The Little Bear from The Lighter, Valparaiso University
I sit on the slanted rooftop, the grain digging into my shorts
A little bear with the round ears plays violin in a beautiful melody on the sidewalk below,
All by himself.
His fur is perfectly trimmed,
If you look closely you can see the brush strokes that made him.
He stands on two padded feet,
Down on the sidewalk.
He can’t be more than five feet tall.
I watch him from my rooftop in my quiet suburban neighborhood.
The sun sets at my back; I feel the heat emanating from its distant power.
The little bear holds the violin so proudly on his forearm;
He bears it as a gift to the world, like a mother proudly showing off their newborn.
There is a fine line between beautiful, floating melody and the screeching sound the violin makes when you play it just a little bit wrong.
How does the little bear balance it so well? What I think sounds like a screech at first turns into a high, piercing note that floods my eardrums and slows my heartbeat.
I get one last look at the sun’s blanket of orange-gold light, striking birch trees in the neighbor’s yards reflecting their perfect green leaves back at me.
All I want is to play like that little bear
I lift the thin-bladed saw from the shale-colored rooftop and hold it in my right hand,
It is perfectly weighted with wood on top, resembling a straightened coat hanger.
It’s so light it makes me giddy.
I raise my left forearm to the cerulean sky where the sunlight hits it just right.
I lift the saw in the fingertips of my right hand, a salute to the little bear.
Then I begin to play.
I play a melody no one has ever heard before,
Letting the saw slide across my too-pale forearm,
Intersecting blue veins.
Crimson blood spills out of my arm as the melody plays to the tune of the little bear’s,
We’re in perfect harmony.
The strings in unison make me lightheaded; the sky gets lighter and lighter; my knees grow weak on the slick rooftop.
I don’t know why but it only hits me as I bleed out on the rooftop—
My life was for nothing.
I pandered and pleased and existed long enough for me to hate myself,
Long enough to be sick to my stomach all the time.
My veins look so pretty in open air,
Their brilliant electric blue contradicting the vibrant red they bathe in.
I couldn’t believe my luck—
For in the moment that I played my tune with the little bear,
I knew there was a god, watching from that cornflower blue sky, smiling on me as I played my tune
Telling me
That I was special.
I lean over the slanted edge of the rooftop, barely keeping my balance as I sit, wobbling.
The little bear stops.
His warm black eyes stare up at me from the street like little dots of coal
His violin rests at his side, bow in his right hand.
He doesn’t move
And then he raises his bow and instrument
And begins to play the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard in my life.
It resounds through the street, a crystalline melody so free that no microphone could capture it
It serenades me as I drift off, the cloudless sky slowly fading from my eyes.
The melody is gorgeous, and I finally smile.
My head settles against the slate rooftop, and I shut my eyes.
Ronan Nadim Cassidy
