Tentatively, he lifted the piano lid to reveal the light yellow keys beneath. The piano had not been used for so long that he had to be careful so as to avoid getting dust on his hands. He had been forced to practice piano as a child, so he never enjoyed being around the instrument. His wife liked it when he played, though, and occasionally, on their anniversary, he would play her favorite song - the first movement of “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven. As he recalled the tender smile that would appear on her face when she listened to him play, he couldn’t help but smile himself.

It has been three months since he last saw his wife, a nurse working in one of the hospitals most crowded by COVID-19 patients; she worked from dawn to dusk, with little time for even a phone call. When she left during the peak in cases, voluntarily traveling to another city so that more lives could be saved, they had made a promise that they would stay in touch. Every night, he would worry about her condition. He was prepared for the worst - if she contracted the virus herself, he may never see her again. During one of her rare breaks, his wife would video call him and assure him that everything was going well. But he was not blind, nor deaf. He could see the dark circles underneath her eyes from lack of sleep; the red marks that ran across her cheeks from the masks that had to be worn 24/7; and the dull color of her once lively eyes, which had become ambivalent to the death surrounding her. He could hear the loud beeping of countless machines, marking the end of someone’s life; the desperate cries of patients overfilling the waiting room, pleading to be treated; and the hushed voices of doctors and nurses at their breaking point, trying to provide as much comfort as possible. 

In their last call, she had made a special request. “Every night at 7:00 PM, play a song. Don’t just do it for me; do it for the selfless frontline workers; do it for the millions of patients who are suffering or have died; do it for their family and friends, some of whom did not have the chance to say goodbye to their loved one’s.” Now, he gazed at the clock hanging above the piano - two minutes. He thought carefully about what to play. It had nearly been a year since he last touched the keys. 

Time was running out. The clock struck 7:00 PM. In a panic, he let his fingers guide him into the only song he remembered - his wife’s favorite song. At first, the sound was muffled and he made several mistakes, but after a while, his fingers rediscovered their familiarity with the piano. The alluring tune of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” wafted through the open windows. 

Across the road, an elderly woman sat on her deck, with a pair of knitting needles in her hands. As the music filled her ears, she looked around and tried to find where it was coming from. Her attempts proved futile, and she settled back into her rocking chair with a sigh. She tapped her wrinkled fingers to the rhythm of the music, subconsciously falling into adjudicating, a habit she had developed from twenty years of teaching violin. After a few minutes, the song came to an end, and the elderly woman went into her house. 

That night, her recurring nightmare returned. She was laying on a white hospital bed, gasping for air. A ventilator whirred by her side, as her eyelids languidly fluttered open and closed. She felt as if a heavy stone was pressing against her chest. Sweat clung uncomfortably to her arms and legs. She could feel her body getting hotter. Every part of her hurt. Where was she? Who was she? Just before her eyelids shut again, she looked towards the empty glass window in the front of the hospital room. Where were her children and grandchildren? Where were her friends? Was she going to leave this earth alone? 

The elderly woman jerked awake. Frantic thoughts were still running through her mind. She had been one of the lucky survivors of COVID-19, but the nightmares remained. Opening her closet door, she took out her violin and sheets of classical music. She found the one that read “Moonlight Sonata”. The next evening, at 7:00 PM, the charming sound of a violin joined the piano.

Four blocks away, a Chinese student heard the music. Stepping away from his homework, he leaned against his window and closed his eyes. He recalled the first time that he heard this tune. It was during a party while playing truth or dare, when his friend Liam had been dared to play a song on the piano. That song had made the student fall in love with music, something he had never even considered before. When he entered high school, he joined the school band and learned how to play the trumpet. Suddenly, he frowned, as he remembered how Liam had treated him. After the news of COVID-19 spread, Liam started hanging out with another group of friends. Together, they called him racial slurs, blocked him on social media, and gossiped about him behind his back. Once, during lunch, they even took the dumplings that his mother had taken hours to prepare and threw them at him. No other students stood up for him; they all wanted to avoid anything that had to do with China. Even other Chinese students began slandering their native country to avoid the bullying. The only place where he could find comfort was in music - something, ironically, that Liam had introduced to him.

The following Monday, he approached the band teacher after class and asked if he had sheet music for “Moonlight Sonata”. His teacher only came up with sheet music for the piano. 

“If you wait until tomorrow, I can try to find a trumpet version,” his teacher told him. 

“No worries, just give me this copy.”

When he returned home, the student sat at his desk and began transposing the sheet music for the trumpet. He deleted or added notes and rests on instinct. That night, at 7:00 PM, a trumpet joined the piano and violin.

A few houses down the street, at the dinner table, a single mother and her three young children listened to the spellbinding music. When her children were full, their mother told them to play in the living room. After they had left, she ate their meager leftovers. Money was so tight nowadays that there wasn’t always enough food for her. She no longer had any income after leaving her job at the local grocery store to take care of her children. There was no choice - COVID-19 guidelines had closed down all preschools and daycares. To make matters worse, as an immigrant residing in Canada, she was worried day and night for her loved ones back in Brazil, where COVID-19 was becoming a severe concern. A couple of days ago, her father passed away due to the virus, sending her entire family into distress. In the last moments of his life, she had been helplessly separated from him, not even able to return for his funeral. 

The music had a calming effect on her - bringing her back to the days before quarantine. It had been so long since she had felt this relaxed at the dinner table. An unexpected curiosity hit her, and she searched online for the music for “Moonlight Sonata” and printed the sheets. Picking up the flute that she played when the children were going to bed, she quietly practiced the song a few times. 

The following evening, she gathered her children beside an open window and prepared to play the flute. When her oldest child noticed what she was doing, he ran into his room and returned with three musical triangles, distributing them among his siblings. At 7:00 PM, the mother and her children all joined in the playing.

Over time, many others added their own instruments to the community orchestra. The sound of music traveled from household to household, street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood. Each player had their own troubles and concerns, but everyone found comfort in the few minutes after 7:00 PM, when the “Moonlight Sonata” wiped away their worries. Above all, the song gave them hope - hope that everything will soon be okay. None of the players ever met each other, but somehow, that only made their connection stronger. Perhaps, in the future, they might bump into one another, not knowing that the supposed “stranger” before them had contributed to their happiness when they most needed it.

Maybe that is the magic of a community. Even at a time when we are most separated, our hearts remain connected, and our hands play to the same rhythm of the same song.