Still the same. And still beautiful.

Still the same. And still beautiful Chapter 5

 Chapter 5: outside

Pages upon pages of stave's and clefs and rhythms and notes. But why? I wanted to investigate his obsession with music, because Mr Grady had said that maths was his speciality, but music was different, music was emotive, creative, and I could relate to it. I loved music; I had lots of CD's and played the guitar. I had a new one for Christmas that year. I had to find Monty, and talk to him about this. But I knew Aidan would want to know. Aidan was not in my maths class, but he was a keen musician, he played the cello and the piano, both very well. At lunch I went to his usual perch, behind the language block, often reading, rarely talking to the cloud of meaningless popularists hovering around him. He was in his own world when he was reading. But he wasn't there. I decided, eventually, to go alone. I thought that if Monty really did love music like his book read, and was talented enough to recite or compose music off the top of his head, with no instruments, he might be in the music block, where people can go to rehearse bands or performances during break and lunch. Miss Island was often very detached from logical things like timetables, so people just turned up and played music. I heard Monty before I saw him. The music was being played with no faults, and no slips of timing or tune...

-Inside

Sitting at the Piano Monty was free. He was living music not only in his head but in the whole world, wherever he was, all around him, he was surrounded by the notes and the logical rhythms and was truly inside his own sound, rather than the sound being inside him. The mantle of noise shrouded him and contained him, keeping him safe from harm, like a warm coat on a lonely winter's night. Here, he was himself, and here he was safe to be himself. The confusing noises of the world around him, his memories, his injury's no longer existed, it was just him and the music, nothing else, he was his own universe, and nothing mattered, it was bliss. The music, some of it hundreds of years old was beautiful, and succinct and the same. Always the same, still the same, and still beautiful.

-outside

At first I was going to look through the window, but I realised he would see me. The room was originally a cupboard, but when miss bough the new electric piano, she moved the old one into the cupboard and renamed it 'the practice room' even though the only two things that could fit in it were a piano and a player (sometimes not even that) The window face directly onto the piano, so I dare not attempt to look in. I walked into the music block, in the hope Monty would not react badly. But when I stepped into the block, there was already someone there. Aidan was sitting just outside the door. He just sat, like a hopeful hitchhiker on the side of a road or as if he was waiting for something. I opened my mouth to say something, but he looked at me, and the stare hit me like a bullet, and I waited for him to stop, but he didn't. I sat down next to him, and we both just sat there. Eventually, the music stopped and about two seconds later the bell rang. My tranquillity was suddenly punctured by a sense of urgency to leave, I whipped round to look at Aidan, but he continued to sit. It was too late to leave now, though. Monty opened the door. He just glanced at us and left.

-inside

As he left, he noticed two people sitting at the door. The one with the green eyes didn't look at him but the girl with the short hair who he recognised from his bus was staring at him. He wondered why. She was different. But not like the last time she was different. The music didn't stop but it made him uneasy to be stared at. But the one with the green eyes did not stare. He wondered if he would see them again. He glanced at the clock, it read 29 minutes and 47 seconds past 1. He paused. 30 minutes past exactly. Rondo alla Turca, mozart. He left.