Notes

Some are born great, others have greatness thrust upon them. It's unclear which of these applied to Emily. All that anyone knew was the music. Anyone but Stan. This is their story.

“Notes”

By Camran Bastien

There’s something about the piano. Isn’t there? The sweet, emotional song it sings as each key is pressed, releasing any number of energies out into the world. The piano creates music, and music can change the world, because music can change people. At least, that’s how Emily used to describe it.

She’d never been one of those females who was obsessed with romance, yet she was constantly in love. Not with any humans, of course, but with her piano. She never bothered to name it as many musicians do. She received it on her fourth birthday from her uncle, and from then on it was her most prized possession. Nothing, not toys or money or even sleep as others would later speculate, was more valuable in her eyes.

I was her friend since age three, as our mothers had worked at the same school for a few years and hit it off immediately in the teacher’s lounge. I was there on her birthday when she first laid eyes on that piano. Her face lit up like an adult’s does when they find money on the ground, or how a baby’s does when it’s tickled. In all honesty, those are both weak analogies in trying to describe what it was really like, because what it was really like is nearly indescribable. It was like something came alive in her that day, and since that day it seemed destined to never die or fade.

She took to the instrument like a bird to flying. Slowly, and cautiously (in order to become the master, of course). Other kids were afraid of leaving their mothers to go to preschool, whereas Emily was afraid of playing anything that didn’t sound like a song. She never hit random keys; each note was carefully planned in order to sound pleasant, and eventually as she grew older, beautiful. She demanded complete silence anytime she played, saying that she needed to concentrate to really ‘feel’ the notes.

I remember being there as she learned to play sheet music. At first the notes sounded unsteady, like a toddler’s first steps. Within a week, though, she could play Fur Elise better than most adults that I know. She and I remained friends, gradually becoming closer, mostly because I was the only one who never grew tired of hearing her melodies sing. I was always there to lend an ear, and relentlessly give my approval when she was finished. While I enjoyed being noisy usually, her music left me in such earth-shattering awe that I could not bring myself to utter any noise. Only when the sonorous rings ceased and I was snapped out of my trance was I able to speak, and even then all I was capable of was trying to gush out the intense feelings of appreciation I had for the miracle I had just heard.

Then came the time she decided to write her first song. It was for the school talent show, and not even I was allowed to hear it. She’d lock herself in her room for hours, writing and practicing, and then rewriting. I had to sneak into her school on Talent Night just to hear it. And that night, make no mistake, lives were changed.

It started off normally. The applause for the last act (a boy juggling), followed by the cheeky voice of the announcer. The formalities of Emily’s name and act were given, and then things really began to happen. There was a shift in the room as soon as she walked on stage. Her simple white dress swayed slightly as she walked up to the piano, and suddenly the room was tense as a wire. The hairs on the back of my neck stood, and it seemed that everyone in the room had silently agreed to hold their breath. And when that first note rang out, it was as though all heaven had broken loose, and our ears had been kissed by God.

The song seemed endless. It was, by any standards, perfection. The entire crowd sat fixated, and I personally felt the way the notes manipulated my soul, making me feel anything from the euphoria one gets when they’re in love to the deep depression of a family member dying. The entire song was like that, an endless wave of powerful emotions and intimate notes.

After eons, the last note cried out, and all was silent. Emily looked up at the crowd, and the reaction was immediate. At first all you could hear was the sound of thunderous applause, but it was soon accompanied by loud sobs and laughs, as they tried to let out emotions that were too awesome to understand.

I was personally shaken, literally. I trembled as I tried to make sense of what I had just heard. Eventually I grew lightheaded and passed out. I would later find out that she’d literally been a showstopper. No other acts desired to go after her performance. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyways. She won first place, and upon seeing the medal her face lit up once again as it had when she first saw the piano.

As she grew up, she performed more and more often, and achieved fame by the time she was sixteen. Some compared her to Beethoven or Mozart, but most agreed she far exceeded both. While many colleges offered her scholarships, her music demolished any need for extra education. She had more cash than she knew what to do with, and the day she turned 18 it was all hers to spend. She bought a simple house, and I, having always been her listening ear, moved in with her. Lives have a way of changing  however, and once again hers did.

It got to the point where she couldn’t walk down the street without someone recognizing her. She left the house less and less, and began taking me with her the few times she did leave for protection. I quickly learned to ward off the strangers that attempted to surround her, and she would always privately tell me how proud she was of me for it. I gained a reputation for being a bit of a nutjob because of how protective I was, but it was alright. As long as my lady was safe, I could take any reputation that came with it.

Safe is a bit of an inaccurate word. She was safe from her many fans, yes, but I often wonder if she was ever truly safe from herself, or even her music. She arranged less concerts over time, and began to make all shows private, meaning I would be her only audience. She would play for hours, the notes full of the same power as that first show, and I occasionally even had to leave the room. I didn’t notice the small changes at first. A slightly slow note here, an extra one there. Yet as time went on, it became more apparent. The emotion in the music became less intense. I no longer had to leave the room. Then notes began to go missing. She would pound at the keys much harder than before, and sometimes became so frustrated that she’d begin sobbing. I did my best to comfort her, but she was overwhelmingly disconsolate. She would bury her head into my shoulder as I nuzzled her, and she would whisper loudly in the way only a suffering person can, saying “I can’t hear it, Stan. I can’t hear it.”

After a year of this, she finally  began to calm down. By then her notes were nothing but discordant randomness. Yet she would still play, hour after hour. It became the only thing she did between eating and sleeping. Her face was one of serenity as she hit the keys, blankly staring ahead rather than at the piano itself. She gave up eating first. She would play until exhaustion, often sleeping right  there among the keys, resuming a few brief seconds after awakening. It was also at this point that I became invisible. Try as I did to grasp her attention, the only thing her mind seemed to be able to comprehend was the piano, although if she was even focusing on that was debateable.

I remember her last song. I was sleeping in the room at her feet, as had become a habit of mine, when something jostled me from slumber. Notes. Notes worthy of being played in heaven for God himself. Looking back, I like to think that’s what the song was. A final practice for her next audience. Of all the songs I’d heard her play, this one trumped all. If you can, imagine music that makes history’s greatest composers sound like toddlers mashing keys. That was the quality of her past songs. Now imagine music that puts even that to shame, and then you’ll begin to have an idea of what her requiem sounded like.

And once again, the notes ended after what seemed to be eternity. She looked down at me and smiled.

“I hear it, Stan.”

And with that she fell asleep. They played her music at her funeral, yet it now sounded like trash to me after having heard her final symphony. In fact, I no longer enjoy music to this day. I often look at the piano where she spent her final years, with the haunting memories of our times with it, and the perhaps more haunting wondering at what life would’ve been like without it. I often wish I could press the keys. That I could feel as my dear Emily felt as she played them. To have the piano sing the sweet songs once again, and bring people to tears and joy. But of course, that’s impossible. You can’t play a piano with paws.

 

THE END