Musical Notes

I hear the applause and walk out onto the stage. The clapping dies down as I approach the bench, the last few clicks of my black heels echoing out across the silent theater. There is one spotlight on me. These next few minutes are mine. I try to convince myself of that, but the moment I lift my hands and place them on the ivory keys, I face the reality that my performance is for them. They are watching, listening, breathing my every note. Perhaps if I play fast enough, they won't catch the mistakes. I take a deep breath as I let my thumb fall on the key below it.
 
D
 
This is more than music. My first note pulses, resonates,
lives inside me and in the hearts of my audience. I have
them captivated.

 
D, A, F#
 
left hand - low D. breathe...
and again - low D. spiro, spiravi...
 
pausa - inspirare
dum spiro, spero
 
F# - pausa - D
 
Orchestra. Cue the strings.
F#, E, G, F#
 
low D spiro, spiravi.
 
It's only me and the piano.
 
F#, A, G#, E, F#
 
Only me.
 
dum spiro, spero - while I breath, I hope.

 
And for a moment, the silence is a word caught in their throats. Their hearts are filled with a longing, the same longing in my own, but during this second I am different, I am higher than them. I have control. 

And in a moment, the still is gone. It breaks forth from the audience and from myself, the word comes out in a gush of emotion and excitement that moves all too fast, and the control is gone, gone without warning, it belongs to no one except music itself, and it takes over me, takes over my hands, it dances along the keys, chasing the melody as if in a game. 
 
My fingers trill over the high notes... their delicate voices blending with their counterparts, and my mind is lost in the beauty of it all. Slowly I allow my eyes to open. A row of polished black and white keys stare back at me, and suddenly I am scared - but it’s the good kind of scared, like the wonderful, terrifying feeling of falling through the sky. My fingers soar through the sky that is music. I open my eyes to the clouds, the sun, and the birds. The cool rush of wind hits me like water, and I realize that I am not alone, that I was not listening, I was creating... I close my eyes once more and let my fingers dance elegantly across the keys. I can sense their dance coming to a slow, so I choose to delight in these next few moments and become lost in my world I’ve created. My mind is that of an artist, my fingers the brushes; the piano my canvas. I smile slightly as my hand drops down on the lowest of chords, and I can sense the same smile on the face of an old woman in the front row.
 
She has her head leaned back, eyes closed, hands folded neatly in her lap, and I can tell she was once on this stage. She had once been me, in the wondrous world of music. She had once felt the same, been the same, she had once been so helplessly lost in the purest of essences, wandering through God's gift of unbroken beauty like a child wandering through a wonderland.
 
I glance at her as my scale dies to a close -
 
she plays the last note with me.
 
D.

Fine.