The cynical optimist

     Erin had grown up in a world full of laughter and light, of moments that she held onto tightly because in her current world…well memories like that were the only things that could keep you going. There was hope in those memories, hope that humanity was better than the monsters they had descended into, there was hope that it was possible to get back to days like that…of looking up at the stars and dreaming about your future and not being afraid of it. Nowadays dreaming would only get you killed, but even the strength of that hope was starting to fade and Erin felt the darkness closing in around her.

     Tonight she found herself running through the woods, her footsteps crunching down on the snow covered path sent shockwaves of sound out in every direction. Her only objective tonight was to survive, and to do that she had to find shelter, she wouldn’t survive a night in the woods, not in these temperatures. She shivered and wiped the tears from her face. She was still in shock, it had all gone to shit so quickly. She had allowed herself to hope, and once again the world taught her that to hope was foolish.

     After hours of searching and when it felt like all was lost she stumbled across something just in the distance the cold had frozen her to her bones, but she was so close now, her vision blurred but she continued forward. Could it really be? What was something like this doing out here in the middle of nowhere? She picked up her pace, she had to be hallucinating….Her hands reached out and felt the freezing metal of a door handle and turned, and as the door swung open she fell face first to the ground and blacked out.

     When she came too she had her first chance to really look at the cabin she found herself in. It was small , but in fairly good condition, it seemed to have been for the most part spared from the worst of the war. The cabin was well furnished. There was a couch that faced a small fireplace, there was a kitchen that had the essentials, nothing more, there was a bed, and there was a bookcase that was packed to nearly bursting with books, and the last thing that caught her eye was a piano that sat in the corner, covered in dust and grime, but it looked like it might still play? She made a mental note to check that later once she could fully feel and move her hands again.

     The first thing she did was toss some wood in the fireplace and light it, after a few minutes she had a roaring fire and finally some warmth, she went to the bookcase and brushed her hand across the spines of some of the books and read the titles. Most of them were self-help books, there was a copy of the bible and several that were old and leather bound but carried no titles but she found nothing of interest, she plucked a few books off the shelves here and there to read a few pages to see if anything would help her pass the time but ultimately she grew bored.

     From there she moved onto the piano, it had been calling to her, begging for her attention since the moment she had woken up, but now that the fire had warmed her hands she was able to give it the attention it had wanted. She brushed off the dust and wiped away the grime and the piano shone brilliantly. She sat down and flipped open the cover to the keys. She felt a strange nervousness in her chest and played a note unsure if it would even play, but sure enough a note rang out from the piano, loud and proud and horribly out of tune. She played another note, and cringed slightly at the discordant sound that came out, but there was something just there at the edge of the note that she liked, as if it made sense that in a world that was so thoroughly upside down that the music that was played would match.

     Before everything fell apart, Erin was a pianist who had been making her way up the ladder. She started off young, learning to play all the simple tunes that children learned and by the time she was 12 she was playing pieces that some of the most famous pianists struggled with. She had played on tours, she could almost imagine it now, on stage, with the eyes of thousands on her…she took a deep breath and closed her eyes and began to play, and the world around her faded away.

     Erin thought about the fear when the pandemic first hit, as it swept through the country and they had to bury mothers, fathers, children, grandmothers, the disease affected everyone, nobody was safe. It swept through the country in record time, killing a third of the population in a month and though she didn’t know it at the time it was the beginning of the end, the world didn’t end with one big disaster, but it was death by a thousand little cuts.

     That fear dragged a wedge between people, there were people who claimed it didn’t exist…that there was some sort of conspiracy theory and that our government was ushering in some brand new world in which they would rule endlessly. This fractured an already reeling nation, people dug in their heels and refused to listen to anything somebody who thought differently of them said, and as the division deepened people began to revolt, there were violent uprisings all over the country, on all sides. People screamed that the government was gaining too much power, that it was doing way to much to interfere in our lives, and others, well others would scream about the exact opposite, meanwhile the government sat idly in it’s ivory tower unawares for the most part about the destruction in the first place.

     And then came the war. All the animosity, the hatred, the bigotry whatever form it took…it was always heading towards the inevitable. The powder keg, was eventually lit and exploded, families were torn apart, and millions more died, the war raged on, nothing was off the table, it was the worst war that the planet had ever seen, and now Erin sat in a cabin in the woods and mourned for all those lost, she played in memory of the world she had known, not only had her world lost all hope and love and light, but it also lost the vessels that brought such things like music and art. Books were no longer written, paintings no longer painted, plays no longer performed, art in all its forms faded into extinction as everybody was doing everything they could to simply survive.

     Even tonight, before finding her way to the woods she had been on her way with the people who had become her family to broker peace, she was full of hope and heart as they entered the building where some of the other factions had promised to be, but before she had entered the building she had already heard the gunshots, and she did what she had to do to survive. She fled. She fled, certain that they had all been killed. They had gone without weapons, with hope that there was a chance to get back to the world they knew, but instead they were taken advantage of.

     As Erin thought of all of this her fingers dashed over keys faster, wilder, all of her emotions rushing to the keys, and the music that rang out was discordant and wild, broken, haunting and beautiful. Tears flooded down her face and her vision blurred but her fingers knew where to go, and she poured everything she had in her into the music. All the heartbreak, all the death and horror and hope, because yes, even now, as she played, she felt it there…hope, dim as a candle about to be extinguished, but as she played the flame grew and it warmed her.

     After a few more minutes passed, she felt the song end. 

     And the only noise that broke the silence was her sobbing..

     Minutes passed, and eventually her eyes dried, she had no more tears to cry.

     The music had come and tore down the dam that she had built to keep it all in, and now all that remained was exhaustion. So she got up, headed over to the bed in the corner to allow herself to sleep, because she would get nowhere if she deprived herself of the sleep.

     And as she lay down, and felt the tug of sleep pull her under, she smiled and for the first time since her first performance as a pianist she allowed herself to dream of the future.