In Tomorrow's Time

It had been a while since I had heard a harmonious melody. That day, as I passed through a corridor in the university building, I heard a pleasant sound. At first, I didn't quite recognize the instrument, but as I got closer, I discovered it was a violin. The sound was calm, but sometimes it made me grimace. The violinist was probably learning. I found myself humming the tune as I listened, so naturally that I hadn't even realized what I was doing. I was just standing there, a few meters from the door where the sound was coming from. Something was calling me, I felt every note like never before. For a few seconds, I felt like I was in the music business and no longer in my promising career as a potential psychologist. "Heather?" I heard someone call my name. "Heather?" It was repeated more firmly. I finally snapped out of my trance and noticed the presence of Sophie, a classmate. "I'm sorry," I said, almost immediately regaining consciousness. "I was listening to the music." "You were singing the song, Heather," she warned me. "Do you know it?" she asked. I realized that I really couldn't identify that sound, and I was sure I'd never heard it before. "Well, let's hurry up before the timetable runs out," Sophie said after I had unintentionally ignored her question. She started walking down the rest of the corridor. I considered approaching the room and seeing who the musician was who was playing those beautiful notes, but I couldn't afford to not consume anything before the next period. Next to the university, there were few places to buy fast food, and the cafeteria itself was too crowded to use all the time. It was all too common to see the same faces in everyone's routine. That day, my colleagues and I decided we needed to eat something different. Most of us had a car, but we split it up into two vehicles to save on gas. Our destination was Gorditos, a Mexican restaurant about twenty minutes from the university. "A chicken burrito, please?" I asked the waitress, who promptly took my order. We didn't have time to stop there, so we went back and ate our burritos and tacos in the car. We weren't friends; in fact, most students didn't make friends; all they wanted was to be useful colleagues for studies or small frivolous activities, like university parties. Likewise, we, from the accommodation, always attended all the invitations, only because we were seen as sad for not having better accommodation. In their minds, poor people like us had to be satisfied with the parties; not attending was like accepting that reality and thinking you were different. Nobody had much patience for that, so to avoid any confusion, we always showed up. Back on campus, we went to our next class. Psychoanalysis wasn't as interesting to me as I thought it would be, in fact, I'd been questioning all the subjects a lot. Complaining about the course to my parents was unthinkable; they paid a good part of the tuition. Psychology had a lot of opportunities, I couldn't just give up, and I didn't know if I really wanted to do it. I had to finish, that's all. There were seven semesters to go. The corridor was familiar to me. There was a door where the sound used to come from. There was nothing there. I walked past it and glanced around the small space there to identify the author of the song, but there was no one, the room was empty. I felt a slight tightness nearby as if something was missing or hurting me, but I didn't know why. I didn't know that I was missing something because I couldn't remember what it was. I sat down thoughtfully. My mind was still wandering over the melody. I couldn't forget, I just couldn't. The teacher's words didn't reach me; I couldn't hear her; it was as if something was drowning out all that sound as if I didn't need to hear her, as if I shouldn't be there, it was as if I wasn't there. When the lesson ended, I felt obliged to face that door once again. This time, before I even got close to the door, I could already hear the sound of the music, but it wasn't the same, it was a full melody full of instruments, not just a violin. I looked through the small window in the door. Several people were sitting together, each with their own instrument, probably an orchestra. I quickly looked for the violins, considering that they were usually further along, or so I thought. There were a lot of violins, and at least half of the violinists were men. I wasn't sure if it was the man I was looking for, but my mind had convinced me that it was. I couldn't look very carefully, there were too many people, and the window was too small. I couldn't open the door, not really. I kept running my eyes over all the men until I noticed one of them in the background, pulling up a chair, and sitting down. I couldn't see him very clearly, but something was wrong. The orchestra had already started when he sat down and began to follow the rhythm, out of tune and almost off-key. Just then, someone bumped into me, forcing me to stop looking out of the window. I regained consciousness and looked out the window again, but I couldn't find him. I couldn't stand there any longer, so I decided to go on my way. I didn't have long to wait, I needed to find my companions, so we could leave for the dormitory; it was about fifteen minutes to the dormitories. In my bed, completely wrapped in a fluffy comforter, the melody still sounded in my head. So clear and serene. For a few seconds, I felt my lips moving on their own, forming each note and letter of the violin's sound; not even the memory of the out-of-tune notes made me stiffen. There was something particularly curious about it all. That night, while my mind allowed me to review it several times in my bed with the dubious sheet, I realized that I needed to know who the boy with the violin was. The university had a page with photos of every student from every course and term. My photo was ugly, not because of my appearance, but because, for some reason, my gaze always carried a dose of worry or any other kind of expression that shouldn't be displayed in a photograph. A white, blonde person like me was often washed out by the lighting, but the heaviness in my black eyes caused an almost immediate break. There was no getting away from it, it was my natural essence. I ran my fingers down the page of photos until I finally found the music section. There were eight semesters—literally eight different classes—to look for the boy with the out-of-tune violin. He seemed to be the same age as me, so I assumed that maybe he was in his third term too. I went through the faces and names of each man, but I didn't find him, in fact, all I found looking at those first photos were serious and handsome faces, almost formal, like, rich. Envious faces. For a few seconds, I thought that if the guy saw my photo, he would make fun of me, I wasn't up to that class. He wasn't in his third semester; perhaps he was ahead of schedule? Fourth or fifth semester, perhaps? I scrolled down the page, looking for the next seniors. I didn't find him; it was just more humiliation. Before moving on to the fifth term, I realized that potentially he was in the second term, so I went back two pages to check. There was a plus sign at the top of the page. I had seen those faces through the door; he must have been from that class. He wasn't on the page. I went back to the first class, and he wasn't there, so I moved on to the remaining semesters, and he still didn't appear in the photos. Had I missed a photo? Was he the kind of guy who looked different in a front-facing photo? I had no idea, but I didn't have enough energy to keep looking, sleep had come, and I needed to close my eyes right then.