The Violin That Changes

Alexa and the man named Seth, who was currently calling himself Apheteon, were well on their way to the cemetery, where, according to Apheteon, his mother was laid to rest. The so-called boy was no longer sobbing, but only sniffling less and less often. Alexa was still confused over what in the world happened to the man (or boy, as he described himself) to turn out this way. And didn't Seth, the last time they met, say that she looked familiar, but had no idea to whom? And this time he plainly points out that she looked like his mother? Alexa was sorely confused. Her head was spinning in circles, trying to figure out if this man was extremely moody or not. But that would only explain the change in the speed of his temper. Or so it seemed. The first time they met, he nearly exploded at her, then suddenly became nice with total amnesia. Or he might be a pathological liar. But then again, she found him crying next to a tree. And she knew of no man that cried that much in the open public. He wasn't even with her when that happened. Well, sort of.

And his voice. It seemed much higher than what she was used to hearing from him. What happened to his voice? Voice ranges don't change overnight. But apparently, it did. There was something awfully peculiar about this guy. But what? Questions, questions.

What's past is past. Regardless over whether Alexa wanted this to happen or not, it happened. Of course, Alexa preferred the latter of the two, but then again, she didn't really have a choice.

The two drove without speaking a word. Deafeaning silence dominated the car space. That is, until they got to the cemetery. By the time Alexa managed to park, Apheteon had rashly unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the door quickly and jumping out of the car before Alexa could react. Apheteon began taking off.

"Seth! You get back here!" Alexa was still not used to calling him a name other than 'Seth.'

"It's Apheteon," the man who once indicated his name was Seth said in a childishly annoyed voice. He slowed down to speak to Alexa, but he was still heading away from the car.

"Fine then, Apheteon," Alexa huffed, "get back here and close the passenger car door."

"Can you do it for me?" begged Apheteon, still a good fifteen yards away from Alexa.

"I drove you here, and come back here and close your side car door."

Apheteon sighed melodramatically and dragged his feet in the direction of the car, very reluctant to do Alexa's bidding. But gratitude was gratitude, and he was forced to show it.

He slowly, forcefully, painfully hobbled to the open car door. By the time his fingers finally met the door it had taken him an excruciating twenty seconds from Point B (where he was when Alexa called him) to Point A (which was where the car door was). But the instant his fingers touched the door Apheteon immediately slammed the car door and turned to run back to the graveyard.

"Apheteon! What on earth did you do that for? That could cost me thousands of dollars!"

Apheteon stopped in mid-run and turned around, wide-eyed. "You have thousands of dollars?"

"Of course not! That's why I'm telling you not to-"

But Apheteon wasn't listening. He just ran into the cemetery. Alexa sighed loudly, properly closed her car door, and ran after the man she called Seth, but who called himself Apheteon.

~*~

Despite the negative connotation of the term 'cemetery,' the ambience around a particular tombstone was rather warm and peaceful, inviting even. Okay, so maybe 'inviting' was going a little bit too far, but the area was very warm and beautiful. Of course, being a graveyard, one could tell that it was not always beautiful, but it was, right here, right now. One could sit and meditate here for hours on end, until at least dusk.

And the place was peaceful--that is, until a shouting could be heard in the distance, and running footsteps were heard. Then suddenly a man appeared, with tangled hair and desperate blue-gray eyes searching for the stone that would tell him where his mother lay, which, fortunately for him, was right in front of him. Apheteon had followed his gut instinct, and it proved him right.

It was right then that Apheteon's personality changed. He dropped to his knees, no longer childish and cheeky but solemn and quiet. His eyes were no longer wide open but small and teary. His head was no longer turning about, looking for the stone with the right inscription but bowed. And the violin, which had been tightly grasped but never questioned by Alexa en route to the graveyard or let go of, finally slipped out of his open hand. The bow, ingeniously attached to the back of the violin, remained intact. In the midst of the light cerulean blue sky and descending rustic leaves, a hunched figure sat, comforted by the leaves that shared in his sorrow.

"Apheteon!" A voice shouted out, but Apheteon neither moved nor acknowledged the voice. Alexa showed up, huffing, and breathing heavily from the long run from the car to the man which she attempted to follow and succeeded. "I cannot believe you ran off like that! After driving you here you could have at least thanked me and closed the door properly! What has gotten into you, huh?"

Apheteon still did not respond or budge from his current position.

Alexa became angry. She had not noticed the small tombstone yet. "Are you even going to say something?"

It was suddenly right there that Alexa realized that Apheteon was not simply trying to egg her, but he was currently right in front of a stone raised from the ground, and an inscription on it, which read:

GABRIELLE COLLINS

Those were the only words that were engraved on the stone. With no eulogy, no description, nothingabout this woman buried many inches of dirt below--Alexa shivered, then glanced at Apheteon, who remained as still as ever. And then Alexa's eyes trailed from his extremely messy hair to the object next to him. An instrument? Tightly bound strings stretched across the violin, and a bow peeking out from beneath. It looked rather antiquated, but still in good condition. Even after Apheteon carried it all the way from his performance to here. But Alexa never once noticed it. Until now.

Fragments of clues about this man were very much scattered in Alexa's mind. She attempted to put two and two together.

"Apheteon...is this the resting place of your mother?"

No answer.

She tried a different tactic. "That violin...did that come from your mother? Is that why you had it?"

No response. And then-

"No."

That was the first word he had spoken since they arrived to the site of the tombstone. Guess those two pieces don't fit together, then.

"Oh, really?"

No answer.

"...Then how did you get such an instrument?"

Still no response.

Alexa didn't know what to do. Even as she tried to do something, anything, from making this an uncomfortable silence. But that was exactly what Apheteon was creating.

Still trying to get Apheteon to say something, she took a deep breath. "May I see your violin, then? It's so pretty." As strange as it sounded and as much as Alexa wanted Apheteon to actually say something, she really did think that the violin was indeed very pretty.

When Apheteon did not respond, she walked over cautiously to him and touched the violin. No response.

She slowly picked up the violin and bow. No response.

She examined the violin. It was, indeed, a very beautiful instrument. She had never played the violin before, but it looked very inviting. She decided to try playing it, and detached the bow bound on the flip side of the violin. She took the bow and gracefully, almost naturally, drew the bow across the strings--or at least attempted to imitate, after seeing performances of famous violinists and other instrumentalists.

A deep sound erupted from the violin. It was neither touching and luxurious nor too strident and inexperienced, but for some strange reason it affected the still figure next to Alexa, and she noticed immediately. But Apheteon had been acting so strangely ever since they had reached the cemetery that she continued attempting the violin, trying different strings to achieve different notes, however amateurishly. After all, her other fingers were only supporting the violin, but she had no idea where to place them on respective strings. She couldn't ignore Apheteon, however, when his head bowed even lower than before, his hands met his face, and vocalizing strange sounds, similar to those when she and Seth had first met when she was on her way to the library to avoid overdue fines.

Alexa stopped playing the violin. Apheteon fell silent.

"Apheteon, were you saying something?"

The man-boy did not say anything.

"Apheteon? Is something wrong? Apheteon?"

A deep tenor voice, instead of a higher one, arose from the man. "My head...it hurts."

At the sudden change in voice, Alexa simply stared. She knew for a fact voice ranges didn't change overnight, but here, it changed over several minutes! What a strange man. Se--Apheteon could hardly be called strange. He is a phenomenon! she thought. She was still lost in thought until the man looked up at her and asked, "Alexa, is that you?"

Alexa once again snapped out of her reverie. "What?"

The man blinked up at her. "Alexa?"

"Yes?"

"This is sort of embarrassing but...where are we?" The man rotated his head to look at a stone in front of him, and his eyes widened. "We're at a graveyard!"

Alexa blinked and looked down at him. The man was in shock; his hands were stiff. He quickly got up. The engraving looks like the name of my mom.

"What do you mean it 'looks like'?" demanded Alexa. "How would you forget your own mother's name? You came all the way here to visit your mom, and you don't even know her name! What's wrong with you, Apheteon?"

"Apheteon?" asked the man, blinking. "My name's not Apheteon. It's Seth, remember?"

For the umpteenth time, Alexa stared. "But earlier today you were telling me to call you Apheteon."

Seth scratched his head. "...I don't recall ever telling you that. I don't even remember coming here."

"But--but..." Alexa stopped herself and looked at him. A deep tenor voice. Gray eyes. Gray eyes? She didn't think she saw gray eyes today. But they were there, alright. Maybe he was one of those people whose eyes changed with their moods. But for this guy, his eye color seemed to change every time he got amnesia. And he seemed to get amnesia daily.

Seth glanced at the object tucked underneath Alexa's chin and into her hand, and another object in her other hand. "You have my violin," he stated simply. "Do you like it?"

Alexa suddenly remembered the violin. "Oh! Well, since I've never touched one before, I'll say it sounded wonderful, even for my inexperienced fingers." She chuckled a bit.

"That's nice," Seth said vaguely. Then he said, "Do you know anything that happened before I found myself right in front of this stone?"