The Music of Love

Addae’s worn dark hands closed around the covered box. Based off of the online picture, it was old, rust already creeping up the ornate metal designs. It had taken him a while to find the right box, but Addae was glad he had waited. 

He hadn’t seen a box like this one since his childhood, back when they were still in use. It was difficult to find a music box, these days. The musical wonders of his childhood had been sold off, replaced with shiny electronic rectangles without buttons or cranks. Addae still preferred the boxes, however. They were so much more organic than the new shiny gadgets. While the new inventions beckoned the newer generations to a new, different kind of addiction, the simple music box just asked you if you wanted to hear a tune. If you did, it complied. Simple. 

Addae had always loved music. As a child, he danced to everything. Up until he was a young man, and such actions were considered childish, he was filled with joy at the sound of music. The complexity of one’s emotions, intertwined into something that everyone could share, that everyone could feel. It used to be that if you wanted to listen to music, you needed to be able to work and repair a music box. Those times were gone, but Addae’s shelves were still lined with the tools of his trade.

 The box was wrapped in a blue handkerchief. It wasn’t like the new durable electronics, and Addae didn’t want it to fall and become damaged. The owner of the pawn shop had promised him that it worked, and Addae hoped that was true. He hadn’t waited all this time for nothing. After all, the box wasn’t truly his, even if he had bought it. Addae had formalized the plan already, and a carefully scribed, if a bit messy, note lay patient at his desk. 

There was another young girl in the village. Well, she wasn’t all that young anymore. A young woman his daughter used to play with, when they had both been but children. She was often caught up in the hussle of life, but she always said hello to Addae. She could do with a reminder of why people live. It isn’t for education, or for money, as society so begs us to believe. But for love. The kind of love so often felt in music. 

Addae had felt love, but as he experienced it so often, it was difficult to remember its worth. When something becomes a daily occurrence, the beauty of it is sometimes lost. Addae needed a way to remember the importance of love, and so he had found one. Music, in all its glory and wonder. Love songs fascinated Addae, and had since he was a teenager, wondering if he would ever be loved at all. How someone’s heart could burst so often, overfilling with the most tender and valuable emotion of them all, had been such a strange concept for a young adult. He had found love, though, afterall. Even in all of his faults, he had found it, whole and everything teenage him had thought it would be. Addae loved like he lived, which was often and with great generosity. 

The music box had been given up, probably traded for a new electronic that did the job twice as fast and with much less work. The pawnshop owner had been quick to part with it, and Addae had the old trinket now. He lay the wrapped bundle onto his desk, letting the piece of cloth fall open like the petals on a blooming flower. 

The lid was of a white stone, sturdy and unblemished, despite its time in disuse. Somebody had painted the white stone. A small ballerina, legs outstretched, pink skirt fluffed out, stared unblinkingly up at Addae. It wasn’t a professional job. If it had been, the painter would have used a clear coat of paint to protect the illustration. Instead, the paint at the black toes of the ballerina had already begun to fall off. Addae didn’t mind. Sometimes, he thought, beauty is found in the destruction of a different life. For in that destruction, the new is brought out.

The box in itself was silver, the material chipped in places to reveal the cogs and pieces that made it work in the first place. Golden flowers seemed to grow from the bottom of the music box’s legs, curling until they collected in the middle. In real life, it was truly stunning. The gears were pierced together, each playing their own part for the ultimate goal. 

Addae’s daughter would have approved. She would have played with the crank, smiled at the dancer, and admired the golden designs. She’d always wanted to be a ballerina, as many young children do, but she had never had the chance.

 Addae sighed, his wrists already aching from holding the box. He was getting too old for this. Not that it mattered. Addae had searched for music to the end of his life, a fact he was quite content with. 

He brushed his silver hair back from his face. He had been lucky to find a shop that would style the long afro into dreadlocks. Addae had never quite found out how to do it himself, and now he regretted that choice, even if he doubted his hands could have handled the task in the first place. He pressed down on the blue suit he wore. It was the nicest thing in his possession, and Addae had set it aside with this purpose in mind.

He reached forwards, hands trembling more than he’d like to admit, and gripped the lever. Counting the shudders and clicks under his breath, Addae began to turn. There was a little resistance, at first, but the steady pressure kept the winding key moving.

 Addae had always loved the moment before the song played. The moment of anticipation, mingled with a thirst for the music, made his eyes light up, no matter his age.

The winding stopped, real resistance hitting the small lever. Addae stopped turning. After all these years, he knew the difference between how far you were meant to crank and rust. He took a deep breath, giving his hands a moment of rest.

 He imagined if his daughter had been there. What would she have said? Addae knew she would have loved the little box. She would have giggled as she watched her father wind it, would have begged and pleaded until he had allowed her to have the box in her room. It had been years since she had died. A heart murmur, nothing big. She passed peacefully, on her bed, knowing she was loved. It still hurt to think about it, but the opposite, allowing himself to forget his daughter, was unthinkable. Even as it pained him to imagine the woman she could have begun, he never let himself forget. 

But Addae knew he was not much longer for this world as it was. He had gotten the doctor’s notice ages ago. It didn’t matter. Addae could barely afford the doctor’s appointment, much less chemo. Cancer treatment was expensive, and Addae was too old to be able to keep a job. The money he had collected, his savings, were much better spent going to the village. To a new well, or perhaps repatching some of the roofs ruined in the most recent fire. 

The tumor had, and still was, destroying him, but Addae had made his peace with it. He was ready. In his life, he had cried, he had laughed, and he had loved. He had lived life to its fullest, and he had no regrets. Well, maybe he had one. He wished he had hugged his daughter one last time. He would amend that, when he saw her. 

Addae could practically see his daughter, bouncing on her toes, black hair braided and twisted into a knot at the top of her head. Waiting for Baba as Addae had always told her to do if she ever got lost.

 “I’m coming, Osakwe,” he murmured, the words rough against his parched throat. 

With a final exhale, Addae let go of the lever. A tinkling sound filled the air, pressing against Addae until he shut his eyes. It was magnificent. The melody was simple, slightly slowed from years of disuse, but that didn’t take from the beauty. The song surrounded Addae, filling his mind, and the only emotion he felt was love. Love, deep in the bones of his ailing body. Love, booming and brilliant, strong enough to beat it all and fight, no matter the cost. Love. Addae went out the way he lived, to music, with as much happiness as his heart could bear. And in the music, for the very first time since his daughter’s death, Addae felt peace.