The grand piano

Submitted into Contest #26 in response to: Write about a character who was raised in a musical family.... view prompt

0 comments

General

My family is much like yours we have our ups and downs, our good and bads but one thing that sets aside my family from everyone else's is there crazy unhealthy obsession with music. Music can you believe it? I bet you anything that for every genre of music out there I have a family member who has dedicated their life to it.


Rock N' roll easy my brother Charles he claims to own an autographed album of every true rock n' roll artists out there. Opera? Aunt Lucille would have to take that category. She has dedicated her life going to every single performance that the Opera House even holds. If you don't believe me you can check out her blog Lucille's Opera experience. Trust me it's not that interesting unless you're into that kind of thing. Folk music? Simple my father James. He's kind of like how people describe folk music from that time and just happy you know. Pop is hands down my sister maddyson specifically boy bands. She owns a signed shirt for every boy band to have become immortalized by the media.  


Now where do I fit in with this you ask. simply put is I dont. I dont adore opera or obsesse over boy bands. Not even dance to swing. I guess being surrounded by all this music made me hate it but then again that's not interially true I dont mind classical music. Mabey it's the way it sounds so elegant and proper.... the way mother was. She used to play the piano as I would play the chello. 




Oh How i hated that chello but i did adore the sounds the grand piano made. Never did I find a sound that compliments it perfectly. Nothing ever compared to sweet sounds that ringed through the air when it was played. The sweetest tune would put even the most rambunctious skank at ease. London's Royal Guards wouldn't have a Fighting Chance resisting the pianos calming affect.


there's just something magical about the piano. It's hard to put into words but every time I hear it I feel like a thousand fireflies have just lit up the room along with the darkest of times. The coldest Wars we're as though they never existed the second the piano played. Father says locking up my love for it just because of my mother isn't good. For it is in our families blood to adore music of all kinds. 




I for one dont believe that. I hate being surrounded by noise. I'd rather be alone with the piano no other background noise or words the piano does all the talking it needs all on it's own. I feel trapped inside the notes of a song that's never ending. A song where theres no piano just noise. Since mother died nothing else seems to compare to the soft sounds it makes. Mabey I truly am her daughter. 


She reminds me of the piano she was strong yet soft. Loud yet sweet and calming. Elegant and graceful even in the toughest of times. Perhaps that's way she chose the piano as her instrument to love. Because she was so much like it. She told me over time I wouldn't feel like such an outcast in my own family that I'd learn to hear more than the piano. She was wrong I can't hear Charles songs he blast all the time correctly. No matter how loud it is I just can't hear it nothing more than soft whispers of those of a child.


Grandmama always said she just knew the second she held me she could tell I was different that I wasn't like everyone else in this family. That I had a gift that only I could know how to use. She might have been right, is my purpose on this Earth just show everyone the true meaning of a piano? Perhaps that's why I can't hear anything but it.


I belong with the piano even I can't deny that. I could travel abroad learning all there is to know about the sweet musical instrument that I call my own. I could play to entertain the wealthy or the public. I could finally live out mum's dream to travel the world. This could be my calling in this cruel world to bring light into it once more through the power of music. Not just any music but through the power of the grand piano that sits in the little study in the back hall in the west wing.


This could be my future if I didn't hate music so much. That's all my family ever thinks about rapped up in there own musical world not facing any real dangers of the world only those concerning what they love so much. Their specific genre of music. No matter what it may be punk, rock ,pop opera, country ect...


Music drove this family apart in the end. They were so wrapped up in it that the refused to see mums illness taking a hold of her. Till it finally took her without a second thought at the ripe good age of thirty three. I could run away and blame everyone and every song around me but alas what good would that do? I'd just be running away from my problems and I can't do that for the rest of my life. Now can I? 


But in the end music is what brought us back together there at mother's funeral where all hope seemed lost the old grand piano sat waiting to be played one last time. I plucked up the courage to sit at the long hard wooden bench. Sliding my fingers over the cool lid. Slowly opening it up. To play the one song that mother loved so dearly. Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11. A classic yes but it was right then and there that I saw what I hadn't seen in all my years growing up here in this family. Pure bliss everyone look at ease like we could all agree on one song. In the end music brought us back together I feel like we truly are a family again. And I owe it all to mum and Mozart himself.

January 29, 2020 07:21

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

0 comments

RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. 100% free.