Photograph

The hallways were different at this time of morning. Somehow, as the earth prepared to begin the habitual cycle of the day, to awake to a new beginning, the hallways grew dimmer and less new--as if this rustling and stirring prodded in them some sense of their past, and they clung to that world which so often fades with the night. It was a feeling of dust and wisdom that one could sense rather than see; these were the very same walls that had always sturdied the house, keeping its inhabitants and belongings separate from the great incomprehensible slew of nature that cluttered the world beyond. The girl felt that those walls were impossibly wise. Who knew how many secrets, how many clandestine meetings had taken advantage of their sheltering privacy? It was a strange feeling of towering omniscience. Of course the walls did not have mouths and tongues and lips, she knew that, yet she could never shake the feeling that somehow they communicated among themselves, commenting on the lives of the rushed and silly beings who lived there. She made her quiet way to the oak doors and pushed gently. The immense double doors swung open, and she peered anxiously into the room, checking. She wanted this time to herself. The world wasn't awake yet, not quite, and the piano sat as yet unwoken. Fabric rustled as she stepped through the frame and closed the heavy wood behind her. In this room, she felt as if the world was hers--at least, that world contained within the room, encompassed about by yawning French windows and the shining hopes of one so young. The air was soft and silent; her footsteps, ttoh ttoh ttoh, swam and echoed through its sluggish current. In one graceful motion, she sat before the old instrument and closed her eyes. Her hands, lithe and graceful things, white and as delicately veined as marble, paused in her lap. The early morning sun flashed dusty and golden on her skin, shimmering jade green through her eyes as she lifted her soft gaze to the window before her--it seemed to her that the pale light fell deliberately, highlighting those notes which she would play as if it were waiting for her to discover the melody it had already found beneath the keys. Outside purple hyacinth had burst like small clusters of stars amidst the frothy white hydrangea, and a cool breeze carried the pungent sweetness across the wide lawn and through the room. She breathed in and her hands rose like small birds, fingers curving to meet ivory keys. Lifting her face once more to the sun's warmth, the air sighed softly between her lips and the first few notes wavered gently through the room. Her hands moved across the slender keys, stirring dust motes that floated lazily upward, winking in and out of the light as they made their haphazard way to the window and the world beyond. The notes of "Raindrop Prelude" flowed from beneath her fingertips and Chopin's stirring melody wove into the quiet sleep of the house. She played on, lost in herself, and time paused to listen, caught just for a moment, in that wordless communication between soul and summer. Caught--just for a moment--in the quiet, gentle music of a girl.