prismaticbleed | chechnya, 1995 (Reply)

This is one of my all-time favorite photographs. There’s so much raw evocative humanity to it.

The concept of an abandoned piano is, in and of itself, poignant. Here is a beautiful instrument, painstakingly constructed, each wire tuned to a specific note, each key fashioned for its particular purpose… the entire object exists solely to create music. It exists to be touched. And here it is abandoned. Here it is, decomposing instead of composing, torn by cold rains and bitter winds, by insects and animals who do not understand. Here it is, dying as only an instrument can die, alone and unheard, with no soul to speak through it.

And then a man appears.

But this is no concert pianist. This is no eager schoolboy plunking through his primer books. This is no sweet reunion of creative mind and creating force. This is a man long stripped of the luxury of cultural finesse. This is a soldier, blood-spat and battle-shook, stumbling upon a foreign object, at odds with the gun strapped like a babe to his back.

And yet, he stops.

That is the moment, the prelude to this bulletless shot, that resounds as silently as distant lightning in my own heart. What did his own heart feel– what response of spirit did this relic of peace awaken in him? Did he hear the lingering notes of an old beloved tune, a reminder of happier times, a dulcet echo he had buried unknowingly? Did he remember a time when he, perhaps, had even spent joyful hours seated at similar keys? Had he perhaps loved someone else who had? How close was this wooden alien to his soul? How deep was his recognition?

Nevertheless, he stops. He approaches the pitiable thing.

And he touches the keys.

There is the moment, the golden moment, the timeless moment immortalized beyond the patina of tears for generations yet to cherish. There it is– the relaxing of posture, the weight of war falling from his shoulders and lifting up his legs as he leans into an ivory hope. He is terribly vulnerable in this moment, but the promise of music before him– music! Music, however old, however hindered, it is still music, a beauty clear undying– it is enough to soothe every fear for just a heartbeat. Just a quarter rest. Just a note.

He touches the keys.

And the piano lives again.

We cannot hear it. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps it coughed, sputtered, struggled to remember the last time it breathed, rattled, feebly offered a D instead of a C. But whatever it did, it sang. It opened its rusted mouldering heart and gave all it had left to this hesitant human, both of them staring death in the face, yet both of them brazenly (brokenly) triumphing in mutual life, cooperative beauty, transcendent purpose. Perhaps the soldier laughed. What was he thinking, expecting, dreaming– the gilded voice of a baby grand? No. He knew this poor shell-shocked creature was a mirror of himself. It was superb and unsullied, once. But now…

Now they together stand amid shattered ruins, splintered wood, fractured tin. Posts and beams and branches lay like flung bones about their feet. There is no sense or sanity in this hellscape studded by sounding sirens, by the horror-symphony of shrapnel fire and gurgling red screams. There is no loveliness here. Except…

Except even a man and a piano wrecked by war do not cease to be a man and a piano. As long as there are heart-strings to touch, they can still be touched, and there will be music.

And so there is music.

And the shutter clicks.

And the man, too, lives again, forever.