Style. A variety of styles.


Sue loved every second of the solitary spot by the upstairs bay window of her mother’s old house. Often, the notes drifted to her violin as seamless as the air. Her life, a lonesome one, yet she found herself and true happiness with every strum of the strings. The melody echoed down the stairway to the front hall.


This room offered peace and a place for the sublime rapture of wrapping around her music each day. Sue criticised her music with the austerity of a harsh teacher. Hours of play allowed her to hone the craft and rival any violinist.


She had all the time in the world. It seemed.


Music played from the profoundly classical to passionate concertos. Sue loved the serenity of a slow-paced chorus while perched there by the bedroom window, playing and watching, only seeing and feeling the music. She was young and talented and spirited. A loner, lost in the tranquil world of her musical imagination.


A talent that never faded as each day passed by.


But as her daily life drifted from one day to the next; something was clearly wrong here.


Sue asked herself. 


Where is Mother? And Father? 


And panic set in as to their whereabouts.


Sue had tried to call from her mobile phone many times, but every call met a dead tone. And more days passed by. Sue found it increasingly difficult to dismiss their absence as the house grew ever so lonely a place. 


Perhaps they’ve taken a break. No, no, they would have told me if they were going away.


She tried her phone again, no tone. She tried to email from her laptop to her mother’s personal email address. The email was sent. But no reply ever came.

Perplexed, all Sue could do was wake to the house emptiness and expect her parents to show up soon. Her music, the perfect way to take her mind off the loneliness. She drowned her heart in the symphony of the strings, slender fingers caressed them, melodies of such beauty filled the house hallways. Often, as the sunrise punched through the windows, Sue would close her eyes and bask in the warmth as the notes strummed out pieces of exquisite beauty.


She’d stop playing suddenly. And listen to the last notes echo around the room. Silence. No sign of her parents at all.


Enough was enough. Sue’s heart was breaking. Where are her folks? She tried the police, but the call, as usual, met that dead tone.


How can they be missing? But they are? What should I do?


Days continued to pass by, as time does. 


Same routine. She’d wake to an empty house, grimace at the parents’ absence and then go about her day. It was the Summer holidays and Sue had plenty of time to practise her music before returning to school.


In an empty house.


Something was off. Had days gone by? Or weeks? Or longer? With each day a repeat of the previous one.


A perplexed Sue stamped about the house before seeking relaxation in her music, the only repetitive tonic that worked.


Something is so wrong? Where are they? And my phone still won’t work?


Her mobile phone, completely useless. She tried to call her best friend, Gina, just met a dead tone. She’d gone for strolls in the nearby park. As Sue brushed by people, she felt unseen; regardless of whether or not the streets were filled with crowds, the city was a lonely place. Sue knocked on Gina’s door, her best friend. 


No-one ever answered. 


Then she returned home and immediately scooped up her violin and played. Anything to take her mind off how forlorn her days became.

If she called out, not even an echo. 


“Mother, Dad.”


Silence.


But how can I be the only one here? Where are my parents? They would never abandon me like this?


The silence of the house. Rhythm existed in the music and nothing else. And Sue never hungered. She’d head to the kitchen, cut a sandwich, eat it, taste nothing, no satisfaction. 


Same routine daily. Sue wakes, rises, goes to the kitchen, then back to her perch by the window, to play music. The routine, and the only part of the day that made sense. It helped ease the pain of her parents vanishing. She played until the rich hues of the sunset faded as the light tucked behind the horizon. 


Every day, a repeated series of strides from her room, to the kitchen, the bathroom, and then to her violin. She’d lay down her head at night, enter a dreamless sleep, wake to the same old repeating day; its usual lonesome routine.


The whole day, a repetitive time with no end, in which only Sue existed - and her music.


Alone in the house.


Why am I alone?


Then the clapping started.


A series of congratulatory claps that stopped Sue playing for a moment.


Someone close, trying to break into her world.


After the first time the claps started, they continued daily. Often, the claps came as she finished up a long symphony. At first, Sue rested the violin down and searched the house, and found nobody; only her peering into rooms wondering about the clapping origin. Sue dismissed them; later, that was futile, as the claps occurred often and always after one particular piece of music.


Sue learned the tune from Mother, a fine musician like her daughter. A vivacious and creative lady.


“Mother, is that you? Where are you?” Sue’s voice met the silence of the corridors and empty rooms.


The piece, written by Sue’s mother and adored by both, as they played a duet of wonderful weekly symphonies together. Each time she heard the claps, a faded memory grew clearer each day. 


A vision flashed in her eyes.


And the answers to her abandoned reality met a new one. The real world had come knocking. As memories returned, the plush interior of her home flaked away. She watched as the wallpaper disintegrated into a black, charred shell. 


The interior changed before her eyes.


Sue cried out.


What’s happening?


Sue had forgotten. The real world now grew clearer, as though the claps woke her into a past reality she’d forgotten.

She remembered. 


How could I forget?


The fire. 

The interior beauty of the house had now melted away to blackened walls; a memory she’d somehow forgotten, as though spared its pain. A home that was licked by a raging fire. She clasped her cheeks and shrieked at the absence of floral wallpaper on what now surrounded her, the burnt walls. 


She remembered.


“Honey, is that you?” 


She knew the voice. 


But unable to see anyone.


The sound of Mother’s voice coming from upstairs in her room. A terrified Sue tried to recall what caused the blackened furniture, the ashes, the burnt debris across what was once carpeted lounge floors in a happy home. 


The fire.


It reduced the building to a lifeless shell. And she stood in it, its memory, the happenings of that day. As though observing a recording, Sue watched as the fire department guys rushed past her, up the stairs, and doused raging tendrils of fire.


But not before all that remained was a burnt out skeleton; leaving a home bereft of the life and happiness that once existed there.

And as the memory of that day flooded back, Sue wondered.


“Did the firefighters fail to save me?” Her voice, brittle but bounced off the walls.


“Honey.” 


Mother’s voice again.


Sue heard Mother.


She skipped up the crumbling remnants of the stairs to her room.


Mother stood there with her violin and held it tight. She paced about the room, tears streamed down her cheeks. She sent gazes in every direction, yet did not acknowledge Sue standing in the room with her.


“Mum. Mum. I’m here.” 


Sue strode close to Mother’s teary face.


Mother swung around. “Where are you, sweetheart? Where…?” She fell to her knees and sobbed. “For several days, I’ve listened to you play and clapped for you.”

Sue quivered and whimpered as she raised up her hands, and examined them, her pale skin.


What am I? Am I dead?


Then she whispered as the reality of the grim surroundings struck. “No-one ever sees me. The food has no taste. My touch is cold. And it’s an empty house. Each day is the same. I find comfort only when I play my music. And the claps. That was you, Mother.”


Mother, who pushed herself off the charred floor, heard her whispers. 


“I hear you now, honey. I can hear you.” Mother’s voice, brittle and laced with a lamenting cry.


“Why can’t you see me?”


Mother stretched out her arms in random directions. “Touch me. I wish I could. Touch my hands.”


Sue reached eager fingertips out to Mother’s. 


But she felt nothing.


Why had she forgotten? All this time. Sue tried to remember the fire, why she never left the house. And here’s Mother, unable to abandon the burnt home, the memory of her. Daily visits to wait for her daughter’s music. A regular wait in Sue’s charred bedroom, praying to hear. 


Waiting for her touch, or the sound of her voice, until one world broke through to the other.


Except in Sue’s world, the home had looked as fresh and happy as early spring. Yet now, it was the remains of the awful day that separated her from Mother. Somehow, the claps and her mother’s voice had shattered the fabric separating the two worlds.


Mother reached out again. “I’ve come back here…so many times. I was too weak at first. Your father is broken too much, he won’t come here. I never wanted to, but I needed to talk to you. I knew I wasn’t going mad. I know your music, its beauty.” She raised up her violin. “I brought my violin. I don’t know, I thought if I played along, maybe…Sue…would hear me and we’d play again. And you’re here.”


Sue remembered how it once was, before the crumbling walls, scorched beams and the blackened chandelier still hanging in the dining room. And before the emptiness of the house, and dank and darkened halls stripped of the family home’s shine. 


But a shell, nothing more now. 


Yet, this emptiness still breathed remnants of the love that lived here.


Sue closed her eyes and thought of her home, how it used to shine with bright colours, and filled with family warmth. It was a place where joy and love lived.

She remembered.

Sue wanted to go back to that lonely place. Just her, the empty but beautiful house and the music.


And as she opened her eyes, Mother still stood there weeping. But the walls were bright floral again. The windows were uncracked. The timber floors, covered in sweeping rugs. Her bed, draped with sheer curtains and adorned with plush pillows. The lavishness of the memory of what her room once looked like and the world she inhabited all alone for a while - had returned.


Sue did not know how, except if she imagined and yearned hard enough, she’d exist in a memory, in a house that still shone with bright walls as before the fire. 

“I see the room as it once was. Can’t you?”


Mother, crying, shook her head. And Sue knew her mother could only cry at the sight of a black shell. But they could hear each other’s voices.

“The room…looks as it once was, Mum. I see it all. I’ve been alone. Wondering why. I love this memory. I choose to stay in it. Mum, can you still hear me?”

Then a cry.


Mother’s spate of whimpering and tears continued.


“Yes. I can still hear you, Sue, darling? I…I also heard your music. I hear you.” Mother’s familiar voice cried out. “I heard our symphony, started to hear our music play. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I clap every time.”


Mother clapped while an excited if forlorn smile spread across her face. It raised Sue’s cheeks.


Sue leapt up in joy. “Mum, I wish you could see me. I’ve heard you clap for some days. But I could never remember what happened. And I now know why it was so hard to connect with you.” Her voice crackled a little as sadness tried to wipe away the joy of seeing Mother. “Every time you come here now, with every clap and the sound of your voice, this home, the memories, it all…got clearer. ”


A crying and desperate mother, eager to hear her daughter’s voice in an otherwise darkened abode of silence, grasped her jaw and gasped. 


“Sue…”


Sue studied Mother’s strained stare at her, one trembling hand on her jaw. “Don’t despair, Mum. We never see each other, but we can hear.”


“Darling. I…can see you.”


For moments, watery eyes met, then Sue flung herself at Mother.


And they embraced.


To hear, to see, to touch, to feel. Something wonderful had happened.


“How is…this happening?” Mother cried out.


“I don’t know…I have no idea, but…it may not last.”


Sue glanced at her perched violin next to her chair.


“Let’s play. Like we used to. A duet that never needs to die.”


Mother nodded. She gazed about the bedroom, a confused stare from her point of view. “Your violin? You have…your violin?” A sweet snigger. “Okay.” She clasped her violin, to play music with Sue, to strum the violin concertos and play their favourite piece of music.


Existing in separate yet intertwined worlds, Mother and daughter readied to hear each other’s voices and music. Moments of joy beckoned. They clasped violins to start their favourite piece. Sue relaxed into her chair and readied the bow.


“Let’s play our music.”


“Let’s play, my darling.” A saddened mother stared in sadness at Sue’s chair. Sue followed her line of sight and realised she looked at the shell, the remains and not the beauty. Sue knew her wet and lost eyes regarded a gnarled and blackened room. Rays of sunlight fell through an empty window frame and brought a smile back to Sue’s face.


Mother held the violin and played, waiting for Sue to join with the chorus.


“I hear you, honey, I hear you. Play your sweet music, honey. I’m listening. I will always listen.”