Burton

I swear this isn't fiction.

Last weekend, I became acquainted with a bug by the name of Burton. (I've attempted to do research to figure out what kind of bug Burton is/was, but every time I look at pictures I almost have another panic attack, so I figured I should stop doing that.)

Burton was named by an oboist colleague of mine who was playing a gig with me. (The gig was an opera, Patience & Sarah, based on the cult novel about lesbians who actually get a happy ending!) Apparently Burton also hung out on the oboist's stand for a little while, until they started jerking around and the oboist decided that they were no longer friends. I'm not sure if this was before or after my encounter with Burton.

We were in act 2, where Sarah is on the road with the peddler Parson Peel (and he thinks she's a boy named Sam), when Burton first made themself known to me by crawling on my music stand, around the base of the stand light. I was immediately a little nervous, but I figured that they'd just stay there for a while and then crawl away. I have yet to figure out if they flew or fell, but somehow they travelled from the top of my stand down to the G string of my cello, just above the end of the fingerboard. This was a problem. A big problem.

As I continued to play (because you don't just stop playing, get a piece of paper, and carefully lift the bug off your cello when you're in the middle of act 2 of an opera), I noticed that whenever Burton felt the G string vibrate (which it would do pretty much whenever I played a note on it), they would move a tiny bit up the fingerboard. This was a bigger problem; I began improvising fingerings to avoid the G string at all cost. By this point I was definitely crying (silently, of course), and hyperventilating a little, and I don't think I was making much sound at all -- which, really, is fine in an opera.

After a little while more of this (no more than two scenes), Burton decided that it was time for them to explore other areas of my cello. They crawled down to the bridge, which vibrates whenever I play, so they were almost constantly moving. Still, I could breathe a little better. I think it was around this time that I sniffled a little; if the conductor hadn't noticed my plight yet, she definitely did then.

Burton soon tired of the bridge, and began crawling up the C string. The issue with this was that they were right where my bow was meant to go. I hyperventilated for a few seconds, suspended in time and space, and then made the decision to use the tip of my bow to essentially throw Burton away from my cello. Once they were gone, I began to play as usual, except that I was still shaking a little. It took me the rest of the opera, the trip home, a good cry, a drink, a night's sleep, and the addition of rubbing alcohol to my shopping list to feel somewhat safe again.

The oboist said that Burton probably visited me because my cello looked like a tree; I had never regretted choosing the cello until that instant.