'Magnum Opus' by Kim Everett

The older man who had relentlessly flirted with her at the bank, probably because he hoped she would care for him during his infirm years, composed a symphony for her. Later, when she read his obituary, she learned that during his middle-aged years he had served as the conductor for the city’s orchestra, that he had been a child prodigy, a virtuoso violinist and pianist before he studied at Juilliard. He had written the symphony he confessed, because he wanted her to seek epiphany. He had designed it for only one performance, to occur during April, after the pink moon, and he advised her to hike to a mountain slope at the Pinnacles where the stars were visible, and to allow time for her eyes to adjust before listening to his recording. To compose his symphony, he had inspired diverse instrumentalists to capture the sounds he hummed and imagined—the sounds rippling like a palette of colors—splashing across the canvas as he lifted his hands to caress, to rebuke, to entice, to arouse delight. On that night, as she stared at the sky—mindful of the wild boars her sons were shooing away from their campsite—she could discern the plucking pizzicato and trill of a violin, the steady beat of percussion, the bell-like gongs of a gamelan orchestra, the strumming of a harp and a sitar, and the clear congruence of wind chimes--and were those oboists or bassoonists knitting loops of harmony to coil around the melody?—all synchronizing with the allegro tempo of the meteorite shower, the radiating streaks of lights—those cosmic grains of sand illuminating the sky, a transient opus to remind her to go live her life.