He didn't know how to play the piano.
He was just babysitting a cat. That's all. His friend at work was cruising with her sister on the Mediterranean. She had plants in the apartment too, so he watered them. She didn't ask him to, but they needed it, and the cat liked to watch him.
He didn't know how to play the piano, but she obviously did. Not just because of the baby grand piano where he now sat. She told him once, and she not only played, but studied in college. He sifted through the sheet music. Chopin. Beethoven. The black storm of notes and markings were incomprehensible. It was nothing he could ever hope to master.
Still, he opened the cover and exposed all the keys.
The cat watched from the back of a high, leather chair. It had eyes like an owl. They blinked slowly at him.
He sounded a note.
It resonated in the wood floor. The wall. It wandered the room like a living thing. He let the key go, and it silenced.
He stared at the collection of white and black patterns. Not quite so incomprehensible as the written music.
He played another note. Then, joined it with a second and third. He sensed how they intertwined and became something larger. He could hear the adding and subtracting sound waves. Their interrelationship.
He played more. He let the sounds happen on their own. He felt notes yearn to join, or slip away. His fingers just obliged them.
He played more. His hand began to feel wholly apart from his ears and consciousness. He was the listener as much as the player. Maybe more.
The sounds grew huge, with their own booming voice and melodic lines. It seemed like a composition, but far beyond him. It felt like it could move the furniture, paint the walls, rearrange the pictures on the walls. It could tear down the apartment and rebuild it near a pounding ocean or under a moonlit sky. It could--
He heard her voice behind him.
She had been expected a bit later.
The music trickled away like the aftermath of rain. The clock ticked. His hands rested on his lap.
"Oh my God," she said. "That was stunning!"
"Sorry."
"I've never heard that before. Nothing even like it. Who's the composer?"
He felt fogged, like waking up from a heavy dream.
"You never told me you could play," she said.
He shook his head and sighed. "I can't."
9 comments:
huh, that was nice!
to be honest, i expected the cat to take more part in the story! ;)
Our talent lies well beyond the range of the conscious mind. One never knows until one tries ...
So well done - it played to me! The piano, something I wish I could play - do you?
i love playing the piano.
Szelsofa, yeah, it's not fair to drop a cat in there and leave it hanging!
Jackie, very true. And even beyond that, it takes something to realize it and accept it.
Lee, I wouldn't want to over-emphasize my piano skills. ;) I do have a project that I need to finish that will be something I worked on a long time. It will be a video story to an audio track of me playing the 1st Movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. I'm probably better at the bagpipes. I have a video up to a bagpipe track. The Laurel Hill Cemetery tour.
Fred, it's quite a sensation to have the playing extend beyond you. That's one of the things I wanted to try to portray here.
J, What can't you do? How do I access the video?
I really enjoyed this. Found myself pulling my laptop closer as he began to play. :)
Lee, you really gave me a smile. :) If only I really do anything.... There is a link to "Clarity of Night Movies" on the sidebar on the right. They are on Youtube under jasonevans3. The Laurel Hill Cemetery video and Shores of Spring both have me on the bagpipes (Shuttle pipes, actually. A quieter, indoor version. But I have normal bagpipes too). Some other things are there too. Some Irish Low Whistle and a bad piano composition.
Margaret, how cool is that!? I love that reaction!
I could hear the music. I thought I had commented before. But me being me...
Beautifully written :)
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