Fantasia

LIII

The first thing Eddy noticed when he opened his eyes were thousands of pieces of paper flying around him, making it appear like he'd landed in a paper recycling factory. For a second, he seriously doubted that he'd gotten to the right place, when he noticed the staffs and notes on the teared up bits.
"What the...", he muttered, his eyes widening with every second.
"What the fuck... Brett?"
Eddy's yelling went unanswered.
"Brett!"
Nothing. Just his voice echoing from the walls. He looked around, picked up some of the pieces with shaky fingers and turned them around until realization dawned and shock seemingly made itself a permanent resident in Eddy's heart.

They were the expensive scores which had been laying around, only now torn to useless bits of tiny shreds, covering the floor and floating down from the bridge-like construction.
"Brett!!!", Eddy cried again, jumped to his feet and started running down the hallway, the snippets swirling up in the air behind him.

After a minute of hurrying down flights of stairs, almost tumbling over a step and just so manage to avoid breaking his neck and calling Brett's name over and over again, Eddy found him.

Tears were streaming down Brett's red face, a few buttons from his reddish shirt were missing. His hair was one big mess if Eddy'd ever seen one and he was gritting his teeth, trying to tear down one of the giant paintings hanging on the wall.
"Brett!", Eddy screamed, relieved that he'd found him and horrified at the same time. He dashed forward as fast as he could and held Brett back from behind before he could do more damage to Bach's face.
"Brett! Mate! What the fuck?", was all his very confused brain managed to bring out.
"LET ME GO!", Brett shouted and never before had Eddy heard Brett's voice being this wild, this upset. What the hell was happening?
"Nah! What the hell? The music scores, was that you? And what the fuck are you trying to do with that painting? What is going on?"
"Let go! It all has to GO! Everything!"
"Wha... Why? Brett!" Eddy shook the struggling boy hard, trying to get him to calm down.
"NO!", Brett screamed, his arms almost breaking free out of Eddy's.
"BRETT! Brett! Listen to me!" Eddy summoned all his strength to turn Brett around so the other had to look at him. "Talk to me! What's going on? I'm here now, okay? It's gonna be fine."
"Nothing's gonna be fine!", Brett sobbed, a new set of tears streaming down his cheeks, the pulse by his neck jumping impossibly fast. Eddy tightened his grip on Brett's shoulders.
"Why? What happened?"
"I remember!"
"What do you mean, you remember?", Eddy blurted out.
"I remember everything. Everything that happened, who I am, who you are. I know everything!"

Only Brett's fast breathing and occasional sob was audible when the meaning of what Brett had just said sunk in.

Wait... Brett remembered? For real?

"But... when? How?"
"It started to come back to me when you were gone", he hiccuped, body shaking like a leaf, "They're like daggers, arrows hitting my brain! Fuck... I..."
"Brett! Shhh, it's okay. I'm here. Take deep breaths for me, okay? Can you do that?"
Brett tried, his attempt sounding like an uneven staccato.
"One more time!", Eddy demanded, brushing his hand through Brett's hair on a whim, out of instinct almost.
"I can't!", Brett sobbed again.
"No, no! Brett, you can! I know you can. You're the strongest person I know! Breathe, mate, breathe!"

Eddy's words finally seemed to have some effect. Brett did as told and when he was a bit less distraught, Eddy couldn't help but ask again, "What do you remember, Brett? What made you do all this?" He swung one hand around, motioning towards the direction of the grave of sheet music.
"The music! The violin! It's the reason I'm here!"
"What? How can the violin..."
"The fucking violin!", Brett cursed. Eddy flinched.
"I put everything in it! My time, my life. And it took everything from me. I made concertmaster alright, at the SSO. On top of the rehearsals, I practiced my ass off. Everyday, several hours. As much as I could. I took lessons even after graduation. I made it there in the end, but the pressure was too much. I wanted to show the orchestra and the world that I'm worthy of my position. But the truth is, every performance nearly killed me! I was so nervous I sometimes puked before we went on stage. And then right after because I knew I'd sucked! I was convinced everyone was only not telling me because they wanted to be nice to me. The hard working Asian fellow or something. I couldn't sleep, couldn't properly eat. I started to hate what I do, Eddy! Hate! I've wanted nothing more than to play the violin professionally my whole life and when I finally got there, I hated it! I was a failure on every level, for me personally at least. On the outside, it didn't look like that. And I did everything to not let my feelings affect my playing, to not show them to anyone. I talked to no one about how I was doing and that went on for several years!"
"Bro!", Eddy commented incredulously, "Jesus..."
"That performance you told me about. The one Hyung mentioned, Mahler 6? God that evening... I remember being a crying mess in a toilet stall right before the concert. The conductor came in. He heard me, forced me to come out and talk to him. I couldn't and he just quickly threw some cold water into my face, told me I had to talk to him right after the concert. I was convinced he'd throw me out the orchestra. For sure! A concertmaster breaking down before a performance? They couldn't have that! During the whole concert, I panicked. Inwardly. Outside I tried to keep it as deadpan as possible."
Eddy nodded, his hands still holding Brett in order to keep im grounded. He could picture it perfectly. Brett had been the king of deadpan back in their teenage years already.
"But it didn't work. I was certain everyone saw through me, through my scheme. And I knew they could hear that I was out of tune, that I couldn't play! That I was deceiving everyone. I saw the newspapers in front of my inner eye already, headlines stating I'm a disgrace for the SSO and for the classical music world of Australia. I could see the internet blowing up because of how badly I played and all these thoughts blurred the notes. And I was dragging everyone down with me. The whole orchestra, my section, the conductor! I let everyone down! I guess, at some point, I just couldn't take it anymore."
Brett shook his head, spilling his tears left and right.
"I don't even recall the third movement. I just know my head was filled with white noise by then. And what happened afterwards, I have no idea. Everything went black..."
"And then?", Eddy asked supidly, almost inaudibly.
"Then", Brett half sighed, half whimpered, "then I woke up here. I don't know what happened to me, but what you said before, about me being in a coma, it must be true. And I'm still in it. Otherwise I wouldn't be stuck here anymore. And all this for what?", he screamed, glaring at Eddy with furious eyes, the flames in them almost swallowing the taller. Eddy had to force himself to not jump back. "It's because of the stupid violin! The fucking perfection of classical music! Nothing else!"
Brett breathed heavily after his outburst. Eddy stood there, mute, his hands uselessly sliding down Brett's side. Useless. Eddy had never in his life felt so utterly useless.

What the fuck was he going to say to this?

Then, suddenly, a devastating thought pressed itself to the forefront of Eddy's consciousness.
"Brett! Where's your violin?"
Had he... had he really...?
Brett's laugh was hysteric. "Yeah. I wanted to smash it to the ground, I swear. I was nearly going to. But apparently, there is still some dumb part of me which wants to hold on to this thing! I couldn't..."
The stone which fell off Eddy's chest was the size of Mount Everest. "Thank God!"
"Thank God? Eddy! It's all because of the violin I'm here! There's no way this is gonna help me in anyway. Maybe destroying it would actually be the way to..."
"NO!", Eddy yelled, hands shooting up to grab Brett's arms again. "No! No, Brett you can't think that. That you're here with your instrument means something. Where is it?"
"The violin? I put it over there..." Brett's shaky fingers pointed towards the staircase at the end of the hallway. There, on the first step, Eddy could make out the brown, wooden instrument. And next to it, a long stick. Brett's bow.

Under all these circumstances, with all this rage inside his heart, Brett had still managed to lay it down gently enough so it wouldn't take any damage?

"Thank God...", Eddy whispered again.