Talk To Me

24 || The Most Important Piece

I woke up today and remembered I didn't have a job to go to anymore. No more meticulous plan to execute. No more righteous justice to deliver. No more murderous revenge to be quenched. All work and no play made Jack a dull boy, but it made me feel alive. Have a purpose.

And though I'd recently found a delicious game to play, I currently couldn't do that either. Jared's text was the first thing I saw on my phone as I rolled out of bed:

   Crisis at work. Had to go in super early. See you after hell ends at five ;)

He wasn't the kind to end his texts with x's and o's and I loved that. He preferred to give them in person, where they had their fullest effect.

He had a crisis to deal with, but at least it wasn't a crisis of boredom. I made myself some French toast and sipped at coffee, thinking of blasting some Nirvana through my speakers; my neighbors were at their loving parents' villa (home). I didn't have to worry about deafening their delicate ears that probably equated "grunge" to "nothing but noise". In went my I-Pod, ON went the power button. I enjoyed the rest of my coffee, listening to Kurt Cobain sing about selling kids for food and how weather changes mood. 

I swung my foot absently to the beat, simultaneously singing along in my head and thinking of something to do. Somewhere to go.

Somewhere to go. That's it.

I switched off the speaker. Grabbing my car keys and shrugging on my coat, I stepped outside. Of course I had somewhere to go. It was probably waiting for me to come back.

And it was. The stone walls and the wooden doors seemed to stare at me keenly as I pulled into the driveway. As I got out, even the lake seemed calmer and quieter than usual. Upon my gaze, the few ripples on it disappeared, as if I'd halted the wind; as if it'd skipped a breath.

It would be a long time before this place felt like home again.

I texted Jared the location, so he'd know to not search for me in the apartment once "hell ends at five".

The inside looked more or less the same; the window was fixed. I glanced at the sofa and looked away, for I knew if I stared at it for too long I'd see Adrian. The whole house held an ominous chill and somehow I knew it wasn't due to the slightly icy weather. Holding in too many secrets can make you shiver, shake and grow cold. You may eventually tame the shudders and make your body go still, but that iciness will never leave you. It'll be there, on your skin, on your breath, in your eyes, making everyone who sees you hesitate before they approached.

I caught myself gritting my teeth as I stood at the foot of the stairs. Mouth parted in a slow inhale, I mounted one stair, and then climbed back down. I couldn't go up to my room, or Collin's, or Mum's. Definitely not Mum's. Not just yet.

But fuck. I needed to shake off the creeping chills. The smells of pine and wood and stone seemed to be subtly shifting to those of poison, blood and sweat with each passing second. I strode towards the piano. Let's get some sound in this tomb of deathly silence.

Sitting on the bench, I opened the lid with my usual touch of reverence. I didn't realize how much I'd missed this until now. Running my hands over the ivory keys, I almost unconsciously started playing Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor. The music ebbed and flowed; raised and swayed, swooping through the still atmosphere, chasing away all the lingering traces of darkness and gloom.

Feel like home again. Please. Just feel like home again.

Chopin to Beethoven. Beethoven to Rachmaninoff. Rachmaninoff to Vivaldi. My fingers slipped on the keys, gradually moving faster; more erratically. Slipping on the keys, clumsiness replacing fluency. Leaning forwards in a hunch, begging my eyes to see nothing but the playing keys and my hands, and not the face of my mother on her bedroom floor or that of my fucking biological father on the sofa. Keys. Keys. Black and white. Sharps and flats.