The Song of a Thousand Shadows

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in.” 

Lizzie felt her spirits plummet.  She gripped the nurse’s arm in near-desperation.  “Please?  You’ve got to let me see him.  It’s been three days since the accident, and the attendant told me that he was stable.  Why am I not allowed to go in there?” 

The nurse sighed in resignation.  “Because your friend is still in a delicate state.  He hasn’t woken up from his coma yet, and there’s no telling what state his mind will be in once he does awaken.”  Lizzie noticed that the nurse tactfully avoided mentioning the alternative – that he might not ever wake up. 

She gritted her teeth against the dark thought pushed it out of her mind.  “Maybe Aiden hasn’t woken up because he’s waiting for a visitor,” she countered.  “What if it’s like in the movies, where the person in a coma is waiting for a certain person before they can wake up?” 

“And you’re that special someone?”  The nurse looked skeptical. 

“I’m his best friend, aren’t I?  And I was in the car with him when it happened,” Lizzie protested.  “Maybe he’ll want to know I’m okay.”

The nurse rolled her eyes, but relented.  “Fine.  You get five minutes – not a second more.  And I’m staying in the room.”


“Thank you.”  Lizzie didn’t care what conditions she had to agree to, if it meant she could see Aiden for the first time since the accident. 

She could still vividly remember what had happened last Friday evening.  They had been leaving the first orchestra concert of the school year; the event had been a tremendous success, and both Lizzie and Aiden had been nearly drunk on the after-performance buzz. 
Aiden had offered to give Lizzie a ride; she’d accepted.  And so they had been on the way back to their neighborhood when the white Toyota Camry ran a red light and slammed directly into the driver’s side of the car. 

Aiden’s pickup truck had borne the brunt of the damage; in fact, Lizzie had barely been injured.  Other than her lingering collection of bruises and a slightly sprained wrist, she had come away unscathed. 
As she stepped into the hospital room where Aiden lay, Lizzie realized that her friend hadn’t been quite so lucky.  He lay on a cot with railings on all four sides, presumably to prevent him from rolling off the bed if he stirred in his coma-induced stupor.  An IV bag hung from a pole at the head of the bead, attached to Aiden via a small tube.  But it was the vast array of machines that dominated the wall behind the bed, and the beeping, whirring noises they made as they monitored her best friend’s vital signs, that made Lizzie realize what bad shape Aiden was in. 
She approached the hospital bed, fighting off a sudden wave of nausea.  “Hey,” she said to Aiden.  “It’s me, Lizzie.” 

He didn’t respond, of course.  Lizzie felt rather silly, but she continued talking to him anyway; it made her feel better.  “I don’t know if you can hear me in there, but just in case, don’t worry about me.  I’m not hurt – I just have a few bruises.  And I’m taking good care of your violin, too – there isn’t a string out of place.  I would have brought it to you, but the lady at the front desk said it wasn’t sanitary and that I couldn’t leave it here.  But I’ll bring it to you when you wake up, I promise.” 

Even though she knew she was just rambling, Lizzie continued talking to Aiden until she felt the nurse’s hand on her shoulder.  “It’s been nearly ten minutes,” she said.  “Aiden needs his rest.  You can visit him another time, but you need to leave him be now.” 

Her voice was gentle, but her hand was firm on Lizzie’s shoulder.  “Okay,” Lizzie sighed, turning to her friend one last time.  His face was smooth and his eyes were closed, but she had to believe that he could hear her.  Otherwise, how could she help him?

“Listen, the most important thing is that you rest and focus on getting better,” she said quietly.  “It’s like what you told the violins before the concert started.  Don’t focus on the crowd – they’re nothing but background noise.  Just feel the bow in your hand and the strings under your fingers.  You’ll be okay as long as you stay strong.  I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.” 

She glanced behind her one last time as the nurse closed the door.  He still hadn’t moved. 

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School had been tough since the accident, but now it was almost unbearable.  Orchestra, normally Lizzie’s favorite class of the day, had become an exercise in human endurance and fortitude ever since the accident; seeing Aiden yesterday had only made it worse.  It took all the willpower Lizzie could muster to focus on the sheet music and the fingering of the notes instead of the empty seat at the head of the first violin section. 

She winced as the girl next to her came in at the repeat with a jarring squeal of bow on strings.  Did you even tune your violin today? she wanted to ask, but she held her tongue in spite of her frustration.  Lizzie wasn’t in much of a position to correct the other members; she herself had only started playing the violin two years ago, when she decided that she wanted to join the orchestra for her junior year.  She had practiced hard and learned quickly, but she wasn’t anywhere near as good as the veteran violin players. 

Aiden was the best of them all, by far.  He had been made concertmaster by the end of his first year, when the previous first chair had graduated.  Having a sophomore as concertmaster had bred a lot of resentment among the other members of the orchestra, but there was no denying that Aiden was both a brilliant violin player and a conscientious director. 

He didn’t have anything against helping less experienced students, either, as Lizzie had learned on her first day of orchestra.  Aiden had become her teacher, in a manner of speaking; they practiced violin together after school every day, and she learned more from him than she had ever gathered from her paid instructor. 

That had been the start of their friendship. 

“Mr. Andrews,” Lizzie asked the teacher once rehearsal was over and the other students had left, “do you think I should bring Aiden some classical CDs?  I have some, and I think listening to them might help him out of… Whatever place he’s in.” 

Their conductor nodded.  “He would like that.  And it would be good for him; even if he doesn’t show any visible response, classical music is known to stimulate higher-level cognitive activity.  It won’t cure him, by any stretch.  But it wouldn’t hurt.” 

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That afternoon, Lizzie walked into the hospital with a portable CD player. 

The woman at the front desk eyed her with alarm.  “You can’t take that into the intensive-care unit,” she said.  “It isn’t sterilized.” 

Lizzie sighed.  “Do you have another CD player I could borrow, then?  It’s a big hospital; you’ve got to have something.” 

“There are several CD players in the outpatient recovery rooms,” the lady ventured.  “I could have one sent down to you.” 

“As long as it has speakers, that would be great.  Thank you.”  Lizzie walked past the reception desk and down the sterile white hallways until she reached Aiden’s room. 

The nurse on call, while not the same woman as yesterday, seemed to be expecting her.  “He’s improved since you came in yesterday,” she informed Lizzie as they approached Aiden’s bedside.  “Our monitors are picking up more activity in his cerebral cortex.  He’s on the road to recovery, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll wake up.” 

“No, of course not,” Lizzie replied automatically.  Her heart beat a little faster.  He was going to be okay. 

She pulled a chair from the corner and sat down by Aiden’s head.  “I brought you something,” she said.  “I know Mozart and Tchaikovsky are your favorites, but all I could dig up was Beethoven.”  Lizzie slipped the CD into the disc player and pushed the green triangle. 

The room was immediately filled with the sounds of a full orchestra.  Lizzie recognized the song in an instant; it was Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony, one of the works that every self-respecting musician had listened to or played at some point in their lives.  Listening to the majestic sounds of the horns and violins, Lizzie felt more at ease than she had since the accident. 

Then, distinctly and unmistakably, Aiden’s finger twitched.  

Lizzie stared at him intently, not even noticing when the vocalists came in at the climax of the symphony.  Is he going to wake up? 

But Aiden didn’t move again, and Lizzie found herself wondering if she had just imagined it.  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she mumbled to the nurse.  “Bathroom.” 

“Okay, dear,” the nurse said absentmindedly. 

Lizzie slipped out of Aiden’s room and walked across the hall to the restroom, her feet numbly following the lines on the floor tiles. 

She closed the bathroom door, locked it, and started to sob helplessly.  She hadn’t cried since the accident, not once: not when she found out about Aiden’s coma, not when her friends asked her about it at school, not even during orchestra class.  But listening to Beethoven and getting that little glimpse of hope had broken something inside her. 

Ode to Joy, she thought ruefully as the tears streamed down her face.  Of course it would be Ode to Joy.

That night, when Lizzie was doing her homework, her mom burst into the room, phone in hand.  “Lizzie, put some shoes on.  We’re going to the hospital, right now.” 

A cold fist squeezed Lizzie’s heart.  “What’s wrong?” 

“Wrong?” her mother laughed.  “Nothing’s wrong!  Aiden just came out of his coma, and he wants to see you!”
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“He’s resting right now, but he’s conscious,” the nurse told Lizzie as they walked into the room.  “He regained consciousness about an hour ago, and the doctors are confident that he’ll eventually make a full recovery as long as he sticks to his physical therapy exercises and sees a good psychiatrist.” 

It was the best news Lizzie had heard in days, and she couldn’t remember ever feeling happier. 

The hospital room was subtly changed from Lizzie’s previous visits.  The IV drip was still running, but most of the machines were now inactive and the lights in the room had been turned on.  A bouquet of flowers sat in a vase on the bedside table, and Aiden’s violin case was propped against the foot of the bed.  Lizzie felt a slight pang of jealousy when she saw the violin case, but she pushed the unworthy feeling to the side. 
Aiden’s eyes were closed, but he stirred when Lizzie took a seat beside him.  One gray eye fluttered open.  “Hey, Liz,” he said weakly before closing his eye again. 

Relief flooded over Lizzie at the sound of his voice.  “Hey,” she said quietly.  “Glad to have you back.” 

The corners of Aiden’s mouth quirked up in a smile.  It wasn’t much of an exchange, but they were best friends.  They finished each other’s symphonies.  It was the only exchange they needed. 

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By orchestra class the next day, Lizzie’s face hurt from smiling.  She couldn’t wait until Aiden was able to return to school.  That day would likely be several months away; even though Aiden hadn’t been in a severe coma, the recovery process would take time. 

Lizzie didn’t care, though.  Now that she knew that everything would be okay, waiting for life to resume its normal course didn’t feel quite so agonizing. 

She glanced at the empty concertmaster’s chair at the head of the first violin section.  That was Aiden’s rightful place, and it was waiting for him.  Lizzie couldn’t wait until her best friend came back to the place where he belonged, and she would count the days. 

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Aiden’s shattered face was the first thing that Lizzie saw when she walked into the room.  “What’s wrong?” she asked, surprised.

“I’ll never be able to play again.” 

He sounded numb, broken, and shock hit Lizzie like a slap in the face. 

“What?”

“The nurse told me today,” he said quietly.  “My physical therapy had been going well, so I decided that I would try and play my violin.  But there’s something wrong with my left hand.  I can’t make the fingerings anymore.” 

“Did you forget them?  I read that head trauma could lead to memory loss,” said Lizzie, searching for some kind of reasonable solution. 

“No, it’s not that.”  Aiden sighed.  “I remember everything.  My fingers just won’t do what I want them to do.” 

“But you didn’t damage them in the accident.” 

Aiden shook his head.  “They did an MRI.  I have soft tissue damage in my wrist; they think I banged it on the steering wheel.  The nerves and tendons are bruised, and it’s affecting my motor control.” 

“But isn’t that what’s the physical therapy is for?”  Lizzie didn’t want to accept what she was hearing. 

“They can’t heal nerve damage, Liz.” 

It was a grim prognosis, and it made Lizzie shudder.  A violin player’s skill depended on two things: his sensitivity of ear and the impossibly fine motor control that allowed him to control the pitch and tone of the violin. 

If Aiden’s left hand was damaged, he wouldn’t be able to play anymore.  And the violin was his life.  What would he do if he couldn’t play? 

“Is there a chance that you could recover?” she asked him, not knowing what else to say. 

Aiden shrugged, trying to look unconcerned and failing miserably.  “Maybe.  And it could always have been a fluke, what happened before,” he said in a voice that made Lizzie assume that he was trying not to think about whatever it was that had happened before.  “I’ve never noticed anything wrong with my motor control until today.  Maybe I’m just out of practice.”  A tinge of hope crept back into his voice, and he picked up the violin. 

Lizzie held her breath as Aiden positioned the instrument on his shoulder and touched the bow to the strings.  The plaintive, sweet sound of the violin filled the room, as pure and crystal-clear as it had ever been, and for a second Lizzie thought that Aiden really had just been imagining things. 

Then it happened.  Aiden’s fingers fumbled, a tiny slip that only a trained violinist would have noticed, and the melody went sour.  A chill ran down Lizzie’s spine as Aiden kept playing, relentlessly trying to finish the song. 

Finally, he gave up and slowly allowed the bow to fall. 
An oppressive silence fell as the two friends stared at each other.  “That wasn’t so bad,” Lizzie ventured hesitantly.  “Maybe, one day, you could-”

“Don’t give me that!”  Aiden suddenly looked furious, and for a second Lizzie thought that he was going to throw the violin across the room.  “You can’t fool me – it was awful!  I was flat the entire time, and half of the notes were wrong.” 

He set his violin back in its case and carefully closed the lid.  “Tell Mr. Andrews to start testing the first violinists,” he said bleakly.  “There’s not much point in having a concertmaster who can’t even play in the right key.” 

Lizzie could only stare in horror as he buried his face in his hands and began to cry. 

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For several weeks, Aiden kept to himself.  He ignored all of Lizzie’s calls and refused visitors – even Mr. Andrews and the orchestra students were turned away.  When Lizzie did see him next, Aiden looked pale and tired.  There was a hollowness in his eyes, like all the life had gone from them. 

“What am I going to do?” he said to Lizzie after several minutes.  “Violin is my thing.  It’s what I’m good at.  What’ll I do with myself without it?” 
It was an impossible question to answer, and Lizzie was still turning it over in her mind when she sat down at the small upright piano in the hospital waiting room.  Her fingers settled on the keys and began to play; her mother had taught her piano when she was little, and the scales came to her like breathing, even if she was a bit out of practice. 
She loved violin, but there was nothing quite like a piano. 

And then the ghost of an idea came to her.  Aiden wouldn’t need the precise motor control of his left hand to play piano, not if he used the bass for accompaniment purposes. 

And piano was much easier to learn, from a technical perspective, than violin, even if the sheet music was harder to read.  Aiden would still be able to make music, even if it wasn’t exactly the same kind of music he was used to. 

But he wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea.  “No way,” he said stubbornly.  “I know you like the piano, but violin is my instrument.  I can’t just throw that away.” 

“But you can’t play the violin, at least for now,” Lizzie argued.  “But there’s no harm in learning another instrument.  You don’t have to give up on music altogether just because of what happened to your hand.”

Aiden looked thoughtful.  “Maybe you’re right.  But I’d need a good teacher.”

Lizzie smiled.  “I do owe you some lessons.”

“True enough, you do.” 

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“While he is only a first-year piano student, Aiden Murphy has demonstrated exceptional natural talent and progressed quickly in his studies…”

It was a year since the accident, and Lizzie was sitting in the audience at Aiden’s first ever piano recital.  Both of them had worked hard to make it to this day, Lizzie as teacher and Aiden as student.  The role reversal had been strange, but both friends had gradually come to accept the strange switch in their fortunes. 

Aiden rose from his seat with the other piano students and walked over to the baby grand piano.  His grey eyes were calm and peaceful, free from the turmoil that had filled them in the first few months since the accident.  “The song I’m going to play is something I composed myself,” he said, and Lizzie sat up straighter in surprise.  She hadn’t heard anything about a composition.  “It’s about a dark time in my life, when I thought that nothing could ever possibly go right again.  It doesn’t have a name yet, but its working title is ‘The Song of a Thousand Shadows.’”

Aiden took a seat and began to play, calmly and steadily.  The notes rose out of the piano and washed over the whole room, wrapping the audience in a blanket of sound.  Lizzie was enveloped in the pleading darkness of the song.  She felt trapped and alone, helpless in the grip of loneliness as the aching, pensive melody stirred something dark and weighty inside her soul.  She could hear Aiden’s old misery in the notes, and she knew that he had put his entire being into this single song. 

Then, just when Lizzie almost couldn’t bear to hear the song any more, a sunbeam of sweet high notes pierced the gloom of the bass.  It was a lifeline thrown to a drowning man, and Aiden grasped it with all his strength as the song whirled to a crescendo of brilliant joy. 

As the last notes died away, the audience erupted in a wild tumult of applause. 

Aiden stood and made his bow, taking the tribute with the quiet dignity that was his signature. 

But, when the crowd was settling down and Aiden was returning to his seat, he glanced into the audience and caught Lizzie’s eye.  Thank you, he said wordlessly, smiling gently.  I couldn’t have done this without you.

You’re welcome, Lizzie answered. 

It was a trivial thing, really.  A few hours here and there, practice after school at Lizzie’s old piano with the dusty songbooks she had learned from as a child.  But, in the end, they both knew that it was the simple act of sharing that had helped Aiden re-discover his lost music. 


-Swellish