I came home to find my Jazz band gone and my cat singing the blues

The snow had settled like a thick blanket of white silk as I crept through the streets of the city that I called home. The eternal metropolis. A place where the sounds of music never ceased. I had been to another city. A place that called itself the “Manchester of the Jazz scene” but it was nothing in comparison to this place. The musicians that wandered the streets and plucked the strings of their instruments in those other cities were but students of the master musicians who ruled here. <br><br>I always walked at night. Jazz was the soundtrack to my wanderings. Lured by the sounds of someone blowing into a saxophone or hitting the keys of a piano, I would chase the sound to the next venue and the next, sometimes moving from one to another in such quick succession that I felt as though I was chasing the bands themselves, trying to keep up with the ever shifting sounds and moods of the city. <br><br>It was a method lives by. A man who had no cares other than the next note, the next chord, the next beat. The city was our university and he was my self appointed professor. He would always tell me that the music in the city was a living breathing thing. That you could feel it’s pulse by listening to the sounds of the city and that you could only know it’s soul by listening to the music itself. <br><br>I had disproven this theory some years ago.I could feel the music’s pulse, it was the only sound that echoed through the empty streets now but it’s soul was gone. The musicians were all gone. The streets were empty. I was the only one left to listen to the sounds of the city and they were all dead now. <br><br>That was why I spent most of my time with my professor, who had taken up the mantle of the city. He was in every city, in every venue, with every band. He would watch over the city when I wasn’t there, keep the music alive with the bands of other places. <br><br>But every so often he would come back here. Back to this place and back to me. Looking for something that we couldn’t find anywhere else. Looking for something that we couldn’t find here anymore. <br><br>But we looked anyway. <br><br>I walked into the apartment.I had lived here for as long as I could remember. First with my parents and then alone. It was in the heart of the jazz district and I could wake up every morning to the sound of Trombones blaring on the street corner. <br><br>I had always loved music, but I had never been a musician. Like so many others in the city I had spent countless hours listening to the sounds of my city and trying to play the sounds that I heard, but there was no music in my fingers. No matter how much I practiced it always sounded cold and dead. So I shifted my attention to those who played the instruments that I could not. I set out to learn everything I could about the living thing that was the music of the city. <br><br>It didn’t take me long to find my professor. He was in a small club, tucked away in a back alley. The rich sounds of the city filled the air and the band was playing as though they were angels. Professor was sitting at the bar, sipping on a bottle of bourbon and tapping his foot to the beat. He was a tall thin man, with slicked back black hair and a scruffy beard. He had Jazz in his bones and his bright blue eyes sparkled like the stars as he watched the band. <br><br>He took me under his wing and I followed him through the city, listening as he spoke and learning as he taught. I became a part of the music. Not as a player but as a listener. I could feel the pulse of the music. I could feel it’s soul. I knew it better than anyone else, even my professor. <br><br>But now it was gone. The music was still there, it still pulsed through the streets but the soul was gone. The musicians had left. The city had lives on but the music had died. <br><br>I walked through the silent rooms. The piano was still sitting in the living room, but without anyone to play it was nothing more than a piece of furniture. It didn’t even call to me now. I didn’t have the urge to sit down and try to play. I had long since given up trying. <br><br>I dropped down onto the couch, next to a black cat with bright blue eyes. He was licking his paws, cleaning himself as cats often did. He was a stray that I had picked up, he reminded me of my professor and so I had named him after a song the professor had once taught me. <br><br>“Hey Naima.” I said, scratching behind the cat’s ears. “I’m home.”<br><br>The cat meowed and I sighed, letting my head fall against the back of the couch. “I know boy.” I said. “It’s dead.”<br><br>The cat didn’t respond. Instead he stood up, stretched and began to walk across the coffee table.<br><br>“What are you doing Naima?” I asked.<br><br>He didn’t answer of course. Instead he jumped onto the piano keys and sat back onto his haunches. <br><br>“Well if you want to play so badly, go ahead. You know you’re not very good.”<br><br>Naima gave a little meow and stretched, clearing his throat. Then he began to sing.<br><br>If he were a man, he would still be in his teens and I was sure that he would be a bad singer. But as a cat, he was perfect. He had the blues down pat. Singing to the city, telling it to come back to life. Telling it that he knew that it was just sleeping and that he wanted to hear it’s music once again. <br><br>I listened, dumbfounded. I had never heard of an animal with perfect pitch before, let alone the ability to make the same comparison that I had between the city and the music that lived in it. <br><br>He finished his song and I applauded for him, whistling and cheering. “Well done Naima!”<br><br>The cat stretched out his long black body and stepped down from the piano. He gave a little bow to the audience and then hopped up onto my lap. I stroked his fur and smiled down at him. “Well done.”<br><br>But then the sound of music caught my ear. It was faint and came from a Jazz bar on the other side of town. I heard the smashing of the drums and the wail of the saxophone. It was the sounds of the city, it was the music I loved so much. <br><br>“Naima.” I stood up. “Do you hear that?”<br><br>Naima looked up at me, his bright blue eyes sparkling with a hint of mischief. <br><br>We both crept towards the door, like thieves sneaking up on their mark. I grabbed my coat and opened the door, revealing a night sky that was filled with stars and bright moonlight. <br><br>The snow had melted while I was away. <br><br>I looked down at Naima, who was watching me with his strange little eyes and I smiled. “Let’s go Jazz boy.”<br><br>With that we set out across the city. Chasing the sounds of the city. Chasing the Jazz. <br><br>Following Naima through the streets, moving from one venue to the next, listening to the music of the city I had the feeling that I was chasing something I couldn’t catch, but I really didn’t care. The music was alive again in the city. The pulse was beating as strong as ever. <br><br>And even though I had never been much of a musician, with Naima by my side and the music of the city as my soundtrack, I would follow the sounds of the city forever.