(no subject)
The class had fared well; or rather, as well as Peter can hope it to go. Not everyone can be like that space in his mind that had once been Tom Ripley to him, the man who could so easily absorb languages and information. This teaching Italian gives him a chance, at least, to preserve a part of him that hasn't even been touched since a robe's belt had touched his skin and then it had been lights out.
"Domani, imparo i colori," Peter promises his class with a smile and makes the proper translation before he dismisses the small group with a casual wave of his hand and goes about compiling papers until they are a comfortable weight within his arms; perhaps heavier than he's last recalled, but what can be done?
It is not until he arrives in the rec room to search for new books that he understands why his papers are so much heavier.
They drop to the ground, as if an avalanche of graceful, tumbling papers; softly they fall, without a sound, collecting in haphazard chaos as he stares down at what can only be seen as a terrible, terrible miracle. "My god," Peter lets the words slip breathlessly, unsure as to whether he's stuck in a waking dream or whether this has actually come to pass.
He's on his knees quickly enough to collect the papers (some thicker than others) and his fingertips trace over eighth notes, sixteenths, rests, sforzando instructions and 4/4 time. There's a thick book binding them all together and the icy certainty settles in his chest when he smells it and it smells of the ocean and of himself and of Tom, so much like the sheets upon that liner on the way to Greece. So much like and so exact, all at once.
It is the book slated to sit upon a perfectly shaped stand in front of an orchestra, waiting and willing to play these masterpieces, some old, some new. It is the concert meant for Athens.
He would never make it there and at the moment, he is barely able to make it back to his feet, so unsteady and faltering completely.
"Domani, imparo i colori," Peter promises his class with a smile and makes the proper translation before he dismisses the small group with a casual wave of his hand and goes about compiling papers until they are a comfortable weight within his arms; perhaps heavier than he's last recalled, but what can be done?
It is not until he arrives in the rec room to search for new books that he understands why his papers are so much heavier.
They drop to the ground, as if an avalanche of graceful, tumbling papers; softly they fall, without a sound, collecting in haphazard chaos as he stares down at what can only be seen as a terrible, terrible miracle. "My god," Peter lets the words slip breathlessly, unsure as to whether he's stuck in a waking dream or whether this has actually come to pass.
He's on his knees quickly enough to collect the papers (some thicker than others) and his fingertips trace over eighth notes, sixteenths, rests, sforzando instructions and 4/4 time. There's a thick book binding them all together and the icy certainty settles in his chest when he smells it and it smells of the ocean and of himself and of Tom, so much like the sheets upon that liner on the way to Greece. So much like and so exact, all at once.
It is the book slated to sit upon a perfectly shaped stand in front of an orchestra, waiting and willing to play these masterpieces, some old, some new. It is the concert meant for Athens.
He would never make it there and at the moment, he is barely able to make it back to his feet, so unsteady and faltering completely.