The Spell That Binds

The first story I ever wrote. Hajime's gift is mine.

Hajime was a young man living in very troubled times. He had been born to a respected family in Japan, in a culture that had been shaped in part by its isolated island environment, in part by the power of human spirit. As we know, the human spirit can generate conditions of love and peace, and also of hatred, and of war. It is the same, everywhere in the world.

As with most newborn infants, Hajime was very deeply loved by his mother, was held very close to her warmth, and was fed. He smiled an infant's endearing smile and was reassured by his mother's kiss. Hajime grew quickly as most healthy infants do. But there was also something very different about him, for he was born with never-ending music in his head. The music never repeated, and it came in an extremely wide variety of tones. It was what we know as a gift, from somewhere, from a source the nature of which we cannot begin to imagine.

At first the music had no specific instruments, because Hajime had not yet heard one. Had anyone been paying attention to him as he lay in his mother's arms while she listened to a group playing music on a street corner, they would have seen that his eyes were wide and wondering. Because here were sounds that expressed some of the continual flow that occurred in his only partly-developed brain.

As Hajime grew, walked, and learned to speak, the music continued. It became more complex and developed harmonies. The great composer Beethoven once said, “The music I have written is as nothing compared to the music I have heard.” And so was it with young Hajime. A highly intelligent child, he soon found his way to a piano keyboard and to the violin his mother kept in her closet. He was not kept from these instruments, and was soon astonishing everyone who heard him play. Scholars of music came from all over the city to hear this young prodigy at the age of five.

Hajime's father watched all of this happening, with some concern. He was a military man, sworn to the service of the Emperor. These were trying times, and there was talk of war. There was little use for music in such a world, and a man needed to become prepared for whatever was required of men. And so he resolved to broaden his young son's horizons, and delivered him to the dojo of his own martial arts master. Hajime's instruction was thus arranged.

At first little Hajime did not understand, but he soon grasped what was expected of him. Although there was harshness in his instruction and there were many subservient duties required of him, there was also beauty in the movements he learned. Having already developed some manual dexterity, he was a natural for these movements, and quickly caught the attention of his sensei. Hajime's father beamed when told of his son's progress, and he soon stopped worrying about him. It came just in time, because he had been called to the service of the Emperor.

To Hajime, however, there was only one thing, and that was his music. It came to him, it enveloped him, it forced its way to the forefront of his mind - and the only thing he could do was to attempt to express it. He began to learn to read music and to play the compositions of others. And as he did so, he learned to control his outward expressions beyond what he released through his hands. His mother would listen, spellbound, and saw that he had begun to play his music with his eyes tightly shut.

From his closed eyes as he played would come tears of emotion. He was indeed and obviously, a great master in the making.

One morning, as Hajime was playing the piano, a visitor came to see his mother. Her name was Ayane, a student at the nearby music institute. She wanted to ask if she might try playing her cello alongside Hajime's piano. Hajime had reached the age of ten, and she was ten years his senior. But she had heard of his great talent, and she knew without asking, the origins of the music he was playing - because she had the same gift. It was quickly arranged.

When she arrived again later that afternoon with her instrument, she introduced herself to Hajime. She explained that she wanted to play along with him, no matter what he played. “I will improvise,”she offered. Hajime smiled, because he knew she did not hear what he heard. But he would certainly let her try to follow along.

The experiment did not work. Hajime played beautifully, but Ayane was quickly amazed by the music's complexity, the key changes and the unexpected crescendos that came at just the right moments for every piece that was passing through his mind to his hands. After a time, Hajime stopped. “I want to hear you play,” said Hajime. “Just play your music. Just yourself.”

Ayane smiled appreciatively, and she played. It was something from Six Suites for Cello by Bach. She played with great emotion, and she played masterfully. Hajime did not interrupt. But when she had finished, Hajime asked, tentatively, “Could you play your music?”

Ayane was instantly a little worried, because although this was something she had tried, there had been places in the flow of her music that were incomplete, and it was enough to stop her playing. For that reason she had always considered that effort to be a failure. The most she could hope to do was to write parts of it down, and then to compose from there on paper. The music came too quickly, and then was gone.

“I know what you are asking, but it will not work,” she replied. “My music does not always continue, like I know yours does.”

Hajime thought about that. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had actually used his martial arts training to enable and to enhance his own music. He got down from the piano bench. What was about to occur was something that had never happened before in the history of man. Hajime would perform for Ayane his martial art, as a form of musical instruction.

It came rapidly and it was almost fierce at its beginning. Hajime placed his fingers across his belly just beneath his solar plexus, tightened his muscles and said “Chi! Here is where your power is concentrated!” Then he demonstrated a flurrying series of hand movements that were combinations of blocks and hand strikes, returning to the “Chi!” for each combination. “You must let it flow, like water,” he explained. “It does not stop. You are stopping it.” Hajime then launched a series of kicks, one of each kind that he had learned, each perfectly executed and each done slowly, ending with a high roundhouse kick, his foot motionless in the air at head height. “Let it flow !”

Hajime's mother, in the shadows at the other end of the room, had been watching. Neither she nor Ayane could believe what they had just seen. Ayane was no stranger to instruction, however, and she immediately picked up her bow and positioned her cello.

And the music flowed. It came, and it did not stop. A single tear rolled down her cheek. After a time, she stopped. “That,” said Hajime, “is exactly what I meant.”

For some weeks the two of them worked together, each learning more and more of the other's music. Ayane was astounded by the depth and breadth of Hajime's compositions. Hajime was overjoyed to have found someone who could appreciate the music as did he, and who had music of her own. It was a defining moment in each of their young lives.

Then one day, as they were playing together, Hajime just stopped. Ayane's playing stumbled, and she looked over at Hajime, quizzically. “Please. Come over here,” he said. She leaned her instrument into its stand, got up and walked over to him. “Look at me.” Hajime had a strange look in his eyes, a wild look, a look of intensity. Ayane trustingly looked into those eyes. She felt a strange pulling sensation, and their minds met. Hajime would have had to say no more, but he did. “You see. You must feel what I feel. Let's play the music.”

From that moment forward, the limitless combination of musical notes that came from their instruments might have come from heaven itself. An indescribable aura built itself around the two of them, and gradually it filled the room. The windows to the little studio were open, and people who were walking by the house began to wander inside without knocking at the door. More people assembled at the open windows. Those who heard and saw were amazed, and they spoke of it. The talk soon got around.

The next step was inevitable, as Ayane described to her teachers what had happened. Reports heard from others seemed to suggest it was all true. Young Hajime was asked to perform at the institute, and his mother, smiling from ear to ear, bowed graciously and accepted for him.

The first recital at the institute concert hall was a resounding success; but the principals of the institute had many questions. From where did Hajime and Ayane acquire their music? How was it that they could present it almost endlessly, without stopping? Was it true that the same music would never be presented, exactly as it had been heard, ever again? Then, one of the questioners asked one that stopped everyone else. What would happen if other instruments were added? No one knew the answer to that question, not even little Hajime.

And so, an even greater experiment began.

It will never very likely be known how many people have been born with Hajime's gift. And it may be that the ability to perform music to perfection is an even greater gift; in any case, nearly every student at the institute volunteered to try out for the honor of joining the proposed group.

Meanwhile, news reached Hajime's mother of her husband's death. He had been killed in battle while Japanese forces were defending an occupied land. News came immediately after that of the invasion of France by Allied forces, and air raid drills were being conducted regularly right there in their own city. Of course Hajime really did not fully understand what was happening. He mourned the loss of his father, and did what little he could to comfort his mother.

After some weeks, Hajime and Ayane resumed the selection of musicians for the new group. Alas, there were not nearly as many persons available as before. Young men that had been considered too young to serve in the Imperial armed forces, had now been conscripted for training for a national guard, as an invasion was now expected. Even children as young as Hajime were being solicited for training, but Hajime's mother would have none of it.

Eventually, Hajime was able to identify just two other persons with whom he was able establish some kind of connection, as he had with Ayane. This provided a violin and a viola, a classical piano quartet. Only the violin was that of a student. The viola was contributed by an older gentleman, who was very pleased indeed to have been included.

The day of the first practice had arrived, and the group assembled. Of course there could be no director. All were dependent on the lead of little Hajime, now eleven years of age.

It would be difficult to describe in words the music that emanated from this little group. It would be quite safe to say that nothing like it had ever been produced by human beings in the world before. Once again an aura developed around the group, and filled the little concert hall. The notes combined and harmonized, rose and fell together, and summoned emotions from listeners as nothing ever had. An elderly janitor, hearing and seeing all that was happening, was sorely tempted to turn out all of the lights to see what color, if any, the aura might display. He never actually did it, fearing he would get into trouble for it. However if he had, he would have seen that it was without color, although quite visible.

One day, while the third practice session was in progress, soldiers arrived outside the institute.

There was a general lock-down in effect as a precautionary measure, to secure the city and to keep people off of the streets. People had been seen streaming to the little auditorium to hear Hajime's quartet, and the commander of the local garrison wanted it stopped. But as the soldiers entered the building and heard the music, they one-by-one removed their hats, and they began to sit down in the rear of the auditorium to listen. As the lieutenant in charge of the group entered the auditorium to see what was keeping his men, he too removed his hat. But then he caught himself and reminded himself of his duty, and hastily rounded up his men from their seats. They were unnoticed by either the quartet or by the rest of the people in the room, and they left in silence. Closure of the auditorium would have to wait till another day, perhaps the morrow.

The garrison commander was enraged when he learned what had happened at the institute, and he decided to go there himself to see that the closure was carried out. The next day a car sped him to the auditorium, and he huffily exited the car and stomped into the auditorium. It so happened that the quartet had just begun its very first full performance, and the little auditorium was already nearly filled with people.

As everyone else who had heard the quartet before him, the commander was awestruck. Within seconds of witnessing the almost unbelievable sounds emanating from the little stage, he had a change of mind. He didn't realize at all how young was its pianist, did not notice the viola player was fifty years the pianist's senior, took no stock whatsoever of how many instruments or what kind of instruments they were. He had entered a fully-enveloping aura within the chamber, a common brick structure not far from the center of the city of Hiroshima. He took a seat.

As you might have immediately guessed, as the word “Hiroshima” is most known for one terrible thing; the date that day was August 6th, the year, 1945. High overhead, the superfortress Enola Gay was en route to this very city. Within minutes of the commander having taken his seat, the deed was done.

What you could not have known, what few people ever knew, was that the city was driven to dust, fire and ashes while this one building stood. If anyone that was inside the building during the blast had ever tried to tell the story, no one would have believed, and if believed, no one would have cared. The city had been destroyed, Hajime's mother along with it, and the additional and similar attack on Nagasaki would be enough to drive the Emperor to surrender his empire.

But for those inside, the extreme heat, shock and thrust of an atomic blast flowed around and over the building and its occupants for as long as the music went on. When the piece in progress ended, the flitz!, crack and rumble of the blast had already subsided, but almost immediately, the ceiling began to cave in. People panicked and ran for their lives, and while fallout would soon be reaching the ground, they ran away from the billowing smoke at the center of the destruction, to anywhere else. Others in that immediate area had been killed outright by the searing heat of the blast; if not by that, then the shock. Yet many who were in the auditorium that day actually survived. The living included Hajime, but not Ayane. And to Hajime it scarcely mattered, for he would not live for another twenty years, and perhaps worse, the music in his head was completely gone.

One might wonder why on earth such a story would ever be told. The answer is simple; a point must be made. Whether it was the wrong thing for the Allies to do is not at issue; whether there were alternatives that would have been more acceptable, also is not at issue. However it is clear that emotions caused the war, emotions brought Japan into the war, emotions caused an attack on Pearl Harbor, and emotions rallied the U.S. to respond, eventually resulting in the attacks on Japan itself. Also, the power of emotion allowed these few people in an impossible location to actually survive.

A seemingly separate, but very true story has been told of the elephants of the Tokyo zoo that were deliberately starved to death, presumably because they could no longer be fed, and some individual thought it unwise to waste bullets in wartime to end their lives. The elephants trumpeted and performed the tricks they had been taught, in desperate but useless efforts to be given food. It was like starving innocent, dependent children to death. That event alone should make a reasonable human being hate war, without even considering the countless human tragedies. And for all of the losses, what was gained?

Emotion is the single most powerful force on earth. In the end, it feeds us, and causes us to procreate; it is why we protect our children. It is also why we tend to destroy ourselves, and the very planet upon which we depend for our existence. We will not really evolve again until we have learned to control our emotions. We might want to begin with the emotion of hatred. Arguing over definitions, semantics and why everybody else should do it, is worse than counterproductive; it is demeaning.

Here is what we need to consider. Laser light is strong and concentrated light, but it is not strong because its source is of great power. It is because the waves of light, as you know them, are aligned so that the amplitude of one wave does not work against the amplitude of another. Instead, the crests and troughs of the “waves” reinforce one another.

Human emotions, on the other hand, are in complete disarray. There is nothing about them that indicates singularity of purpose, or even direction.

It is time to evolve, as time grows short.

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