The original word was spoon (あたまじゃくし), but soon it became tadpoles and eventually musical notes. However, never let it be said that we have been spoon-fed. We will tell this story in reverse order.
The little girl is sick and tired of her piano lessons. She refuses to keep playing. Her fingers hurt, and she prefers birdsongs, anyway. She snatches the scores she has been told to learn by heart, tears them to shreds and throws them into her backyard pond.
Water gets into every paper pore. The shreds sink, and the ink flees for its life. It isn’t long before those musical notes, that swim just like tadpoles, fill the pond to the brim.
Music has yet to breach the water’s surface, but the little girl won’t take any chances. Knowing her luck, her favorite bird will eat them in one fell swoop, and its song will sound like that piano she hates so much forevermore. That’s why she runs in search of a spoon and hurries to scoop those tadpoles out of the water.
I have something to live for, don’t you? It’s easy to give up on dreams, I don’t hold them in high esteem. Faith, on the other hand, has yet to let me down. I live for winter. For those mornings when I can see my own breath. There is music in the air. It ripples through my bones. I don’t have to settle for ink on paper. Someday I will close my eyes and see what songbirds see, written in white, on those coldest of mornings.
I have been told that I should love. With all my heart. Warts and all. But I’m afraid I can’t tell the difference between toads and frogs. I want someone who would look forward to my kiss, someone who wouldn’t sleep through my wish upon the stars. The greatest disappointment of my life was knowing that sound doesn’t travel in space. Birds sing in vain, they will never get to kiss the universe.
Doesn’t it bring tears to your eyes? There are sounds only children can hear. Black birds bring bad luck, only loss awaits us. Why do musical notes have to be black? I want something to look forward to, but I haven’t heard of sounds only grown-ups can hear. Shouldn’t there be comfort? A consolation prize at the very least. Anything to take the sting out of these tears that are already threatening to drown out my music.
I like holding hands, those are my favorite musical notes. Spoons are cold to the touch, I would rather drink from someone else’s warm hands. Music is not meant to beat in anyone’s ribcage, no songbird deserves to be buried alive. The sky is there to be tasted, it would be a shame to waste it. When I die, that’s where you should bury me. Forget that spoon, don’t freeze your hands digging me a grave. Grant me one last song, let some bird feed on my warm bones.
I don’t know if I would call it a natural affinity, but pianos resonate with me. They remind me of crossing walks and make me want to walk on tiptoe. Black. White. Black. White. A pirouette. A splash. A bow. No dream should wash down the gutter. Mine ended in tears, but I won’t remember anything other than stars.
Can’t you see that I am trying my best? What more do you want from me? I don’t feel comfortable showing teeth. If it were up to me, I would never leave the moon ajar for the wolves, but I was taught not to hide my light. Are these piano keys bright enough for you? Be my guest. Play. I won’t get in the way. This was never meant to be a four-hand piece. Just rip out my heart and be done with it.
I won’t lie, I had high expectations. I guess that’s what happens when you read one fairy tale too many. I believed myself a tadpole. I wasn’t waiting to be spirited away, I was ready to take the first step and start living my life. No more water, no more tides, I was ready to cut those strings the moon had tied around my limbs. I was ready for solid ground, somewhere I could leave my mark. But nothing changed when I grew up. Piano keys bounce back and music vanishes into thin air. I will never have a say in this world.
Music is a foreign language to me. It goes in one ear and out the other without painting a picture. I have seen raindrops hitting the ground. I have heard them with my own two ears. But even after hitting all 88 keys on that piano, my mind remains blank and my eyes dry. If I were a bird, I would never mistake a spoon for a tadpole. I’m afraid that I am more stomach than heart. I can hit the high notes, I can string beautiful words together, but I can’t delude myself. Life is what it is.
Is this what being beyond salvation feels like? I’m a tadpole that’s about to grow legs. I’m about to understand the phrase you can’t go home again. I expect homesickness to taste like dust in my mouth because all I have ever known is mud. There is no point in wondering whether space is the deepest ocean and those stars are sparkles on its surface. Even if I were to turn that spoon into a catapult, I know I would just fall to my death.
What’s the point of ladling tadpoles into my skull? Imagining twenty thousand different futures only leads to a pile of disappointments when the present finally catches up. It doesn’t help you reach the stars, you just end up buried in that pile. Someday I will grow into a frog. I can live with that reflection in the mirror, but I would surely drown in one, never mind twenty thousand might-have-beens.
I am sick and tired of hearing that life began in the ocean. That’s not the birthday I want to circle on my calendar. The Big Bang might have been silent, but our brains make up for it in spades. I have words running through my veins and music vibrating along my bones. That’s what lifts the corners of my mouth. Tears only weigh you down, and I intend to save mine for my last breath.
I don’t want a spoonful of sugar. I don’t want happy childhood memories at the cost of my survival. Only a handful of birds have a rich repertoire, most of them stick to one song. But it doesn’t matter either way, because songs aren’t what puts food in their stomachs. Being obliviously happy will only double my heartbreak once I come face to face with real life. Please, don’t do me any favors. Keep that sugar to yourself, and let me get a real taste as soon as possible. Let me get used before it’s too late.