Sitting on the toilet seat’s cover, Hilton Hirschstein thinks over his symphony, tapping his foot. He hears the conversations outside from the old folks. What is taking him so long? He remembers those conversations. It was at the music academy. His father, no, his father’s chauffeur was sitting in the driver’s seat with his father waiting in passenger. The engine ignited when a little Hilton sat down. The ride was long and quiet, it’d be an hour until they’d return home. Robert Hirschstein sat down, brushing his mustache, legs crossed with a large newspaper opened wide. Halfway there, the young Hilton lamented the trip. 

“Hilton,” The chauffeur said. “How was the music academy today?”

“Good.” Hilton briefly responded.

“How so?”

“It went well.”

“What did you do?”

“We studied more music notes.” Hilton less briefly responded.

“Was it hard? Did you enjoy it?”

“It wasn’t too hard, it’s like learning the alphabets but with new letters. I like the classes. They’re very interesting.”

“Is it really? Glad to hear that. Y’know, they say music is like a language.”

“How so?” asked the Hilton who now was asking the questions. There were so many words in the air that the young Hilton didn’t know how to inform: unable to portray facts, forced to make facts. The remaining thirty minutes were equivalent to a cartoon episode: too short. A talkative Hilton stepped out of the car with a brief, concise Robert.

“I really liked the music academy!” said Hilton. “I wish I could stay and learn more. I want to learn more about all of music’s alphabets! I can’t wait for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!”

“Would that not interfere with your studies?” Robert Hirschstein responded.

“Yes, but I really like learning about the keys on a piano and the strings on a violin. They are two different instruments yet are able to make the same notes!”

“And so?”

“The piano is…with keys and the violin uses string. Isn’t it amazing that they can both make music?”

“They’re instruments, they make music.”

“Yes, but…they make music using different things.”

“And so?”

“They’re…interesting.”

The father reopened his newspaper as he walked back into the house, sliding his index finger to the edges of the paper. His son reopened his violin case, sliding his fingers down the smooth, curvy wedges of his violin. He hovered the palm of his hand over the strings to let his fingers rest on the satisfyingly sharp lines before his father’s lecture on causes of death. 

At a party, the young Hilton played Bach Chaconne on his violin. A crowd of doctors and officials dropped wrapped boxes at his feet, staring at the brilliantly minded, Dr. Robert Hirschstein. Despite Hilton being on stage, with light set on him, Dr. Robert Hirschstein was a star—and Hilton was just his son—not the sun which the world revolved around even for a day. He began playing with straight posture, accuracy, and precision. He played and he played and he played and he played and he played and he played and he played and no one heard. He played harder. The violin’s strings are pressed upon an irregularly bowing bow. He played faster. The tempo matched his heart. He played worse and worse and worse, making his violin speak notes untrue to the paper to make up for his heart. He moves in what has been in the past unnecessary ways of jolting his body to and fro—head no longer on rest. Finally he captures the ears of others, who comment to his father, “your son is marvelous with the violin.” The sheer loudness and speed of the violin was what caught his audience’s attention; never the notes nor pauses. Hilton smiled to himself. 

Later on after candles were briefly blown, Hilton returned to play piano. He began to play with straight posture, accuracy, and precision. He played and again, no one heard. He looked away from the music notes. His fingers slyly play the same tune over and over again, screeching with deceitful error. He pressed hard on the notes and played with haste. He moved his body to and fro, curving his back with each exaggerated note he played. He would then receive an encore.

A few adults approached him with questions. How long do you study?

“Ten hours a day,” the young Hilton responded.

“Ten hours? That’s amazing!”

Hilton’s father raised his eyebrow for a moment before returning to the conversation he had attended.

“Yes,” his father clearly said to his comrades. “I homeschool the boy eight hours a day.”

He walked away, darting his eyes at his son before entering the other room. Hilton had heard him say this, unhindered. He kept speaking his narrative, he was the character of a fictional story. 

In the bathroom, Dr. Hirschstein is studying himself in the mirror beneath a spot’s light. He is no amateur musician that spouted blatant lies in coherence to the musical notes; he is brief and concise: a maestro, a composer.

Out the bathroom doors is his ninth symphony. Amazed were the old chap’s not expecting the appearance of the Amazing, Dr. Hilton Hirschstein. 

“Say, I believe I recognize you,” says an old man in awe. “Aren’t you not Dr. Hirschstein?”

“Why yes,” responds Dr. Hirschstein. “I am Dr. Hirschstein.”

The old men glamors over the celebrity. Not only has The Great Doctor Hirschstein been highly known in the medical field, he is also “a bit” of a celebrity due to some of his publicized  accomplishments. Dr. Hirschstein once saved a firefighter who had an entire wooden plank impaled through the right side of his stomach. The doctor also helped famous stunt performer, Tom Ryder, recover from falling a hundred feet from the ground and helped him learn how to walk again. Most recently, Dr. Hirschstein was able to fix the face of an army veteran, whose lower jaw was blown to pieces in the line of duty. The veteran came out of Dr. Hirschstein’s office with a complete jaw and was 15 years younger visually, mentally, and physically.

“It must be tremendously difficult being the best surgeon there is,” says an old man.

“It is, it is,” says Dr. Hirschstein, before smiling and making a cunning remark about how “it’s not as bad when “the nurses are by your side.”

The old men wheezes to this, it may have reminded them of an earlier time, riding in their Aston Martins or Ferrari 250 GTO’s, chasing women—every old man except Mr. Bour of course—he is (surprisingly) a man of god (maybe an equivalent to Judas to god).