(You may like to listen to this song while you read:
He stood at the window. The curtains were drawn. The sunlight was barred from engulfing the room in its bright splendor, and was instead relegated to mingling with the quiet shadows. The thin beams that did pierce through only served as channels for the unsettled dust to flow in hypnotizing patterns. He did not desire to see what lay beyond the self imposed barrier of those curtains.
In the corner of that dark dusty room that he had lived in for the past twenty years, lay his companion, his freedom, his soul. The dust on the piano curiously resembled the layer of silver on his head, and was benevolent and gentle in its bearing. He looked over at the piano and smiled. It was a smile that was both sad and beautiful, joyous and painful, twinkling and hopeful. He sat down in front of it and looked at his hands. The old wrinkles had a lot of stories to tell, and a lot of stories to play. The feeble beams of sunlight looked like they were from another time. The silence in the room was a treasure chest locked and buried. His hands began unlocking it.
Dal Niente, out of silence, from nothing, he began creating the simple notes. The quiet humble sounds that were his beginnings in obscurity and which had brought him a lightness that he had never felt again. The notes became thicker, more sophisticated, the bricks in a structure that was fascinating and yet unknown. His one hand smoothly and almost unconsciously laid the platform for the other notes to daydream upon. The story began to unfold. Again and again there was hope in the song, and optimism in the story. The soft sounds started scaling higher and higher, with a joy that seemed unbounded. They rose like a deep breath, fresh and fulfilling, and then hit a plateau. A repetitive pragmatism that made sense, but could not go on forever. There was a curious significance in that repeated pattern, as if it were a law. The law that made the sun rise again and again, that kept the waves coming back to the rocks, that created the leaves on the trees. And then the plateau began to transform into something entirely different.
The repeating notes built upon each other and began rising again. This time the rise was not just hope, but was enriched by strength and action. It was a journey that spoke of courage and anticipation, with the notes becoming more and more pronounced. The song now had both hands helping it on its way upwards, to seek inspiration and be in awe of the suspense that lay beyond. They went further and further towards the eagle in the sky, towards the moon and the stars. The pace quickened, the melody bloomed, the layers merged into one, the notes grew louder and louder until they burst into a crescendo of exhilaration! There was no sky! There was only pure wonder and pure ecstasy. In that palace there was everything and there was nothing. In that moment there was no time.
He opened his eyes. The veil was lifted. The notes started descending, reluctantly, unable to let go and unable to stay. The disappointment began to engulf the song, as it stared down at the abyss below and left the heaven above. It looked behind, and paused in its way. And the disappointment gave way to fear and anger as the layers of music stumbled over each other struggling to go back up, but kept sliding down nonetheless. The fight continued, till a calmness gripped the song, and the notes embraced their descent.
And as they did so, the calmness turned into surprise, and the steep fall met a plateau again. But this plateau was different from the previous. It was a much wiser song, which spoke of learning, of healing, of giving. The repeated tune reminded that the memory had been real, the hopes had been true, and the satisfaction had been complete. And the notes now melted into a melody of exquisite sadness, that was slow and full, and wrung the heart into a knot of deep nostalgia. The feeble light glinted in the tear that rolled down on his wrinkled face. The memories were all that he had now.
But that was not how it would end. The sadness was merely the ship for the belief to sail back to the shore. The belief and hope would finally take the song to a new place. The song began looking up again and the notes turned into a stairway, not steep but long and unending. And the notes began fading away into the distance, but with a contentment that was hard to fathom and imagine. The summation and the closure of it all lay at the end of those stairs. Slowly the notes faded away, into the silence, Al Niente.
