Original Fic
Um...well I wrote some original fiction.
Title: A Love Affair With the Piano ( Come on people, drag your minds out of the gutter.)
Summary: A boy who has always heard a piano in his head is suddenly left without its sweet tones and grows up into a boring and pathetic man. What could possibly help him?
Rating: G
As always if there are people reading this, I would love to hear from them.
He had always had music in his head. It was a comforting, constant background to the hustle and bustle of every day life. The piano inside his head would play and he would listen. The clear sound could always brighten his spirits. Then one day it just disappeared, vanished, as if it had never been.
He searched for the music that had been such a steady anthem through his childhood. Sometimes he dreamed about it, but the moment he woke up, the feeble notes he had managed to string together faded away. When he was awake, he could never remember anything at all. He had only the vague recollection that it had been there and that he was missing it. The silence left him hollow. He was a walking corpse. His soul had shriveled into a dried out blood clot. And he became as bitter as a blood orange.
Days came and went, and the years dragged on. They paraded by in a gray blur of endless monotony, the very drabness of which had a soporific effect on his personality. It became so tiring to just muddle through that he became a ghost of a person, faded into his shabby, old-fashioned wallpaper. His burden of silence deadened all life around him, shutting out the sun. He would sit and stare at the wall, knowing he had lost something, but unable to recall quite what it was he had lost. He didn’t sleep much in recent years. He was restless, a caldron of nervous energy. Across the floorboards he would pace, back and forth, back and forth-Creak, creak, creak. Every step felt like another nail in his coffin, but he couldn’t help pacing. It was a habit so ingrained he had no hope of escaping it. It was part of his day like tying his tie and brushing his teeth, a meaningless, menial chore that he had developed to fill his day. It’s an exaggeration to say that he lived; suffice it to say that he existed.
One day, as he sat at home, eating the same breakfast of dry toast and grapefruit that he had been eating for years and reading the newspaper as he always did every morning, cover to cover, he stumbled over a very small ad in the classifieds. Squeezed in between an advertisement for toothpaste and a bit about a missing dog, was a plain two line notice: “Used piano: free. See 875 Maple St.” It was practically hidden by the other garish want ads, but it caught his eye. The little blurb stood out, although, at the time, he couldn’t have said why. Maybe it was his subconscious working on over drive, or maybe it was fate. Who knows? But it popped out at him.
After breakfast he pulled on his coat and placed the ad, along with the rest of the newspaper in the recycling bin, and walked out the door. He got into his car and drove to the office and forgot all about it. But later that afternoon, as he sat at his computer, he couldn’t stop thinking about the piano. He didn’t know why; he just knew it was important. Somehow, it was important. So, after work, he went over to the little brown house on Maple St. The gingerbread house was old and tired. As he walked up the path, he began to wonder what exactly he was doing here. But, he raised a shaking hand and pressed the doorbell. For a while it seemed as if no one was coming, then a squat, little old woman opened the door.
“You’re here about the piano, “ she said. Then in a creaking, slow voice, “Come on in; it’s in the parlour.” She held open the door. The house was dark inside; all the windows were covered with heavy draperies. The house smelled musty, like old perfume and smoke. She led the way into the parlour, wherein stood an old and slightly shabby brown piano with a doily lying limply across its lid. It looked a little pathetic in the dusty gloom. He gazed at it silently for a while.
“My husband passed away and I’m moving. But I don’t have room for a piano in the apartment. Might as well give it away. It’s no use to anyone in storage.” He ran a hand along the top of the yellowed ivory keys.
“I’ll take it, “ he said quietly. When he got the piano home, he placed it in the middle of his sparsely furnished living room. He sat down at the bench and sat with his hands in his lap, just looking at it.
It wasn’t a beautiful piano. The sides were scratched and it was in need of a new coat of varnish. The keys were yellowed, but thankfully, still in tact. He placed his hands on the keys and just let them rest there, feeling the smoothness of the ivory against his fingertips, breathing in the smell of old wood and the past. He closed his eyes, reveling in the exhilaration of just sensing the piano, feeling its story.
He opened the blinds, allowing light to fall in a room that had barely seen it. He pulled out a music book for beginning piano that he had purchased on the way home. The man who had sold it to him had given him a strange look, but he didn’t care. He was going to learn. He was a little older than the average music student, but he was going to learn. And he did.
From the first halting notes he plinked out on the ancient instrument, the music ensnared him, enchanting him with the sound, its voice. Everyday he would sit and carefully pick out the notes of the music, trying to make them as perfect as his untrained fingers could make them. And everyday he got a little better. He taught himself to play little by little, day by painstaking day.
And while his playing got better, so did he. He became more alive, a three-dimensional person, no longer just a part of the wallpaper. He began to feel things again. He no longer just went through life mechanically; he lived, he breathed. His emotions came alive with every song he played, haltingly at first then more rapidly as he grasped each new musical concept. And for the first time in a long time he was almost whole.
That’s not to say he didn’t struggle; he fought to reach each new plateau. It was a constant uphill battle, but it was one he was determined to win. It was a slow, aching process, but he persevered. And he overcame.
One day, as he was sitting by the window, playing from memory, his mind wandered off, and when it returned it discovered that the fingers had a mind of their own and had continued playing of their own accord. But…wait…that wasn’t the music they had been playing before. It was different, but oddly familiar, almost as if he had heard it somewhere before, a long time ago.
His hands played faster as the music flickered between emotions, sometimes sad, sometimes not, but always with a heartfelt honesty. The innocent sincerity of the piece spoke for itself. It was life; it was an illusion; it was a child’s dream. A soul was uncovered and revealed for the world to see, complete with all its bumps and bruises, a living heart held on display, a life expressed only in sound. And for that moment, sound was all that mattered.
He closed his eyes as he carried on, not caring what was going on around him. If the world had come to an end, he wouldn’t have noticed. He’d have kept right on playing! The piano didn’t care if the world went on without it, and he was the piano. He was a part of it, just like it was a part of him, a part he had lost a very long time ago. The music slowed down and finished with a last glorious chord. He froze, and then opened his eyes. He drew in a shaky breath. He remembered.
When he headed to bed that night, he passed the piano, which, from a distance, was only a fuzzy shape in the darkness. He stood beside it and ran his hand lovingly over the old top, which he had painstakingly re-varnished. Then, on a whim, he brushed the top of the keys lightly with just the tips of his fingers in a gesture of thanks. He yawned and looked out the window at the full moon that filled the sky. He dreamed wistfully that the silvery moonlight was watching protectively over the piano, like a giant nightlight of the gods. He shook his head, laughing at himself. His mind had lost all logic, and so he went to bed, but one thought flashed through his mind, as he drifted off to sleep: Life was good. And he fell asleep smiling.
The End
Title: A Love Affair With the Piano ( Come on people, drag your minds out of the gutter.)
Summary: A boy who has always heard a piano in his head is suddenly left without its sweet tones and grows up into a boring and pathetic man. What could possibly help him?
Rating: G
As always if there are people reading this, I would love to hear from them.
He had always had music in his head. It was a comforting, constant background to the hustle and bustle of every day life. The piano inside his head would play and he would listen. The clear sound could always brighten his spirits. Then one day it just disappeared, vanished, as if it had never been.
He searched for the music that had been such a steady anthem through his childhood. Sometimes he dreamed about it, but the moment he woke up, the feeble notes he had managed to string together faded away. When he was awake, he could never remember anything at all. He had only the vague recollection that it had been there and that he was missing it. The silence left him hollow. He was a walking corpse. His soul had shriveled into a dried out blood clot. And he became as bitter as a blood orange.
Days came and went, and the years dragged on. They paraded by in a gray blur of endless monotony, the very drabness of which had a soporific effect on his personality. It became so tiring to just muddle through that he became a ghost of a person, faded into his shabby, old-fashioned wallpaper. His burden of silence deadened all life around him, shutting out the sun. He would sit and stare at the wall, knowing he had lost something, but unable to recall quite what it was he had lost. He didn’t sleep much in recent years. He was restless, a caldron of nervous energy. Across the floorboards he would pace, back and forth, back and forth-Creak, creak, creak. Every step felt like another nail in his coffin, but he couldn’t help pacing. It was a habit so ingrained he had no hope of escaping it. It was part of his day like tying his tie and brushing his teeth, a meaningless, menial chore that he had developed to fill his day. It’s an exaggeration to say that he lived; suffice it to say that he existed.
One day, as he sat at home, eating the same breakfast of dry toast and grapefruit that he had been eating for years and reading the newspaper as he always did every morning, cover to cover, he stumbled over a very small ad in the classifieds. Squeezed in between an advertisement for toothpaste and a bit about a missing dog, was a plain two line notice: “Used piano: free. See 875 Maple St.” It was practically hidden by the other garish want ads, but it caught his eye. The little blurb stood out, although, at the time, he couldn’t have said why. Maybe it was his subconscious working on over drive, or maybe it was fate. Who knows? But it popped out at him.
After breakfast he pulled on his coat and placed the ad, along with the rest of the newspaper in the recycling bin, and walked out the door. He got into his car and drove to the office and forgot all about it. But later that afternoon, as he sat at his computer, he couldn’t stop thinking about the piano. He didn’t know why; he just knew it was important. Somehow, it was important. So, after work, he went over to the little brown house on Maple St. The gingerbread house was old and tired. As he walked up the path, he began to wonder what exactly he was doing here. But, he raised a shaking hand and pressed the doorbell. For a while it seemed as if no one was coming, then a squat, little old woman opened the door.
“You’re here about the piano, “ she said. Then in a creaking, slow voice, “Come on in; it’s in the parlour.” She held open the door. The house was dark inside; all the windows were covered with heavy draperies. The house smelled musty, like old perfume and smoke. She led the way into the parlour, wherein stood an old and slightly shabby brown piano with a doily lying limply across its lid. It looked a little pathetic in the dusty gloom. He gazed at it silently for a while.
“My husband passed away and I’m moving. But I don’t have room for a piano in the apartment. Might as well give it away. It’s no use to anyone in storage.” He ran a hand along the top of the yellowed ivory keys.
“I’ll take it, “ he said quietly. When he got the piano home, he placed it in the middle of his sparsely furnished living room. He sat down at the bench and sat with his hands in his lap, just looking at it.
It wasn’t a beautiful piano. The sides were scratched and it was in need of a new coat of varnish. The keys were yellowed, but thankfully, still in tact. He placed his hands on the keys and just let them rest there, feeling the smoothness of the ivory against his fingertips, breathing in the smell of old wood and the past. He closed his eyes, reveling in the exhilaration of just sensing the piano, feeling its story.
He opened the blinds, allowing light to fall in a room that had barely seen it. He pulled out a music book for beginning piano that he had purchased on the way home. The man who had sold it to him had given him a strange look, but he didn’t care. He was going to learn. He was a little older than the average music student, but he was going to learn. And he did.
From the first halting notes he plinked out on the ancient instrument, the music ensnared him, enchanting him with the sound, its voice. Everyday he would sit and carefully pick out the notes of the music, trying to make them as perfect as his untrained fingers could make them. And everyday he got a little better. He taught himself to play little by little, day by painstaking day.
And while his playing got better, so did he. He became more alive, a three-dimensional person, no longer just a part of the wallpaper. He began to feel things again. He no longer just went through life mechanically; he lived, he breathed. His emotions came alive with every song he played, haltingly at first then more rapidly as he grasped each new musical concept. And for the first time in a long time he was almost whole.
That’s not to say he didn’t struggle; he fought to reach each new plateau. It was a constant uphill battle, but it was one he was determined to win. It was a slow, aching process, but he persevered. And he overcame.
One day, as he was sitting by the window, playing from memory, his mind wandered off, and when it returned it discovered that the fingers had a mind of their own and had continued playing of their own accord. But…wait…that wasn’t the music they had been playing before. It was different, but oddly familiar, almost as if he had heard it somewhere before, a long time ago.
His hands played faster as the music flickered between emotions, sometimes sad, sometimes not, but always with a heartfelt honesty. The innocent sincerity of the piece spoke for itself. It was life; it was an illusion; it was a child’s dream. A soul was uncovered and revealed for the world to see, complete with all its bumps and bruises, a living heart held on display, a life expressed only in sound. And for that moment, sound was all that mattered.
He closed his eyes as he carried on, not caring what was going on around him. If the world had come to an end, he wouldn’t have noticed. He’d have kept right on playing! The piano didn’t care if the world went on without it, and he was the piano. He was a part of it, just like it was a part of him, a part he had lost a very long time ago. The music slowed down and finished with a last glorious chord. He froze, and then opened his eyes. He drew in a shaky breath. He remembered.
When he headed to bed that night, he passed the piano, which, from a distance, was only a fuzzy shape in the darkness. He stood beside it and ran his hand lovingly over the old top, which he had painstakingly re-varnished. Then, on a whim, he brushed the top of the keys lightly with just the tips of his fingers in a gesture of thanks. He yawned and looked out the window at the full moon that filled the sky. He dreamed wistfully that the silvery moonlight was watching protectively over the piano, like a giant nightlight of the gods. He shook his head, laughing at himself. His mind had lost all logic, and so he went to bed, but one thought flashed through his mind, as he drifted off to sleep: Life was good. And he fell asleep smiling.
The End