Claudia walked home, the rain was cold, the wind was sharp, and the clouds boomed ominously. The pavement gave off a piercing, acrid smell, that grew ever more pungent as the cold liquid ice shattered like ice on the ground. Like kamikazes ready to die, like soldier bullets in a unified march, a rhythmic sound. Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip.

She drew her black jacket closer to her. As if the rain had magnified her senses she felt every strand of hair fall against her cheek with every step she took. In her ear the gentle sounds of rustling cloth sounded like a harsh scrape against concrete. Her nose picked up the scent of the sidewalk and the rain. Her eyes, black eyes, where drawn to the pavement, and black eyes in the stared back from the pools of water. Those eyes picked up all, every little detail, every little line etched into her pale white face.

Those eyes that stared back where deep, miserable, and flat. Black hair brushed against white hollow cheeks, cheeks that held no color. Claudia scuffed her black converse against the pavement and tore her eyes from the ground. She walked a familiar path, she lived a familiar life, she had a familiar attitude. Why is it familiar?

It is familiar because everyone has had the thoughts that ran through Ms. Claudia Scott’s head, at least in one point in their lives. Everyone has walked the path that Ms. Claudia Scott does now, and everyone has most certainly a memory remarkably similar to the memory Ms. Claudia is having right now. Deny it all you wish, but everyone was been in Ms. Claudia’s shoes at least once, whether they remember it or not.

As of right now Ms. Claudia is a runaway, has been for at least a month now. On this day, with weather not unlike this one, Ms. Claudia had been in a relatively good mood. She had learned about Beethoven and the composition of his later works (she wished to be a professional piano player when she grew up), she had started learning about the French Revolution in History (some of the best musicians where around at this time), slept all throughout Geometry (it was all things she’d herd before), gotten an +A in German I as well as good comments from her teacher (who didn’t like anybody), had study hall during English (the teacher was suffering from a very bad hangover mixed with a cold), and did absolutely nothing in P.E. (due to weather or the teacher’s arthritis no one knows) and gotten the last piece of pizza during lunch (she had to cut a freshman but no worries, they don’t fight back).

When she had gotten home she had decided on making a cake. So she mixed the ingredients, and put the cake in the oven. She then preceded to turn on her computer and check her msn while waiting for the cake to bake. Every once in a while she’ll pause a chat to check the cake, and when the cake was finally done she took it out and made some icing to go with it. Her mother had called earlier and she had asked for some cherries in which to decorate the cake with. It then occurred to her that her niece was coming over that day, she added extra frosting. When her niece finally arrived they began to talk.

About books, TV shows, school, her other niece who, between the two of them and the two of them alone, was rather dull and stupid. (she’d end up being the child that asks whether London was in Paris or Rome…or the girl who asks whether WWI included Europe or not, or the girl who asks if Africa is a continent, or if Australia is a country, or if Germans where alcoholics, yes she’d turn out to be that girl). They what they liked best, drawing and music.

Her niece’s name was Rosemary, for the sake of being short we’ll call her Mary because Rose was the name of her sister who is rather stupid as I have already told you. Mary liked to draw, she may not have been the best at it but she loved to draw anyway. Her sketchbook was black and untitled with beautiful sheets of creamy paper, pictures of animals she created, random funny scenes, and bears littered the pages. Pencil ever moving she began to sketch the cake her aunt was baking.

Together they discussed how the cherries should be placed to make it look pretty. They laughed and licked the icing off the spoon and ate the crumbs and extra layer Claudia made. Mary turned on her iPod and put one of the buds into Claudia’s ear, saying You’ll like this song, it’s screamo, but no offense to you, it rather suits your style. Claudia had laughed then, she was probably the happiest girl in the world, but she did like it. She put the cake away to eat for later and put the left over icing (which was actually chocolate pudding) into the refrigerator to frost some other cake or to make a pie with.

They sat and talked quietly about school while Mary drew more make believe animals, and Claudia writing various musical scores that she had thought of earlier, writing and rewriting, and rewriting again the same measure to make it sound just so. The song had started out happy, cheerful in a beautiful staccato G major tone. Skipping and taking leaps and bounds across the page. A few short measures later it calmed down into a slow legato, piano…At this moment Claudia’s father came home.

For the sake of anonymity we shall call him Juhn. Juhn Scott was a smart man, he was strict, and hard, and cold, and all the things a father should not be if he wished to be a nourishing and kind parent. Juhn was not your ideal father, but the ideal teacher. Claudia learned more from Juhn about math and science than she did about life. It was her mother, who shall also be named as anonymous but for the sake of a name shall be called Eve, who taught her how to cook, sew, read, write, and do basic functions such as wash herself, style her hair, clean and bandage her own wounds, make impromptu crafts, and it was Eve who had sent her daughter to piano school, went behind Juhn ‘s back to get her a piano, and again to get her admission into a school of Music, and again once more to send her off on various musician camps.

Juhn had returned home from a rather harsh day, Claudia’s brother, who shall also remain anonymous but shall be called Boy, had given a hard time at work. Boy was an intern for him, and Boy did not like to talk to people, Boy was not social, Boy was the lone wolf.

So Juhn was very tired, and when he was told that his daughter had baked a cake for him that was all well and good. He ate the leftover shavings because the cake was to be saved for later when all where present.

Eve came shortly after this, bringing with her some cherries and cool whip for frosting. Bringing out the cake again Claudia added some little swirls of cream and added the cherries to create a ring with a small flower in the center. As Eve set about making dinner, and as Mary set the table, Claudia began to write more of her song, she had left off at the part where it was piano, it started to turn to minor, and became a tad bit slower but a tad bit louder, mezzo piano, the chords became dissonant but the overall effect would still remain calm. She then went to help Mary set the table because they ran out of plates.

As she picked up a plate it slipped from her grasp (her hand must have been a bit sweaty from clutching the pen so hard) and shattered into hundreds if not dozens of pieces onto the ground. Cue Juhn’s reappearance, who screams THAT’S MY PLATE! Why do you do this to me? Why did you do that? WHY DID YOU DO THAT? At this time Mary had thought something along the lines of this, I don’t do it on purpose, I’m sorry, it’s just a plate, and don’t you do this to me every time you take away my things behind my back and give them away without my knowledge? Why do you always blame me? Claudia could remember saying this under her breath as quietly as she could, although it was not quiet enough.

Juhn snapped, What do you mean I do this to you? What do you mean? You clumsy child… all you ever do is live on your computer, all you do is play all you do, play on the computer play on the computer, why can’t you actually do something right? Why don’t you actually do anything?

Pain, pain, pain, and more pain, stabbing her heart with every word, every word was a spear, a spear barbed with poison, poison that brought tears to her eyes and killed her just a bit more. She had bit her lip so hard that it bled then…and she yelled I DO! BUT YOU DON’T NOTICE! YOU NEVER NOTICE ANYTHING, EVER! I’M A PIANIST! I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON! I HAVE TO KNOW THE STYLES, THE COMPOSERS, THE THOUGHTS THE FEELINGS! I DON’T LIVE ON THAT COMPUTER, IT’S NOT MY FAULT! IT’S NOT MY FAULT!…

She had repeated this phrase like a mantra. This argument spanned the entire dinner, the food grew cold and Eve and Mary left the two for fear of what would happen. What would happen you ask? That one would snap of course!

And who snapped? Juhn, it was Juhn who said this line, it was Juhn who broke Claudia’s heart, it was Juhn who drove Claudia away that faithful day. It was Juhn who drove Claudia to finish that piece and leave it as a goodbye note. Before I tell you what he said, let me tell you about Claudia’s last musical work, it is a sweet little ditty, if you look at the first page. In total it spans fifteen pages, which is rather short for her, and takes on several shifts.

The first three pages are all major, they are all happy little staccato mezzo forte notes that leap across the page making you think of joy and dancing. It is at the fourth page where the tone begins to change, slipping from its tonic into C major, the left hand begins to play various C major chords, as the right begins a series of high pitched trills and decrescendos that resemble screaming. This continues for another 5 pages descending into a full minor key.

The decrescendo erupts and the silence of a short rest is broken by a shattering dissonant chord that rips the joy and serenity of the first few pages from your memory and burns them to ashes. Several fast steps and thundering chords follow until the very end which ends in a loud crashing sound that leaves the listener broken. The piece is titled, Decrescendo for the Broken Hearted, and under this is written, In response to ill mannered Juhn Scott.

Juhn Scott said, was this, You are not the child I want. And it hurt all the more because he meant it, Claudia knew, the looks he sent her niece, how interested and active he was in her life, how he knew her inside and out, if one where to look at Claudia and Juhn you’d see a student and a very strict teacher, if you where to look at Mary and Juhn, you’d see a very loving relationship between a Father and his daughter. Claudia loved her niece, but she would rather love her Father, that was something she could not do.

Long absences from home, seclusion and isolation, fights and arguments over interests, they were just to different and the damage had been done. It was too late, and that was all she needed. Claudia ran to her room.

She took her backpack and emptied it out, pencils, pens, scraps of music paper, notebooks, a book she had been reading for class, all of the things that spilled out seemed so irrelevant now.

She grabbed clothes from her closet, jeans, socks, underwear, shirts, she’d keep the jacket she had, her mp3 player, a (old school but still cool) blue sansa. She grabbed all the money she had saved up over the years and stuffed it into her wallet, grabbed her locket and her music equipment and began to write her last song. She tucked the locket under the first layer of clothes she had on. Black skinny jeans, with large bellbottoms, a fishnet shirt underneath a black leather corset with whalebone ribs. Her jacket was thick and black, with long sleeves, and a hood. The zipper was red, as was the tops of her pockets. She was wearing leather combat boots, but she put her converse in her bag just in case. She placed the song on her bed, and jumped out her window, (thankfully she was well practiced at this, sneaking off to concerts and whatnot.) and began to walk into a random direction.

The cake was left untouched.

This was 80 years ago, Ms. Claudia Scott is long dead, dead of pneumonia and starvation. Ms. Claudia never lived past another year, in fact she died about two months later in an old abandoned flat surrounded by sheets of paper. Every pen empty, every pencil worn down to the steel eraser bands which where worn flat. Every sheet had brought with her was covered in songs, and when she ran out of paper and ink, she used the blood she coughed up, to write on walls, after a biopsy it was shown that she probably had gone insane from hunger and pain.

Ms. Claudia’s works have been sold by her mother Eve, the money from that she puts into Claudia’s college fund, even though Claudia will never go to college, and when Mrs. Scott died all that money was donated to a school of music. The school has a room called the Claudia Conservatory, in which students can go to just relax and calm themselves, so that the mistakes of the past could not be repeated.

Mr. Scott had died before Mrs. Scott, he died alone, for after their daughter’s disappearance, his reluctance to search for her drove an invisible wall between them. Even on his death bed, Mr. Scott did not apologize, he did not show any sign of guilt. Mr. Scott had died of leukemia, if Claudia where still around, her blood would have matched his, which is the irony of it all.

Mrs. Eve died happy, and before she died she told Mary, (who had become an artist, due to her aunt’s death, she realized life was too short, and decided to work harder at mastering her art) that, I’m going to Claudia, I’m going to where I can hear her play her songs all the time, and never have anyone bother me about how “lazy” my daughter is, where I can finally be able to love her the way she disserved. Soon after Mary created a new set of drawings, each a symbol for her aunt, who was more of a sister to her, and her doomed life.

A picture of a raven among doves, alone and standing tall and proud, then a picture of the raven being driven away by hawks. And in the final picture the raven among a murder of blackbirds, dying, but loved at last.

But you know, her last song, the words where never set to the score. The words are the story of Ms. Claudia’s life, they are Ms. Claudia’s legacy. They are her memoir, they where never written, but perhaps you can write them yourself, because, at one point, everyone was like Ms. Claudia.