'Ne Sileas, Ne Sileas,' he pleads.

I usually don't write short stories, but then I was bored and felt the need to practise writing coherently, so here is something short I did in an hour or so. D:

It's somewhat complicated and confusing if you don't have a little bit of musical knowledge and have heard of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. But if you know the piece, kudos to you! If you haven't and would like to, it's on youtube.

~~~

He waved the baton, preparing the second movement.

The weightless stick flew in the dead air so threateningly that the audience knew, without a doubt, a timpano was going to boom.

No, that failed to happen.

He observed the oboist’s eyes widened, puzzled at his eccentric overly dramatic movements.

Nevertheless, the performer sang the solo through the instrument with her lonely instincts. She thought the conductor must be mad.

C Eb B D…

At the same time…

There was a quiet commotion in the audience. Amidst the many curious eyes and ears of the admirers of sounds, there was an unsettling tension between every seat. Those cushioned red seats they sat on were discomforted. Yes. The seats were discomforted. There were no balconies or boxes in this concert hall.

The flute entered.

The baton swung forcefully according to the beat, with such an eccentric interpretation, the concertmaster had no choice but to feign a crooked cough. The conductor took notice. With subtle grace, he hinted his left index finger toward his left year.

I hear you.

The concertmaster was acknowledged. There was an evident disdain in his aura.

Flute two entered.

The anxiety of the modernist fugue furthered the discomfort of the red seats in the hall. If the seats could mourn, they would.

The audience remained silent; the air remained dead as ever between the agonized red seats. Dignitaries toward the front feigned their appreciation, for really, they had no sense of tone, needless to say of modernist music.

The conductor’s eyes widened, lips paled. Despite his estranged mannerisms, his professionalism had not failed him: the baton still fell on the unnaturally mechanical sixty beats per second regime.

'Expectans expectavi Dominum…'

The conductor dropped the baton on his stand, quite soundly. He signaled the ensemble to continue. He stood dubiously, like a mime would in a talk show.

The young cellist on the last stand stared at him as if a tree was struck by lightning. His stand partner glared at him sharply, hoping for him to continue playing. The red seats of the audience continued to mourn soundly in their imaginary voices.

'Et statuit super petram pedes meos…'

The conductor fell. God must be displeased.

His head landed with a bang. With all his might, he crawled off the mahogany podium, onto the glossy wooden stage floor, and off the stage, assisted by someone…Someone insignificant.

The show must go on, the performers knew.

The show must go on, the audience knew.

'Et immisit in os meum canticum novum, carmen Deo nostro.'

The brass screeched through the forte passage. Without the conductor, the choir seemed like a squad of fired professors and academics: their logic and theorems denied. However, the lead soprano sang on haughtily, just as God would expect them to.

'Videbunt multi, videbunt et timabunt…'

The tension broke.

In the audience, a child stood. It was worried of the conductor. Its mother tried to scold quietly. It was all too late.

The ensemble silenced. Hope had ended.

‘Allelujah,’ the choir crooned, just as Stravinsky expected them to do many eons ago.

As the next movement of the singing of psalms began, the red seats of the audience moaned and groaned their anxiety with all their might. Of course, no things would perceive their voices of silenced agony. Not even when Stravinsky expected them to ‘ne sileas, ne sileas’.

There it was: a man rose in the seated crowd. He excused himself from the neighbours his slim body had to squeeze through. He drew a something out of his left pocket.

The child was still unsettled, creating a soft ruckus at the red seat in a middle row. The mother took a roll of tape and taped his mouth shut, all done exceptionally silently. The child panicked in fear, unable to sound through the tape, or the music for the matter of fact.

'Laudate Dominum. Laudate Eum in virtutibus Ejus'

The man’s pace quickened as soon as he stood on the steps of the stairs, away from the aisle of seats that seemed to scream their endless silence of fear. He rushed and rushed toward the stage, revealing the smiling silver blade of a bowie knife. The red seats cried their invisible tears. The audience and the slaves on the stage remained silence, in fear.

The show must go on.

'Laudate Eum in cymbalis jubilantionibus.'

The conductor walked into the audience crowd, with all his might.

More men rose, acknowledging the unusual presence of the terrorist. The dignitaries were still seated, collected, as if a flag had never felt a breeze.

The terrorist leapt toward the first row.

The conductor knew. He blamed himself. He threw his unorthodox crippled self toward the strange weapon holder. God had failed him.

The men surrounding the dignitaries drew their pistols. Uproar ensued, both on stage and in the audience. Stravinsky’s effort was all into waste. The premiere of The Rite of Spring commenced all over again, except with a greater punch to its Sacrificial Dance.

The conductor flailed as the bowie knife pierced something in him… Probably his spleen.

The now murderer shook the elder off, withdrawing the weapon. The weapon still glittered like a smile, perhaps even more wickedly, satisfied with its bloody purpose.

The mother and child remained seated where they were. They watched, in confusion, pathetic mortals that hoped to leave this place of terror behind, with all its red seats.

“Papa’s doing a great deed,” the woman whispered into her child’s ears.

The pistols fired. The dignitaries still collected as always. The mother and the son watched. The conductor on the ground. The murderer dead, on top of the wounded conductor. The bowie knife flew and landed on a red seat. The red seats mourned.

The mother turned stern, took the child’s small hand, and vanished into the crowd of chaos.

The dignitaries stood.

“Quite a delightful show, I must say,” one of them said, with ominous sarcasm.

They all departed, like when Shakespeare commanded his actors to ‘exeunt’.

With all his strength, the conductor spoke to the bloodied corpse of the murder, who was laying adjacent to him.

“Father is still with you...

Allelujah.”

The red seats heard the finale of the symphony after all.