March 1, 2010
She squeezes her eyes shut, filling her lungs with air and slowly allowing them to empty through her lips again. Her hands are poised imperfectly on the keys of the piano before her. She is longing to go back, back to when she was a little girl, when striking the keys in random patterns – now one alone, now four at a time – seemed to generate music. It was before she knew the rules; before she knew the names of the notes, the meaning of timing… before the magic was lost.
Slowly she presses with her fingertips: a black key, a white key. She tries to forget which notes they are, forget the meanings of flat and sharp, forget the meaning of rhythm. Black and white, like the ink on the pages of every journal; every tear soaked or joy drenched heart cry she has recorded. Black and white like the pictures hanging on her wall; faces of those to whom her heart belongs, spread out and scattered, many far away, some nearby. Black and white like the clock behind her; ticking away every second of her life, condemning each new moment to fade into the past. Black and white like her life; so dark that she never sees what lies next around the corner, yet so pure and unblemished the possibilities laid before her when she chooses to embrace them.
She is so caught up in her own thoughts now she hardly feels the tears; emotion streaking black down pale cheeks. She has become that little girl again, lost in a moment – a messy collision of wrong notes and rhythms, colored only by a cracking voice, declaring brave things into the surrounding gloom.
This is her love song.
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