Eek, this is late, but thank you so much for the second place in the first round! That means a lot, and all of you had stunning work.

I might participate in more rounds, later if I feel less lazy. 

I also submitted this story for the Writing & Art contest but I orginally wrote it for this round's prompt and only a few people have entered so I will enter it here too. It's way over the word count but the word count is just a suggestion anyway. 

~ 

Miriam’s mother loved to sing. She sang the dishes clean and stirred melodies into bowls of stew. Her voice was not refined, it had not been sculpted by lessons. It was filled with pure emotion and a bit out of tune. It was beautiful. 

Miriam disagreed. “Stop!” she screeched, stabbing the harmony with a twisted sound. “Do not sing! Your voice is too scratchy, too unprofessional and too grating on my soul!”

Miriam’s mother only laughed, hiding the pain behind the creases of her face. 

“No!” Miriam said, and so eventually the house was quieter and the stew was a bit bland. 

And yet, Miriam had a secret. She liked to sing. She hummed as she poured over schoolwork and danced to hidden operas in the early chords of the morning. When she was the only one home, she would sing, lifting her voice to the rafters and sliding it down to the wooden planks. But Miriam’s voice was raw and she was ashamed of it. 

When Miriam was old enough, she joined a choir. Her mother raised an eyebrow but her lips stayed pursed. Miriam loved the songs that the choir sang, but she was scared. Her voice fell flat and the notes taunted her from the crisp white sheets. She left the choir with regrets still in her throat. 

Miriam dreamed of joining the theater. Of twirling and swirling on the stage. Her stomach clenched to stand in the lights and her mind reminded her that her singing was broken. She cried a bit about it one afternoon before going to the kitchen to tell her mother to be silent, to step out of a rare bout of song. 

Miriam moved away to the city, to a cramped apartment. She was alone but she did not sing. She was no longer young enough to dream. She nabbed an office job and heard autotune scream through the radios and her ears bled in pre-packaged stews.

“Mom?” she called on the phone one chilly evening. “Do you ever sing now that I am gone?”

Miriam could hear her mother’s frown through the distance and knew that it was a habit broken by time. 

“I love you.” her mother said. Miriam echoed the words, hanging up. The silence around her was thick and she stumbled, falling to the itchy rug. 

It felt good to let wet warm tears slip on her cheeks. Heavy air pressed on her chest, coaxing harsh breaths that tasted of cracking dreams out in the world. 

A few months later, Miriam took a taxi to the train station. Her head bounced on the windows as the reflections played like a skipping record. She walked through the weeds to her parent’s house with its crumbling red roof. Vines embraced the white stucco walls and the flower garden laughed with a thousand tongues. Her father stumbled out of the arched door frame and stared through red-rimmed eyes. 

“Miri…your mother…she” his voice cracked into a million different pieces, leaving a sobbing mess. The shards pierced Miriam’s heart and she tripped into his arms. 

“Dad? What…” she swallowed her hope. “Where is she?”

He took taut moments to compose his face, holding his tears.“Your mother had a… a heart attack. She’s in the hospital.” 

Miriam cried out as fear raced through her body. It split through her soul and broke into her mind. The fear stomped in her stomach as her father drove her to the hospital. 

Her mother lay in a hospital bed hooked up to machines. Their flashing lights made the sterile white floors into a disco ball and the beeping ricocheted over the window blinds.

Miriam was at her side in an instant, clasping their hands together. Her fingernails were cut raw and bleeding. “Oh, mom…” She said through a waterfall of tears. 

Her mother smiled faintly, tracing the wrinkles across her face. “Miriam..” Her voice was soft and rough, polished by hope. “I love you so much, sweetie…” She broke off in a fit of coughing. 

“Mom?” Miriam's breath was a battle between uncertainty and desperation. She continued in a run. “Mom.. do you remember that lullaby that you used to sing me?” 

“Of course I do.”

“Could you sing it? Please.” 

“Miri is asking me to sing? I never thought that this day would come.” 

Miriam laughed a little, tears falling into her dimples and her mother grinned in harmony. 

“I will.” Her mother said, now solemn. She cleared her throat and began. 

“Little birds yearning to fly,

Shiny birds reaching for the sky,

Sticks and stones to build a nest

A place to let your soul rest

Have you yet learned to sing with sounds

Little bird, come visit my garden in the clouds.” 

Miriam joined her for the final verses, and it was the first time that her mother had ever heard her sing. Their voices clasped together, flowing as currents joined by one river. And their tears flowed as an avalanche once more, dewdrops on their cheeks. 

And then it ended, and machines grew fainter.

“I love you.” Miriam rose to her feet, stroking her mother’s hair one last time before stepping quietly out of the room. Her mother echoed the words through tired eyelids. 

Her father sat silent in the dark waiting room. She slid into the chair beside him and covered her eyes with her hands. Their breaths were falling drums, echoing off the caves in their hearts. 

Her mother’s funeral was a few days later. It was a somber ceremony in a children’s church. Black and white with an accent of an old organ. Miriam stood, a stone sinking in the water. 

She nodded at the service and was only present when it ended and the guests mingled with each other, holding glasses of grief. 

Miriam slipped out the back door, walking through the weed-ridden passage that opened to a meadow with a few of the setting sun. She ripped her black cardigan off, leaving a white dress that was soft on her skin. 

The wildflowers swayed against her feet, smiling with red and blue and yellow teeth. 

Miriam tilted her head to the sky and opened her lips. Her voice leaped out her mouth, soaring high with the birds. The stars appeared and shined as notes on the music sheet of the universe. 

Her voice was rough and pure, salty from her tears and raw. Her voice was a rainbow of shapes, the sound of freedom. It was raw like a garden in the clouds and it was her. 

Miriam sang to her mother on the steps of the world because they loved to sing.

Cadence Amanda Sousa had a knot of anxiety in hir chest so tight ze struggled to breathe. Ze ran a cold finger over the scratched side of hir snare stick. The other percussionists were moving about, setting music down on their stands and making sure all the instruments and such were there. Cadence knew ze should be doing that too, but ze was frozen in place. Ze was at the back of the stage, but ze could still feel the hum and ebb of the beating, murmuring, anticipating crowd beyond. Glares were burning holes in hir skull. Whispers were darting down hir throat and blocking air from entering hir lungs. The world was quiet and loud and unbearable.

Morgan John Welch was bouncing their foot quickly and mindlessly pressing the valves of his trumpet. To them, the crowd was not a sea. It was not a beast to be feared. It was an obstacle that obscured a single person, and she was the only thing that mattered. She would be the only one who cared if Morgan refused to play for the rest of the night, or if he played with all the skill of Miles Davis and beyond. The ultra-focus of their anxieties, plotted on a single point on an endless map, forced him under a kind of pressure he had never known. And the more they focused on it, the more it grew.

Kevin Marcus O'Neil licked his lips and squinted at the crowd of kids in the giant group up on stage. The anxiety he felt for his child was bigger than the worries he had for himself. Kevin would be proud of them no matter what happened, but he wanted so badly for them to feel good about themselves. Nothing broke him more than seeing them struggle and having nothing to do to help. The sorry, scary truth was that Kevin's child was not some sort of prodigy or naturally talented musician. They just wanted to play and do it well, but their failing confidence frightened Kevin more than the things that attacked them from the outside- the biggest monster was within.

Valeria Rose Barragán Farrow was thinking about her sister's concert as she kicked a football into the goal again and again in the empty stadium. Val loved her sister, but she had been consumed by her desire to be more than the one girl on the football team- she wanted to be the best, and to be recognized as good rather than different, she had to commit everything that was left inside of her to the sport. There were no compromises and no giving up. There was no complaining and no rest. There was no time to watch her sister in the band. There was only a dream- an obsession- that put Val in a state of something that wasn't far from agony.

Emily Melissa Freeman had allowed herself to be consumed by fear until her mind knew nothing but. Everything horrible that could happen was getting more real to her in her mind, and not in a thousand failed scenarios- it was one hellish disaster of a night, until it became the only truth to the matter. She was the conductor, the leader, the one everyone was expecting the most from, whether they knew it or not. The show wouldn't happen unless she could do what everyone assumed she could; but for a sliver of a second, she was certain in her failure, and that glimmering fraction of a moment could become fatal.

Carry the burdens, all, carry the songs. Sing and cry and dance in the rain and thunder that shouts over your parade, because in your classroom there are Cadences and Morgans and Vals and in your communities are Kevins and Emilys. Carry the burdens, all, carry the songs. They do. They march on. Their night ended in a noisy silence and an anxious peace. The world is nothing if not everything. And to everything, there is a rhythm. You can march or hum or dance or whatever you may please, so long as you have the hope to follow along. Carry the burdens, all, carry the songs- we are life, we are hardship, we are music, we are love.

Carlos stood alone in the ashy, muddy field full of dead, yellowish-green grass. Bleak grey blanket-clouds loomed ominously, creeping across the sky.

It was raining again.

He stared ahead. This was where that huge, formerly glorious grand mansion stood, now torn by tongues of flame at his feet. His eyes trailed down to the small, worn photo in his hands.

It was just months ago that everything had been normal.

The lively chatter and clatter of so many people in a warmly-lit house, music streaming from his mother's prize piano. Steaming food and amazing aromas wafting through the rooms, with dogs barking and children running around their parents' feet. The pitter-patter of rain against the window that only he could hear from his cozy spot near the window as he fondly watched the chaos of his home.

That all seemed so far away now. 

His eyes blurred, but he didn't he didn't reach up to wipe the tears away. He didn't bother to stifle the broken sob that tore from his throat either. He felt so small and alone and still somehow too large to belong here.

The soft swish of overgrown grass melded with the light pizzicato of rain in a bitter melody when Carlos lifted his head, upturned, to the sky. The tears were indistinguishable from the rain now.

Suddenly, a fierce gale whipped up, tearing at his soaked, baggy clothes and ravishing his unkempt hair. He could swear that he heard that tragic last song in the air. How? He didn't bother to think about it too hard. Just leaning into the caress of the harsh wind and lightly humming along was good enough for now.

His eyes cracked open as the tune sharpened.

But alas, all too soon, it was over. The rain, which had been coming down in unsteady sheets, stopped. The meadow screeched to a silent still. And even the trees in the distance and crawling clouds seemed to freeze; hanging, expectant. Like they were waiting for the last climactic note.

But there was no last note. 

Carlos knew, from the day he had been left with nothing, that there would never be a last note.

He sighed, turning to leave. He couldn't dwell on this forever. He had to move on.

Just then, a faint thrumbing stirred the hair.

Thunder? 

No, it was too soft; too harmonious. Carlos' eyes flew to the rubble and burnt-out frame, scanning the charred trees behind it for a sign of life, desperate.

It couldn't be…

He stepped closer, it was her! That was her song! How was that possible?

His feet carried him closer, as if in a daze. The rain-dust mist parted, shifting shut behind him, and only leaving a trace of gentle music lilting on the breeze.

Carlos had always loved that music. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Geez, apparently I am an angst-machine. Sorry, next time I promise things will be brighter. Probably. 

I think SNS said she was leaving temporary right