Fog Song

Medium: Ink and graphite on Arches paper, mounted to birch panel, varnished

Dimensions: 8" x 8"

Long Island, New York

The Story:
He didn't know where the sweet melody was coming from. It traveled like moonlight, gently cutting through the air, the water, and reaching him with its soft and sweet call. He would always try to follow it, but the ocean gave the sound a circular effect that would disorient him just as he thought he was getting close to its origin. On the few times that he was able to fight through this disorientation, the sound would stop before he could find the source.
There was something familiar in the sound, a sweet sadness that would always creep up on him as he began to sway with the slow rhythm. It reminded him that he was alone, and how he didn’t want to be. It reminded him of his loneliness, while also making him want to embrace and converse for hours with the creator of the melancholic tune. He had heard the rumors of the siren songs, yet somehow he felt that this was not a song created by a siren. He felt this was purely human. He always watched them from afar; learning about their curious ways intrigued him. After almost 40 years of flying over them, he knew enough to know that only a human could spend so much time pouring their emotions into their craft, their music, their art.
He began to recognize the pattern accidentally one night. He noticed that the closest he ever came to tracing the origin of the sound was when the fog was at its thickest and he could barely see. He always flew over the sea, thinking that the sound came from a lost ship off shore. But as he drew closer and the disorientation set in, he would recognize that his effort to trace the sound was useless, and would instead just glide to the sweet song while enjoying the feeling of the music. He flew into the melodic fog as he embraced the music, and soon enough he realized how loud the sound was. Just as he did, the sound stopped. The only thing of note was that he seemed to have flown into a section of fog with a shimmering effect. The moon playing its tricks, he assumed.
The next time he found himself in the fog, it happened again. Only this time, when he realized that the fog was twinkling like stars all around him, he flew faster. He was flying faster than ever before, the shimmering and music both becoming stronger with each passing second, a moment in time that felt surreal. And then he saw it, he saw her, standing tall and proud and battered. A lighthouse, a beacon that threw not only light into the dark night but raw human emotion in the form of song. He glided to the top and perched next to a small window, its dim light almost lost in the glow from the powerful fresnel lens above. He closed his eyes, bathing in the sound and the warm light all around him. He only opened his eyes as the music stopped playing, and he heard the window open. She looked up at him, startled, but as they locked eyes she smiled with the wisdom of someone who knows a kindred spirit upon meeting them. So she sat back down at the old weathered piano, and played for him. She now had her audience, a purpose and a reason to keep going, and he had a newfound friend to cure his loneliness.
They went on needing the other’s life-filled presence. She played, he danced. The music sounded different now, yet neither seemed to notice.