Brett shrugged. "Dunno. Schubert and Schumann were pretty important for chamber music, so I don't see why they shouldn't be here. Or Vivaldi with the Four Seasons. Quite major for violin, I think."
"You reckon it's random?", Eddy suggested.
"Seems like it. In my eyes at least. There is no modern stuff too."

Eddy looked at the piles when something caught his eye.
"What is this?" He picked up a score from Bach and drew out a book, which apparently had been clamped between the pages. It had the same blue cover like the other ones, the same heavy paper, but there was one major difference:
It was blank.

"It's empty", Eddy stated with big eyes, flipping through the pages.
Brett scooted closer. "Wha... there are staffs though!"
"But no notes."
"No notes...", Brett echoed, staring at the pages Eddy was still turning.
Eddy turned his head at Brett, studying his stunned features before he said, "What, do you reckon, that means?"