The Sound of Philly

by Brandon Bird

students noticed, however. One of them being a friend of Philly's, who had known a little bit about what had happened four years ago, but not much in detail. This friend had an idea that stuck in his head, an idea to get Philly to express her feelings in music. He had heard the music teacher talk about how expressing oneself in music, or any other form of art, could do one good. And this friend knew that Philly liked music. So he was going to talk to his music teacher about this as soon as he could.

  Philly found the nearest restroom, and went into the stall before farthest from the door. She wiped the seat down with some toilet paper, and then sat down and sobbed. The final bell rang, and she knew she was late for class, but she couldn't let people see her cry like this. She didn't want to have to explain how she felt, not like any of them would understand anyways.

  “Why did the chaos of the world have to take him away like that?! How could they?! He could have offered them so much beauty! And they killed him! Why does stuff like this have to happen? Why couldn't it have been me instead? He should have lived on, he had more to offer than I do. What am I? All I do is listen to music, and cry. And after he died, I couldn't even listen to music. How empty I felt, like a barren and desolate wasteland. And now that I do listen to music again, though it fills my life, it can't bring him back, it never will. But it eases the pain. I can't live without music. It is in my soul, it is in my veins. But how can I do more than just listen to music now? I know I took music class again, to learn how to read and write music, to remember his songs, to hopefully write them down again. But it hurts to think about them. It kills me inside. I want him to hear the music I feel in my heart, the sadness, the despair, so he can hear how I feel, but he will never hear it. So what do I truly have to offer the world!? I'm not good enough to do anything right! Being lost in this chaotic world, as a cactus in the desert. Why couldn't I have taken Andrew's place?!” She said aloud, and then burst into tears. After a few moments, the crying settled down a little, as more thoughts came to her mind.

  “And why do I have to feel so alone? Why can't anyone else understand how I feel? How come I'm the only one who sees and feels music like I do? Am I the only one who, when I hear good music, that I can see a world of beauty and colors around me? That I dance in what I see, or watch the scenes go by, the people, the places, the beauty. Does no one else do this? Why did they have to take Andrew away from me? Why did he have to die?” More sobs came out as more thoughts entered her mind. Thoughts that she could not fully put into words. The feelings that were truly deep within her, that she was afraid to look at in the first place, but she still felt them, and she saw a glimpse of them, and it put her into more tears.

  She imagined switching places with her old friend. To where she would have died in the car wreck instead of him. If some how, he could have lived, and brought more to the world. Her tears temporarily subsided as she imagined him growing up even more, to be in concerts and other performances, to show the audience a time of their life, to pull them in with his music, so they could see what he wanted them to see. That he could create a world for them to imagine as they sat and listened to the wondrous sound of his violin.

  A slight smile formed on her face as she imagined how he would affect the world in such a wonderful way. To bring them a world of music, to encourage their imaginations to flow, to see what he felt and expressed in his music. Then she came back to reality and sighed. She knew none of that would happen now. She rubbed her eyes, to help dry the tears, and then she leaned down, and rested her head on her arm, looking to the floor with sadness shown in her eyes. The unspoken thoughts of her wondering why things couldn't change, couldn't be better, why people had to die, especially those who are still young.

  Some time went by, and she finally got up. Her tears were mostly dry now, but her eyes still showed she had been crying. She walked back to class, and hesitantly opened the door and walked in, trying to be as silent as she could, she walked on to her seat. The students had already told the teacher that she had left, looking to be crying. And when she walked in, the teacher could tell she had been crying, so he left her alone and kept on teaching. Philly sat down and opened her math book to the page the student next to her told her to go to.

  The rest of the class went by smoothly. She focused on doing the work, keeping the thoughts away as she did it. No one brought it up to her about where she went, and about her coming back so late. When class was over, everyone went on to their next class. Philly, like usual, was the last one out the door, and as she was going out the door, her teacher spoke to her.

  “You know, if you ever need to talk about anything, we teachers are here to help. You can talk to any one of us about what is going on if you need to talk about anything at all. Don't hesitate to do so. It is good to have someone to talk to about what is going on sometimes.”

  Philly was surprised a bit at first, turning around and hearing what her teacher was saying. She simply nodded her head and said, “Thank you.” and turned back out the door, hanging her head down. She had hoped no one had noticed something was wrong, but apparently someone did. She didn't know how she could talk about it, about any of it. She couldn't expect anyone to understand how she felt. The anger, and rage, the sadness and despair. The loneliness and emptiness inside at the death of one so close, even if so long ago, it still showed in her heart.

  She again held her books to her heart as she walked towards her next class. On her way, she stopped by her locker, and switched out her history book and math book, for her Physical Education class clothes. She shut her locker door, and saw one of her friends come up to her.

  “Hey, Philly, you alright?”

  “Huh?” Philly looked up to see Rachel. “Oh, yeah, I'm fine.” As she said this, she wondered if people could still tell she had cried, so she wiped her cheek, just in case.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Alright, if you say so. Anyways, after school, Tyler, Phillip, Lucy and I are going to the bookstore on the corner, if you want to come too, just let me know, alright?”

  “Alright.”

  “Okay, well, I have to get to class, see you next period!

  “Okay, later, Rachel.” Philly gave a little bit of a smile, to give the feeling to Rachel that she was indeed fine. And then when Rachel had gone, Philly went on to walk to her gym class.

  She went into the locker room to change, and heard all the girls talking. She tried to tune them out, but she couldn't help but hear some talk about her.

  “Yeah, did you hear, Philomena ran out of the classroom crying. It was ridiculous. What is her problem anyways?”

  “Maybe it is her name. I'd run out of a class crying too if I had a name like hers.”

  “Yeah, totally, how could her parents give her that horrid name?”

  “Hey! Stop talking about her like that. She is a nice girl, she hasn't done anything to you.”

  “Yeah? So? We don't care.”

  “Yeah, stay out of our business and get lost, loser! No one invited you to talk with us.”

  At hearing this, Philly tuned the mean girls out, and went on to another part of the locker room. It kind of hurt her a bit, hearing what they said. She knew it shouldn't hurt her, but it did. She tried to ignore it though, and just sat and waited for the time to go to the gym area.

  Several minutes went by, and they finally went on to the gym, and sat and took attendance. Then they got up to walk out to the outside track for some walking and jogging time. In this time, they were to at least walk on the straight parts, and jog on the curved parts of the track. The track was one fourth of a mile, so every four laps would be one mile.

  When they got out and started, Philly walked and then jogged, as needed. Her thoughts as she walked alone were fairly held in at first, but, as she went on, her mind began to fire up again. Thinking of the day, thinking of the feelings she had. Like how in math class, when she was leaving, she had a little thought in the back of her head that no one noticed her. That maybe she just
was not noticed. But she knows that isn't true now. What the teacher said, and then what the mean girls said. And how Rachel invited her to go with her and her friends to the bookstore later. She knew she was noticed. Maybe noticed too much. Or maybe just enough. She wasn't sure at this point. But it wasn't long before she thought of more life, in how alone she felt, even if she was noticed.

  As she thought about how alone she felt, she began to jog more, forgetting to go back to walking. Though her jog was relatively slow, it was still a jog, and as her thoughts went through her mind, she didn't think of going any slower. She remembered her discussion with Rebecca earlier that morning. How Rebecca just didn't seem to be into music, and couldn't understand what it was like to really be affected by it so greatly. And then Philly's thoughts went on to other conversations with other people of the years, how none of them understood what music made her feel. She had met some that kind of understood, but, she could tell that she was far more affected by music than they were, and they just did not understand her. They seemed to think of her as weird, and after awhile, they stopped talking to her and went on their own way, which just made her feel more alone.

  Her jogging increased a bit in speed as these thoughts ran through her. She