I
The wooden floor creaked as Wolfgang stepped across the
threshold into his dark apartment. Tiny
droplets of beaded water shook themselves from him as he climbed out of his
overcoat, hung it on its peg and set his shoes on the mat by the door. The small fringe of mud that had accumulated
around the sole would be dry by morning.
There had been just enough of a rain to moisten the dust in the streets
and leave a lingering smell of soggy dirt to permeate the outside air. Inside smelled familiar, if a little
stale.
Stepping lightly in the silence of the dark, Wolfgang padded
into the kitchen and lit a small oil lamp on the table. Small sounds from the apartments above and
below made their way through into the space; vague voices, footsteps, the sound
of a chair being slid across the floor.
It was dark, but not so late that people would be sleeping. For a long moment he stood mesmerized by the
flame as it quivered gently and sent a dark wisp of smoke curling up into the
world. How perfectly straight the thin
black line was, and so fragile. The
faintest whisper of his breath was enough to destroy it.
At last he stirred, retrieved a bottle of wine from the
cupboard, and looked around for his corkscrew.
He spied it on the small table in the living room next to last night's
empty glass. He uncorked the new bottle
and held the glass up to the light while he poured. In the living room Wolfgang set the full
glass next to the empty one and lit a second lamp. He sat down in front of his piano. He rested his fingers on the keys.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment and in
the stillness an almost tangible silence wrapped itself around him. No one in the adjacent apartments made a
sound. No breeze rattled the loose pane. Even the building itself, which usually spent
its time settling creakily as if perpetually trying to get more comfortable, was
for the moment silent. He began to
play.
Low and pensive, the first few notes floated from the piano and worked their way around the room. Slowly they filled the space, growing bolder as he infused them with rich harmony, sculpted them with flourishes of whimsy, and sent them chasing one another joyfully through the air. Soon they were an army and could not be contained. They seeped through the walls and windows and into lantern-lit streets; a parade of sound and ecstasy, each chord a celebration of the last and a herald to the triumphant arrival of the next.
Low and pensive, the first few notes floated from the piano and worked their way around the room. Slowly they filled the space, growing bolder as he infused them with rich harmony, sculpted them with flourishes of whimsy, and sent them chasing one another joyfully through the air. Soon they were an army and could not be contained. They seeped through the walls and windows and into lantern-lit streets; a parade of sound and ecstasy, each chord a celebration of the last and a herald to the triumphant arrival of the next.
Two apartments away a woman looked up from her book and
nudged her husband awake.
"Hmm?" he said sleepily.
Then heard the music and sat up.
"He's playing again" she said.
The two sat together and listened intently as the music washed over them,
until at last it slowly withdrew and settled back into itself. As the last note took its bow and surrendered
the stage once again to silence, the woman looked again to her husband. He was smiling. "What are you thinking about?" she
asked. "I don't know" he
said. "Everything".
II
My house is quiet.
Everyone is asleep but me. I
descend to the basement and move silently through the almost absolute darkness
to my office, where my eyes hungrily seek out the bits of light emanating from
various electronic devices; the wireless modem, the router, the speakers. It's enough to guide me to my big leather chair. I sit and roll it forward a little until the
keyboard and mouse are exactly the right distance. The wheels settle into their familiar dents
in the carpet. At the touch of the
mouse, my monitor transforms into a rectangle of light and reveals the room
around me.
The glass top of my desk is littered with papers and the
remnants or beginnings of countless projects.
Bits of wire, a pocket knife, chap stick. A picture frame covered in puzzle pieces, and
a picture of my daughter holding a sign that says "I love you to
pieces". She made it at daycare and
gave it to me for father's day last year.
I love it, it makes me happy every time I see it. My favorite acoustic guitar leans against the
bookshelf to my right, and several other guitars rest on stands behind me waiting
their turn, but tonight I don't think I'll play.
I get back up and go grab a bottle of wine and take it back
to my desk. I bought it on the way home
from work, it was six bucks. My
corkscrew is right in the little cubby there in my desk. It has one of the arms broken off of it and I
have to hold it a little oddly to get it to work. I think briefly that I should get a new one,
but I know I won't bother. It works well
enough. I pour the entire contents of
the bottle into the giant wooden mug that I bought at the renaissance fair this
past fall and set it on the desk to my left to breathe. I don't know why
wine has to breathe. I set the bottle
down on the floor on my right, next to its twin.
A little music perhaps.
I love music and it's a good thing too because it's everywhere. It comes trickling out of my alarm clock in
the morning, and in tinny refrains that echo from the little radio my wife
listens to in the bathroom. It plays in
my car on my way to work, and from the Pandora app on my phone while I'm in the
office. It plays over the speakers in
the grocery store while I'm getting whatever it is I'm supposed to stop and
pick up that day on my way home. It
plays from my amplifier when I practice my guitar at full volume before anyone
else gets home, and from the radio while I'm making dinner. It accompanies every television show and
every commercial. It's in just about every
corner of my world.
A few clicks of my mouse and my media player is up. What do I want to listen to tonight? I don't know the answer to that, so I queue
the entire library and put it on random. Who knows what I'll get, it could be anything;
I have quite a bit of music. It starts
playing a song but it's not one I want to listen to right now. I've heard this one too many times
lately. Click. Nah.
Click. Heard it. Click.
Heard it. Click. Wait what's this? Yes, this is perfect. I settle in, and peer at the title of the
track as it scrolls across the little display.
It reads: "Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart".
--------------------------
The art:
I: http://debrahurd.blogspot.com/2012/07/abstract-piano-art-painting-keyboard.html
II: http://jenn-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.com/2013/04/pencil-art.html
