The orange afternoon glow coming through the long windows of the coffee shop reflected with the piano and the cello that were played by a woman and a man. Both were wearing casual clothes, she had a pair of jeans and a simple white blouse. He wore shorts and a blue t-shirt. Their clothing choices created the perfect juxtaposition; yet, their sweet melody filled the tables, the chairs, the waitresses, the mugs with the tranquillity that a sunny day deserves.

They came to that coffee shop every Sunday afternoon to play one of their extraordinary concertos, today they played the Sonata No. 1 by Beethoven. The rough swirling movements of the woman on the cello’s thin strings, answered by the softness of the man’s hands through each black and white key. When they played, time stopped. They played for barely two hours but in those hours the human instinct that calls for noise would seize to exist and they would have an audience of silent coffee drinkers.

The costumers at the time of the little concertos were slightly constant. There was the young girl who sat by the window and ordered a café latte, usually working on some new university work. There was the man in white who would sit right in front of the cellist and create a routine. Eyes closed, breathing steady and arms following the woman’s strong movements. Rumour has it that he was once a great musician, taken from his art by a terrible accident. There was the big woman and her small purse-size dog who always ordered a cappuccino and watched the artists play with the delighted grin of a secret pleasure being satisfied. Finally, there was the tall, dark haired man who arrived one hour before the concerto to the coffee shop, picked up his book and read until the artists came on stage and theirs was the big spotlight.

The two musicians had appeared from nowhere and everywhere. Their stories were unknown but theories regarding their past lives were as famous as their music. On the eyes of their audience they were married, they were living illegally, she was Mexican, he was French, she was Italian, he was Russian. The harshest (and most futile) conspiracies were that they were prodigies, born with the talent that no one could learn, which made them arrogant and lead them to flee from their country to this one, where they could awe speechless crowds with one single note. Nevertheless, every Sunday there was the same crowded party inside the coffee shop, waiting for the sweet melody of that oblivious couple.

Both unaware of their growing popularity, the musicians played what their hands craved to play and closed themselves in a world of equal agony and pleasure, doubt and trust. When they played, their pasts folded into one particle that was absorbed by the music they played. The world outside did not exist and once the music stopped, and the first clap came. Both opened their eyes, taking a deep breath as if it were the first one they’d ever taken, they smiled and hid the disappointment that lied behind them. They craved music as a bee might crave a flower. They despised silence as the one might despise war. Noise is life and silence is nothing. They were not married, they were not illegal, they were not prodigies but they knew the true pleasure that lied behind the empty void of the past, the present and the future. Their void was filled with music, the music that metamorphosed into the colours of time.

When the audience listened to those two musicians play, the university girl saw purple, longing for the stability those melodies gave to her, the old man saw brown, recalling his hands on a cello just as bright as the one the woman held in front of him. The big woman saw a glamorous pink as she dreamed of her ideal career as a Broadway star, the dark haired man saw blue, yarning for a future with words he thought was impossible for his reach. But the musicians, the musicians saw the pure white that painted a canvas of new beginnings and new ends, new opportunities and new failures, new certainties and new uncertainties. But most of all, they saw passion, they saw an explosion of red that made them keep going, keep playing, keep dreaming that one day their present will meet their future and take them in the adventure they hope life defines. They long for excitement, an excitement that only the empty fulfilment of music brings every Sunday morning in a silent crowded coffee shop.