Ensemble of Shards

{11} Curiosity and the Organist

To Misha again, because you deserve it.

This is another "just a scene" entry. I'm planning to make it into a three-part story sometime in the future, if you like it :)

powered by: my childhood days in the Filipino province of Masbate, and Stefan Bachmann, Adam Young and Isaiah Fernandez for playing piano pieces that make me dream.

~

Constantin played the organ in the chapel twenty-five steps from the old ice cream shop - left from the big mango tree - a stint of a bicycle ride from La Pana's bakery. But he would never let anyone hear him play.

The notes would resonate on the plastered walls during times in the week when no-one was in the church, or all the nuns were away to dote upon the orphans, or when there was no sin to be confessed at the confession booth. 

His fingers would fly over the monochrome keys, occasionally flip the yellowed notation sheets - if there were any - and ever so slightly quiver if the lyrics playing in Constantin's head would hold some sentimental value. The times Constantin would play the organ would so be chanced as so not a soul was there to hear it and to appreciate it. Constantin didn't really notice, and if he did, he would just shrug. 

On Sundays the choir would come to sing for the people, for God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the sparrows circulating the ceiling's rafters. They would see Constantin place his fine hands to complete his symphonies on the organ as they arrived to practice on Friday afternoons. But Constantin would then twitch, sensing the presence of an audience and eventually withdraw from the organ. 

A few times they had asked him if he could play quite soundly. He would nod. Then they asked if he could perhaps accompany them when Leopold, their organ player, couldn't. Constantin would give a queer look and hold the silence for a moment. The choir in respects didn't really ask him that again. Constantin would sit on the sixth pew and listen to them while tapping his worn-out sneakers to the rhythm. 

Valentin was a boy who had the epitome of a barn owl. He was small, clothed in the palest of skins, topped with tawny dark-streaked hair, and had the eyes deeper than a wishing well and so dark that you could drown. He also had the unmatched beauty of the delicate owl and would mesmerise anyone who saw him. But people barely saw him, they were too busy to notice, too distracted, or just because Valentin was really like a barn owl - scarce and not an attracter of attention. 

Most of the times only his father and mother, who loved him, saw how exquisite he was, and would tell him of church owls. 

Valentin's prey was the beholding of queer and beautiful things, and he got many of those. This was what he hunted for during his free time, after his mother taught him lessons and on weekends. Queer and beautiful things were always and everywhere in the town, and you only needed the eyes to see them.

The third thing he had in common with ghost owls was that he was as swift, as slight, and as silent in his movement that it was nearly eerie when he would pop up unprecedented by your reflexes when you'd call on him. The snatchers and the thieves envied him with all the gold in the city, but Valentin could never bring himself to do anything wicked and would effortlessly escape if they had any plot to capture him, sometimes with the ear-splitting voice he didn't know he had, in calling for help. 

Today, Constantin was playing the organ as was his daily habit.
Today, Valentin was scouring the town for an easy "prey".

Valentin passed by the chapel twenty-five steps from the old ice cream shop - left from the big mango tree - a stint of a bicycle ride from La Pana's bakery. He had bought a bag full with pan-de-sal from Niña de la Pana (who was secretly in love with his black eyes).