Winterreise

Winterreise

In the wintry depths of her fifty-third year, her aunt, a distinguished professor by day and a clandestine musician by night, exhibited peculiarities that unsettled those around her. Beneath the cloak of darkness, she would serenade the moon, her haunting melodies drifting through the stillness, captivating the ears of unsuspecting neighbors.

One summer eve, upon returning home late, having traversed two wearying bus rides due to a missed university transport and the departure of her colleagues, she displayed a disquieting demeanor. Her actions, aberrant and enigmatic, prompted her family to escort her to the hospital in the dead of night. There, the attending physician administered remedies, yet the ailment persisted.

News arrived via telegram, bearing the somber tidings of her dear comrade's renal failure and the necessity of dialysis. This added burden weighed heavily upon her troubled mind.

Ultimately, after recurrent bouts of affliction, a diagnosis emerged: severe manifestations of Frontotemporal Dementia. Gradually, the malady insidiously stripped away facets of her being, transforming her from a luminary of intellect and melody to a mere shadow of herself, lost amidst the labyrinth of fading memories and altered comportment.

Aunt had a grand piano in the inner room of her house. It was a big mans made by her father and presented to her because she was not married and her father thought much of her lonely future. She played Winterreise, (the winter journey ) composed in 1827 by Austrian maestro Franz Schubert. Instead of the male voice she sang it in her shrill female voice… Her life was also a torment of memories, dreams, and pain.That agony of mixed chords .. Likewise, she took out a solo jaunt to Ranikhet mountains and stayed in a hotel room. She had taken a card in her middle age which enabled her to access a chain of hostels around the globe at subsidized rates …This possibly reduced the tensions of loneliness ,nevertheless she had a habit of making casual friends on her trips, particularly students. She learnt painting, a couple of years before her passing.She limned pictures of pines in the backdrop of snow , like the tresses of a woman’s hair.Some pictures of white tailed deer,the weasel changing its colour that made it camouflaged into white, seeking prey.Grouses, snow drift birds, predatory hawks,the ruffed grouse that kept a little secret in its toes,Alpine skiing and caliginous nights…… But towards the end, her aunt had severe memory issues and she died at 68 not bedridden,but due to a tram accident..The interesting part is that it was the same spot where poet Jibanananda Das, the famous Bengali poet met with a similar doom in 1954..….. –(From a work of Fiction in progress)