A Random Story

In the attic where the medals and plaques lay, 'displayed' obscurely in a place where no one can admire, speaking of past glories and of days of old in which they stood for someone who was in their proudest moments, which have all come to nothing but a mere memory or a mention on the lips, she lays down the box.

She pans the room, taking in all that's in it, realising that she's now at that stage - a stage where she never thought she'd ever be at. Fury. Disgruntled. Discouraged. A sense of loss. Thoughts and emotions that engulfed her at that very moment. She shakes her head, trying to convince herself that she's doing the right thing while denying any sense of desire in her to continue the dream that began in her since she was a little girl. Refusing to admit that this is a mere moment of weakness, she storms her way down to retrieve what's left of it.

The one who had blown the fuse in her head was out of sight, probably in an equal state of emotion, but perhaps, more than anything else, feeling unappreciated and angry for the thankless-ness. After all that's been given to fuel the passion in the girl and the dream that has stayed with her all this while, this is how repayment is made - with shouts of angry, heartless words accompanying the stern refusing of her little request. Well, little in her opinion. She knew that the dream was being lived out in the girl who was aware of it, and eventually shared it. But the thing that she didn't realise was that what she really wanted was her dream to be the one that came to life, with the girl's taking the back seat.

As the girl haphazardly packs what remains into the box, she wipes off the sweat and the tears that were forming. You see, she really thought she could find pleasure, and perhaps a future, in the tinkling of the black and white keys. She devoted the past 17 years of her life to this, and had plans to bring it to a whole new playing field. But having been denied the pleasure, inspiration and the encouragement that's been horribly needed for several months now, with the 'little requests' taking precedence everytime she had just started, she couldn't take it any longer. She probably felt like she was taken for a ride - tricked into thinking that all this was really for her; tricked into imagining that she could get better, go further, reach higher - when in fact all this seemed like they were just to fulfill someone else's unfulfilled dreams.

Remembering how, at one point of her journey, the dream almost fell out, and what kept her in was one moment that she had to herself - one moment of badly needed encouragement which she could give to herself with just that uninterrupted space and time - she breaks into tears. All that high.... probably just illusions, she tells herself.

Like a ballet dancer who hangs up her ballet shoes after an injury, perhaps putting them on again every once in a while just to bring herself back to that season in which she was in her element, but yet knowing that she'll no longer pursue it professionally, the girl inserts the last of the files - the hanging of her 'piano fingers', if you may.

No more. No longer. That's the end of it, she says.

She commits musical suicide.