Riya's Inspiration
It was a day like any other day. Riya found himself inside due to the heatwave and flipping through channels to find what was interesting on TV. Lately he had felt a lack of muse, and in that, a lack of desire to do much. His mother and aunts were doing their very best to inspire him to get up and do things but the boy was utterly disinterested. He just wasn't feeling it and something was just empty.
His aunt Wamii had come in one day to decree he was going to be enrolled in music lessons and should choose an instrument. Roshan had tried to coax him to come out and play more. Steve and Aiden seemed the only ones leaving the boy be – the elder because he had his own problems and was out dealing with them; the younger because he was completely not interested in the others.
Usually, at this time, Riya would be musing over instruments idly, but at the moment he just didn't care enough for that and was flipping through channels, a bored look on his face. It was at this point he ran across a music video network. That was a bit of a rarity since most channels that proclaimed to be music ones did nothing of the sort, but the boy found actual videos being played by this one. His taste in music tended more towards upbeat and poppy, but today he kept from flipping away when the slow mournful tones of the song began.
They stood in a graveyard, on a desolate gray skied day, with shrivelled trees all around. The band and their instruments seemed so starkly contrasted to what he usually watched. They were all extremely pale, with dark hair and dark elegant outfits. There was a guitarist and a drummer present, but there was also a man with a large instrument Riya wasn't familiar with off the top of his head but thought looked like a fancierviolin that was on the ground. There was also a duo of lovely women in flowing gowns on a bench – the one wearing white and facing the grand piano and the other in black facing the other direction and playing a violin. The music started with the two playing softly and mournfully, the one in white singing softly when the one in black stood and began to sing in a powerful operatic voice, the more rock members of the band beginning to kick in.
Riya sat up slowly, watching entranced as the group played their music grandly before him. It was so powerful and beautiful, yet so different from what he knew or expected. His eyes also kept returning to that grand sleek giant violin. It had a low lovely sound and it was fascinating to the boy. But all too soon the video ended and another came on. The music was different but still felt very artsy and the video was elaborate in many ways. He found himself drawn into the show and once again beginning to feel the twangs of muse returning to him.
Roshan was just coming inside to get a drink of water when he found his twin rushing outside, dashing off towards the library to use a computer. Riya's eyes were alight and he couldn't be looking up half of the bands he saw faster, listening to more of their music and looking over lists of instruments similar to the violin to try and find the one he saw.
Eventually the boy came across it – the standup, upright or contrabass as it was called. Looking it up revealed even more things – the various ways it could be played, the styles and the child found himself enthralled. He had idly been considering taking the piano if he was required an instrument but now he was highly considering begging Aunt Wamii to be able to learn this. It would be so beautiful – so wonderful. And already the creative juices began to go insane.
