The Tuning Fork, Chapter 1 - 5 am

1. 5 a.m.

Early morning sunshine shafted through the badly boarded up slats where the workers used to sit and dine. Now, instead of the warm touch of humans in rough denim, the cold shiver of spiders’ legs scuttled along the length of the rotting rafters. A quiet sob gurgled through the dim silence of dead winter. A stray pigeon coughed a withering coo, coo, as it perched unsteadily, drunk, on the concrete ledge where tree branches extended like prying fingers, knotting and twisting through the crumbling brick walls.

An abrupt clatter echoed sharply and resonated, stirring a cloud of powder, cobwebs and dust towards the unsuspecting pouch of feathers. The poor bird rocked backwards and swayed, falling to the mossy grass outside, breathing in its last breath in the damp dew.

The quiet sob gurgled again. This time, something more rattled in the boy’s chest, shaking in the back of his throat.

“Leave the pigeon alone, boy. It hasn’t done anything to harm you, has it?”

A deep voice resonated vibrantly, warming the cold air, travelling across the dim light. A couple of slow footsteps padded, pressing mortar dust into the dirty floor.

There was another gurgling sob.

“I’m not a boy anymore,” the sob wrenched back.

“Look at me.”

The boy slowly rotated away from the window, his sobs trailing off in response to the soft tone of the voice, planting one foot steadily beside the other. His shoulders trembled with a certain pain one could not place. The man waited patiently, arms by his sides, feet slightly pointing inwards. The boy was holding something. The boy’s skinny body hunched over, as if to protect the object cradled in his arms. His thin cream jacket was too big for him and his stick legs could have snapped under the burden he was bearing.

“I’m ...”

He dropped the violin.

It fell at his feet and amazingly did not shatter, for the polish was scraped, the wood was splintered and the chin-rest was worn. A dull puff of pale dust rose up and settled on the strings and into the f-shaped sound holes.

“... F-Fr-Fred. Frederick.”

Fred looked, a broken boy, down at his scuffed black plimsolls.

“Here,” the man said quietly, “Call me Sam.”

Sam stepped forwards to offer a smooth, dry and broad palmed hand. Fred hesitated slightly, eyeing the man’s hand suspiciously, swallowing back another sob, and weakly lifted his arm to return a limp handshake.

Fred then stepped back, the violin still lying across the floor between the two of them where it had fallen, and raised his eyes through long eyelashes to take a good look at the man; the man called Sam was about forty, beginning to grey slightly, with dark deep set eyes, flaring nostrils and prominent cheekbones set against a moderately wide jaw. His chocolate skin glowed a little in the little light there was. Sam smiled. It was a rather knowledgeable but friendly smile.

There was something in Sam which Fred knew - but from where?

Something in the way his feet were positioned inwards, the intensity of his eyes which seemed to pierce right through him and even the set of his jaw; it was familiar - painfully familiar.

Fred subconsciously let his guard down and, as he did so, his quiet sobs faded into a mildly reverent silence for this Sam who stood, a little awkwardly perhaps, before him.

Sam slowly moved away, ever smiling into the distance, and walked towards the window where the pigeon fell. He kneeled down, unafraid of dirtying his neat black trousers or the bottom of his blazer which grazed the dust, and carefully picked up the bow with a mysterious respect. His hand automatically formed into the perfect bowing grip. Fred bit the corner of his lip.

“Do you know how to play?” Sam motioned to the violin with a slight nod of the head.

Fred started trembling again, the shaking emanating from the core of his chest. He swallowed once and his nose and eyes began to flush red. He looked a little angry. When he opened his mouth to answer, only a harsh whisper could escape his lips.

“My mother did.”

The boy choked back his breath indignantly.

“May I?” the man kindly offered.

Fred pulled his lips taut into a forced smile.

The man carefully lifted the violin from the hard floor, wrapped his fingers securely around the neck and settled it under his chin.

“I think I’ll have to do without a shoulder rest for today, don’t you think?”

Fred’s sealed his lips tightly, pressing them together so that the corners of his mouth turned down. His eyebrows gathered together slightly.

Sam began to play.

The violin beckoned to the gliding bow, the strings sang their graceful song, the high notes floating, clearly sailing through the sky, and surprisingly nimble fingers gently eased the layers of harmony in every single note into warmness.

As Sam closed his eyes to the melody resonating out of the small wooden box, Fred was inching away slowly. He sank down onto the rotting rafters. Solitary tears splashed down on his jeans.

When the last note echoed into nothingness, cleared the air and left the quietness hovering watchfully, Sam took a couple of paces to sit a seat’s width next to Fred, across the same wooden rafter. Sam turned minutely, wearing a slight smile, to observe Fred without being seemingly intrusive or overly inquisitive.

That was when Fred, who wiped the salty water away with the back of a dusty hand, smiled so heartbreakingly, that the words trapped in the back of his throat for so long finally gushed out like a raging river, breaking all dams and defences which had previously encumbered him.

And Sam was sat beside him, patiently smiling with his quiet knowledge, ears open, mind willing, to soak the words in, wave by wave.