HEART SICK (Heart Memory Transfer #1)

One-2

But music…music was my calling.

I was six the first time I heard Beethoven and fell in love. I then listened to every piece of music I could get my hands on. My fondest memories are laying on my bedroom floor with my dad’s oversized headphones as I listened to the classics on vinyl.

I loved every instrument as each one has the ability to transport you to another world, but I soon learned that piano was my soulmate.

I never got lessons. I just…knew how to play. I read books or watched instructional videos. And that was how I learned how to play.

I was gifted, everyone would say. But I never saw it that way. Playing piano was almost an extension of who I was. The moment I placed my fingers on those keys, life just drifted away and I existed in a world where it was just music and me.

I didn’t have many friends which was fine. I didn’t like many people. No one seemed to understand why I would choose piano over getting wasted or getting laid.

But music was my drug. It was the only mistress I needed.

However, my mom wouldn’t hear of it and sent a video of me playing piano without my consent to some musical scout and before I knew it, Juilliard was calling, offering me a place at their school. I found it strange that one would get schooled on playing piano, so I politely declined.

But when I saw the disappointment on my parents’ faces, I changed my mind because all they ever wanted was for me to live a full, happy life.

Juilliard was better than I expected. I kept to myself, but was surprised that word spread so quickly about my playing. I was told the competition was tough, but I never saw it that way. We all were there to excel at something we loved.

But being “top of your class” didn’t do me any favors. I was seen as arrogant or rude because I didn’t talk to anyone. I was neither of those things. My entire life, I let the music speak for me, so I often forgot actually engaging in conversation was what most people do.

I was considered a freak and loner most of my life, but at Juilliard, that seemed to make me intriguing and a mystery most wanted to decipher.

I was never the popular jock at school. Spending hours in front of the piano meant I wasn’t gym-obsessed like most guys my age. But late at night, when my parents were fast asleep, I would slip on my headphones and get lost in my favorite songs as I ran the streets.

It was in the darkness where I wanted to belong. It was where I thrived.

My mother was worried about how much time I spent alone. She suggested I see a doctor who said I was depressed. I wasn’t depressed. I just didn’t want to socialize with people who had no substance. I wanted to connect to someone how I did with music.

But I never did.

At Juilliard, there was no shortage of attention from the opposite s*x, which surprised me. I never knew what was “cool” because it never mattered to me. But when every girl I dated passionately tugged on my long dirty blond hair during s*x, or told me they could come just by looking into my blue eyes, I realized they saw something I didn’t and that was because I didn’t care.

What is on the outside means nothing if you’re ugly on the inside, and this world is filled with much ugliness.

I casually dated, but no one came close to stirring anything in me like music did. I began to think maybe everyone was right—maybe I was a freak.

And I was so okay with that fact.

My teachers offered me an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. I was to go on tour and play piano in Europe for three months. It was my dream come true.

But that soon turned into a nightmare when I had to undergo some physicals and it was discovered that both of my ventricles weren’t functioning how they should be. Dr. Norton read over my long-ass file and took me on as her patient. She explained the ventricular failure happened because of a long-standing valve obstruction.

This then led to irreversible heart failure.

She asked if I had any issues with my heart and I confessed that lately, it was getting harder to do small things. I was often out of breath and light-headed, but I ignored it and just got lost in the music because I always felt better after that.

But truth be told, I always knew my heart would fail me one day. It was what made me different. It was what made me want to write a masterpiece to leave behind as my legacy because I never anticipated living a long life.

My parents blamed themselves, seeing my defect as something they did, but I didn’t see it that way. I just felt lucky to have lived, and I lived an extraordinary life.

I left Juilliard as I didn’t want to be looked at as “that poor guy.” The guy who was a prodigy in his prime, only to be dead a year later because that’s what Dr. Norton predicted.

She prescribed an arsenal of drugs and at first, I took them as it gave my parents hope. But they made things fuzzy. They may be helping my heart, but they interfered with my brain and when I sat at my Steinway grand piano and couldn’t play a single note, I knew what I had to do.

If I couldn’t play, I may as well be dead. So I stopped taking the medication.

I got sicker and sicker. Weaker and weaker, but the music never stopped, and that’s all I ever cared about because if that was what I was born to achieve, then I would happily succumb to death.

I was sitting at my piano when I got Dr. Norton’s call.

At first, I didn’t know what to think. She had mentioned a heart transplant as the only way to live, but the odds of that happening were slim.

But it seems life isn’t done with me yet. Maybe my masterpiece is yet to come.

I haven’t called my parents because I didn’t want to wake them. They’ve been through enough.

The driver pulls up at the hospital, glancing with curiosity over his shoulder and appearing to wonder why I would need to come here in the dead of night. I look like the perfect pillar of health. But it’s what’s on the inside that fails me.

I often wondered if maybe that was why I couldn’t love how others do. Was my heart broken in every sense of the word?

I close the car door, but don’t enter the hospital right away. I lift my chin, close my eyes, and listen to the heavens. The universe speaks at night and the sounds are utterly beautiful.

The soothing rustle of the wind. The occasional hoot of an owl. Music is all around us—we just need to feel it.

“Dutch, the doctors are ready for you.”

Opening my eyes, I bid the stars farewell and hope to see them again soon.

I follow the nurse into the hospital, the sterility hurting my eyes. It’s quiet, eerily so. But I suppose hospitals aren’t usually associated with happiness. My Doc Martens pound on the polished floor and I suddenly feel so undeserving.

I am nothing special.

Why do I get this chance when others don’t?

The nurse ushers me into a room where she runs some tests and asks some questions. I answer on autopilot because this is all surreal. I understand time is of the essence.

“Please remove all jewelry and here is a gown and a hat. Please tuck all your hair under it.” She leaves the room to give me some privacy.

I do as she asks and change into the scratchy hospital gown.

I wear a lot of jewelry, I always have, so I start with my leather cuff and silver bracelets. I then remove my silver rings which feels weird. I never take them off, even when playing. I place everything in the plastic bag on the dresser. I then remove my silver necklaces but leave the one with a black crucifix till last.

I’m not a devout Catholic, but my family are and this necklace was given to me by my grandmother. She said it would protect me and God knows, I need all the protection I can get right now. I feel incomplete without it.

My hair is long enough to tie back, so it takes me a while to tuck it all under the mesh hat.

Once I’m done, I lie in the hospital bed and two orderlies then push me toward the operating room. They try to make conversation, but all I can focus on are the wheels on the bed turning and the fluorescents above buzzing, making their own sound.

In my head, I commence writing a piece of music, my fingers moving on the invisible keys as I use the surrounding sounds as my inspiration. I hear it clearly. I connect with the music as it courses through my body, thrumming in sync with the irregular concerto of my heart.

“Dutch Atwood,” a nurse with a clipboard says, turning over my ID bracelet to ensure I am who I say I am. “We’re all set.”

She continues talking but as I’m wheeled into the operating room, all I hear are the hypnotic pulses of the endless machines. They too inspire the piece I write in my head. Some may say this is a coping mechanism, but this is how my brain is wired.

I don’t know how to exist any other way. I see…hear…feel music everywhere.

I am poked and prodded, and when Dr. Norton’s face comes into view, I know it’s time to rest because when I wake, I have a masterpiece to finish.

But now, now I must silence the sounds and surrender to the quiet.

What a strange place to be.