The first time I played the cello again in years

I found it in the back of the closet yesterday, dust on the strings like old memory. My hands trembled when I tuned it—fingers that once held scalpels now fumbled with pegs. Played a single note from 'Ave Maria' and stopped. The sound hung in the air like something unfinished. I didn’t finish the piece. But I sat there, listening to the echo, and for the first time in a decade, I felt my hands remember how to hold something soft.