To Be Heard Open

The sound of sheet music rustling echoed through the expanse of the Rehearsal Room as Taliesin shuffled mindlessly through it, not even entirely sure what she was trying to look for to play. Honestly, she'd felt like all hands and feet, total autopilot, since she'd settled back into her typical school routine. For a moment, at least, she'd been able to pretend the majority of her holiday break hadn't happened, but back at school, it was all she could do to fall back into step.

Taliesin tossed a selection onto the music stand before shoving the reject music back into it's place beneath the seat of the piano bench before sitting herself down. Bright eyes flickered over the music a moment; Prelude in E Minor, BWV 855/I. A Bach piece. Her fingers plucked out a couple of the notes along the keys, trying to coax out the memory of the melody a moment. Then, the girl tossed back a bit of hair that had fallen over her shoulder and set to her task.

One of her favorite things about piano had been how easy it was to float away with the melody and allow her mind to run wild and concoct all sorts of stories or images in her head to play out in time. But today, such a fancy felt impossible and it was as though the music itself sensed that as the notes kept rising octave by octave, tightening itself, stressing and building. As though the higher notes were fighting to be heard before being shot down by the lower; each plunk sounding like a dull, cold "No" of dismissal. Thus, the higher would climb in pitch, begging to be acknowledged.

On and on, the higher notes kept arguing their point, waxing and waning in pitch, as though nearly giving up the fight. Their voice waned further into pianissimo, the deeper cords asserting their dominance in the argument; cold and sad, as though resigned to the facts that can never change. Even if that fact is regrettable. There's no comfort in its part. Yet, even still the little tinkling of the higher notes persist. They'd been persisting ever since they'd been shoved down, and again they begin to grow their voice and demand attention to their point; and the deeper seems to lament the other's optimism, regret it's persistence. Its as though the deeper pities the higher, and the higher is ignorant of that fact when blinded by it's own passion and desires; even as the deeper tries to reason before fading out of the conversation.

In the end, its the voice of the higher notes that has the last word as Taliesin's fingers finally come to a rest. Perhaps her imagination isn't as exhausted as she had initially supposed.