The Divided Line: Dunya [Part 1]
It began slowly—the plague, the greed, the riots. Revolutionaries rose up behind symbols, murals, and songs, while the masses were fed machinery and religion. In the wake of the destruction, politicians deemed art a dangerous thing—a worthless thing—and the masses agreed. They took away the paint, the books, and the instruments. But they could not wholly silence the artists. These are the stories they left behind.
Curled against the cold concrete, Dunya closed her eyes and dreamed. It was all she had left, these dreams, these memories. She clung to them with ferocity as their details slowly slipped away.
She dreamed of home, of the small suburb she’d grown up in. It’d been a quiet place filled with adventure. She’d had trees to climb, hills to run down, and other children to play with.
It was safely away from the sickness that spread rampant through the cities, away from the protests that rose in the streets, and away from the rising movement which demanded the worship of only one god.
The Old Man had lived a few houses down the road from her. He’d scared her when she was little. He had knobby bones like the gnarled oaks in his yard, and he had an ancient stare. She’d seen him reading on his porch every now and again, but it was always in fleeting glances as she and the other children ran screaming past his house.
To them, he seemed some sort of warlock. One kid had even gone so far as to say he’d made eye contact with the Old Man once, and a week later, his arm was broken.
Dunya, in her youthful curiosity, only grew more intrigued by the lonely Old Man after that. She wanted to know more about the magic he theoretically possessed.
On her way home from school one day, she heard a noise through the cracked window of his house. A long, drawn out melancholy. A feeling so deep within her, she didn’t yet know the word to name it. What she called it instead was Magic.
She strayed off the path and clambered up the hill to peer into his window. He sat in a rickety chair, a sleek, wooden thing held between his shoulder and chin. He put a stringed stick against the object and pulled. And there it was. That sound again.
Dunya gasped, and the Old Man looked up.
“Hello, little owl-eyes. Have you come to listen?” he asked, adjusting a knob on the instrument.
Dunya ducked partially out of the way, but her curiosity kept her feet planted. She stood, face half tucked behind the windowsill, and she nodded.
The Old Man began to play.
It was like no music she’d ever heard, tainted and raw and beautiful.
When he finished the song, he stood, opened the window all the way, and held forth the instrument. “Do you want to try?”
Five words which dictated the rest of Dunya’s life.
Violin resting atop sheet music
Ylanite Koppens via Pexels
She took up the violin, held it just as he’d shown her, and drew the bow across the strings. Her heart soared with joy and throbbed with lament. The instrument’s range encompassed all.
She ran home that day beaming from ear to ear, and she begged her mother to let her learn how to play. It took months—music was already beginning to be seen as taboo in the eyes of the public—but at last her mother caved.
Dunya showed up to the Old Man’s doorstep the next day. He opened the door with a smile and handed her the violin. Every day after, she returned. She studied, she learned, she worked endless hours perfecting it. One day, the instrument finally began to speak with the voice of her soul.
When Dunya turned sixteen, she came to his house as always and found him packing a bag. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“To the city,” he said. “I’m needed on the front lines.”
“Why?” Dunya asked. She’d seen the news. The city was on fire. Buildings had been set ablaze, people chanted for freedom, and soldiers marched through the streets. It was safer here. The conflict could not reach them here.
He lifted the violin in his hand. “Because if I don’t use this voice of mine, they will smother it before I ever say anything meaningful with it.” He set his hand upon her shoulder. “This music is the blood in my veins, Dunya. Without it, I am nothing. I’m an old man, but I will not let them turn me into nothing.”
He closed the violin securely in its case and strapped it to his back.
“Take me with you,” Dunya said.
The Old Man shook his head. “Not this time. You’ll have your chance when you’re older. And when it comes, Dunya, stay true to yourself. Do not let them turn you into nothing.”
Dunya watched him go. Down the road and to the train which would sweep him into the city.
The next time she saw him, he was hanging from the ramparts of the New Capitol Hill, his violin broken beneath him to show the world his crime.
~~~
Hand reaching for light
Dyu Ha via Unsplash
Tears rolled down her cheeks, carrying with them the grief of the memories.
She swallowed the rest, refusing to let them escape, and she stood up, chains dragging over the hard concrete, tubes tugging at her veins.
She lifted her hand, let her fingers crest over the ledge of the wall she’d been chained to. Light from the central chamber of the prison cast her fingers in a soft, amber glow, and the shadows of her fingertips danced across the wall. She took a deep breath.
Do not let them turn you into nothing.
She would try. Gods above, she would try.
The Divided Line is an original serial updated biweekly.
