Black out and the sound of piano
It was March; the weather was in its hottest in year. I would not consider it a summer because we didn’t have any here, beetles buzzed loud at surrounding trees and woods, almost deafening, it’s quite unusual to be that loud but it was even more unusual that I could hear it so clearly – the earth was on a holiday. I looked up into the trees’ canopies; my eyes squinted, I used my palm to form an imaginary cap in front my forehead. Thirty to forty feet ahead, afternoon sunlight pierced through the scattered leafs, formed patches of lights on my sweating body. I picked up the hacked woods from the ground, and filled it into the empty basket. The place we all live was far away from town, a place that was consider a cut-off of some basic resources, so everyday before the sky got dark, I would go into the forest to collect as much dry woods as possible, if we didn’t finish it, we still could use it during emergencies.
These years had not been too peaceful, I didn’t know how many people had died out there but I would say there must be a lot of them; hundreds of them or maybe thousands of them. We moved into this village a few years ago when I was 15 years old, I didn’t understand why back then, but I guessed father had made the right choice. We didn’t know what had happened out there; occasionally there would be postmen sending us a newsletter or two published by non-pro government associations, but the newsletter had stopped to reach here for quite a long time. However we had fair amount of idea what was going on to the land. So we tried not to go out from the village, we led a peaceful life here; we tried to live as long as we could.
Night time was the most frightening hours of a day but at the same time, we also got so much used to the frightening experience which we felt somewhat scarily numb. They would send out scout in the midnight, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. From the inconsistency, it indicated two things; they didn’t have a proper schedule, or maybe, they wanted to strike the unprepared by surprise. What a cunning idea for me to realize. So we tried not to switch on any lights after sky got dark and we would stop all fires that generating smoke. The buzzing noise of the scout propeller would continue for ten to fifteen minutes before it disappeared. For entire 18 years of my life, those ten to fifteen minutes was like frozen. Never had a time in my life that the time was moving so slowly, and my heart was pounding so loud that it almost felt like it would jump out. We would leep our breaths as slow as possible as if playing dead to the man-eating bear, but there were no bears here. We were not sure whether this trick would work for the menacing flying beast on top, but we just did it spontaneously – that was the only thing we could do to lessen the chance of sky bombers from dropping a bomb into our home. We lived through this most of the nights.
Todays followed yesterdays, everyday was the same, I woke up early in the morning then I would join father to his small farm, we grew anything edible that it would grow fast enough, so we didn’t need to starve. Afternoon I would go into the forest to collect dry woods to start fire for cooking water and meals. We didn’t go market anymore, it was too dangerous down there, and I doubt there were anymore markets or shops that still doing business. Some unimaginable chaos was going on down there that we didn’t want to get involved in.
* * *
It was 27th March, I knew it. Although we had been forgotten by time long ago, but every year father would list out the date, date of the first day of month, date of the week, so on and so forth, just as accurate as real calendar. I didn’t know how he did it, with that home-made calendar we were able to track the dates, so if anyone asked me about something happened at what date, I would have some idea. That day a lady came to our place.
I’m looking for a place to stay. She said. I heard from the neighborhood that your place got extra space, so I come to ask. My father was too busy for his chores that he simply nodded and shouted for me to show her where she could have stay. We were quite used to people moving into this village, so we would just accept them without asking much question, after all this village was still consider as a safe zone. I saw her standing at the doorway; a not-too-big haversack slung to her back seemed like a little overwhelming for her size. She’s medium height; five feet three to four, neither she’s thin nor fleshy but just nice. She has got shiny black and straight long hair and complexion so good and fair that seemed like she could break at any time. She could have been in her middle twenty with beautiful face. The wooden house me and my father built was not too big, but having only two person staying were a little far more than enough just before she came. So, I showed her to the room where we used to store things.
How you manage to find our village? I tried to start a conversation as I opened the door to the room. Ever since I was isolated, I seldom talked to any strangers, so I would feel nervous whenever I talked to one, and set aside standing in front of me now was a charming female who was nearly a decade older than me. I met a kind old man on my escape out of town, he told me it will be safe here, he also told me what I should follow to come here and the direction. She explained and smile at me. I see. I actually blushed slightly, but I was too dark for people to detect that. I wondered who the old man could be, people seldom leave this village, the young one wouldn’t risk their lives, leave aside an old man? But the look on her face told me that she wasn’t lying – she had a sincere look, and there was no reason for her to lie as well. And we got nothing to lose. So, this is your room. I announced. Although it’s quite stuffy now, but after some rummaging, it should be more spacious. Its okay, a place with shelter and where I can sleep myself straight will be enough. She said and thanked me and my father for keeping her here. I helped her to move away some stuffs and cleaned the dust off. She thanked me again. I simply nodded in response without looking at her.
She was a teacher. I found out one day when I accidentally listened to the conversation between my father and her. Father refused to accept her rental payment, his argument was that money was not much of a use during war time, she should keep it to herself for future, and furthermore she was just a lady traveling alone. She would need it more. In return to father’s flavor, she offered to teach me English, she wanted to restart the school in village for English class, she would talk to the mayor about that and anyone who felt interested could attend the class. Not plenty of youngsters keened to go to school that time, and it was quite an odd idea of starting a school also. I quitted my school since 15 years old, I neither volunteered or protested it, come to think about it, I started to miss my English teacher back then.
We used to have a place we called school in the village; it was nothing looked like a school, rather it was like a storeroom with capacity to sit in no more than ten students. There were a few old desks and tables left in the place from the older time, now it had already been covered by thick layer dust. Sat aside the classroom was a solitary old piano, it was made of good piano manufacturer, and how it ended here was a true mystery. So we’re settled at the small room as our English school, classroom. Whenever I thought of the idea of attending the school, it gave me an odd feeling – I wasn’t sure what that was. The feeling is indescribable.
I was a bad student back then when I attended school, I skipped class far too often; I would find excuse not to go to school during rainy days, pretended to be sick or having a stomachache. Then I would go to the nearby river to join the other kid for some funs, we played hide-and-seek at the river bank and forest, and we would go fishing, used fishing rod that we made ourselves by rattans. By the end of the day we would just plunge ourselves into the water and got ourselves all wet and dirty. But no one really cared, parents were too busy for their rough life and house chores – struggled for a few cents in order to continue living, kids would have to live on their own, or at least find their own entertainment. I hadn’t have any interest to continue study but the fact that I would not have the chance to study again strike me, it’s like it was the last chance I had, and never again. So, whenever I didn’t need to help father with house chores, I would go to school. Most of the time, the classroom could be pitifully cold; never in my memory had more than five students attended the class. However, she was diligent; she would teach even there was only one student left in the class. I wanted to ask her if she want to skip it as only she and I, but I hesitated and in the end I never put it into word. In the classroom only me and her, she continued the lesson and I dissolved into her word that sound like some fairy tale stories to me.
In a kingdom, the princess slept for eternity. She lied flat on her bed of altar, lifeless. Her cheeks were as pales as dead. She dressed an elegant white gown and pearl necklace framing her delicate neck, like a bride after black out. The king came to visit her; he sat beside her and cried alone, almost like mourning. After a while, his servant came in and said something to him, he wiped his tears away before he started to talk to his servant, and both of them left the room. I found myself stuck inside the closet overlooking the whole scene, I could sense a pleasant fragrance lingered around the enclosed space, the garments of dresses gently brushed my neck and cheeks now and then; I gazed at the sleeping princess through the small opening of the closet for a while before I dared myself to step out from it. I stood beside her, now I could look at her close enough to make out the detail of her face, soon it stroke me that I couldn’t make out the detail of her face, it’s blurred. It’s like seeing someone’s face and forgets it immediately. I wiped my eyes for a few times for fear that my vision might be the problem, but still the same. Gave up, I reached my hand out to touch her cheeks, it still got warmth, I relieved. Her complexion was extremely fine, the touch of it felt like touching baby’s skin. I ran my fingertip across her cheek to her lips, and I was lost in her lips. All of a sudden I felt like kissing her lips, a surge of desire rushed towards my brain, it was overwhelming. So, I kissed her lips. I felt her lukewarm breaths caressing my cheek as I kissed her. Her lips were so tender and lively as though she had been awakened. But as I looked up at her again, that pale face of her still looked the same. As though the statue up in cold mountain, frozen dead. She must have witnessed me doing all this to her from her eternal dream. The thought of it made me felt guilty. I ran to a place which was completely dark, where no one could find me there. Then I tripped and fell unconscious. I saw myself falling into unconsciousness. In the darkness, I heard a familiar voice calling my name.
I opened my eyes, the light was blindingly bright, that I squinted my eyes before I could fully open them up. It took me a while to get use to the light, I saw a blurred figure of a person, and she was calling at me, before too long my English teacher’s image came into view. She was staring at me as I recovered from my drowsiness, then she smiled.
Sorry, I felt asleep! I apologized to her. She was not particularly shocked, her eyes were still as calm as ever and she didn’t look like she was going to lose her temper anytime soon. Using fingers, she brushed strains of her hair aside before she continued again. Is my English lesson boring? She asked and looked into my eyes. I kept quiet. I didn’t really know how to answer her. I wasn’t interested in studying but I attended the class anyway. Or maybe I should say that I’m trying to cultivate the interest in me and I’m trying hard now. People do get stumbled in the process of achieving something, as for me, I felt asleep in process of getting to like learning. I don’t know. I said, finally I squeezed the word out. Only then I started to realize that it might be her that I went to class again. Hearing my answer, she looked straight into my eyes.
“Well, what is your passion?” She asked.
“I have never thought of anything I wanted to do. Not a thing so strong that I will mention it straight away.” I said, sounded a bit uncertain, but really, I hadn’t thought of that just yet.
“You know, I have always wanted to teach. That is my passion, being able to teach in the classroom.” She said, and stared out through the window into the clear blue sky. Thousands words flicked pass her black pupils but I couldn’t quite understand them. I didn’t know how to respond to that so I kept quiet. Later she broke the silence. “It’s okay.” She ended the conversation.
Whenever I made it to class, I would stay until the class end to help her with clean up of the classroom. After that we would walk home together. My house was not so far away, so I didn’t need to worry about awkward silence whenever I walked with her. We didn’t have much in common to talk about, and she was quiet all the time. Most of the time I just walked behind her, distance between us was like two yards away. Occasionally she would greet the other villagers who we passed by, then she would turn around to check whether I was following, realizing that I was there might have further calmed her, I guess.
* * *
I jolted awake and sprang up straight in the middle of October night. Sat on my bed, I was breathing quick and shallow, I looked around the room which lied in the darkness, there was no light came from window. I barely made out the shape of window; air was still, curtain hung down from the iron string like frozen pieces of cloth with tons of weights. The air was silent, it had never been so quiet before, like after someone beats a drum in your ears hard enough that all that you can hear is deafening bee buzzing sound. But this silence was different, it lasted almost too long for bee buzzing effect. I got up from my bed and went out from my room. The house was in complete darkness, but I was able to make out most of the objects in the surrounding as my pupils were getting used to the limited source of light. I passed by the room where my teacher lived. I wondered what dream she is having now, is she having a good sleep? And I wondered how she looks like when she is asleep. I stared at the door knob for a moment before I went on out from the house to have a stroll.
At night, without the decoration of lights, the village was like cemetery with scattered tombstones. It has lose its’ color, woods didn’t seem like wood neither green looked like green anymore, all objects had been painted black and dark grey at this moment, not a hint of brighter color, not any blue color. Wearing my slippers, I walked down the village gravel path that my footsteps sounded almost too loud, it sounded unreal in the air. I wondered if it was I who making the noise under my feet. I didn’t have any particular destination to go to, but my feet were walking me to the edge of hill, the front yard of the village.
I stopped dead in the middle gravel path, something caused me came to a halt. I thought I was hearing something, but my footsteps were too loud for me to make out what was that. I stood in silence as the clouds above me glide across the twilight sky, nothing else was moving at this moment. I could faintly hear the earth revolved on its axis, suddenly it became so loud and audible – the deepest growl of revolving earth caused by friction of ground soils, sea surface, green forest, desert sand, and man-made concrete land against the air surrounding the earth, somewhere in the layers of atmosphere, the troposphere or Stratosphere, lightning was form as a result gases’ molecules clashing each others, contributing to another layer deeper growl. I closed my eyes. It has got to be music of piano I thought. It came from front yard of the village, there were no other places we had a piano in the village except the classroom. I tried to trace the sound of piano as I walked in slow paces; not wanting my footsteps to break the sound of piano came into my eardrums. Inside the classroom was as dark as outside, it might be darker inside as I couldn’t make out anything inside. The music of piano hadn’t stopped yet.
Standing at the doorway, I looked at the direction of the piano across the room. Its pitch black, my pupils self-adjusted to the darkness, making out the detail of every object in the room. A girl was sitting right in front of the piano, back facing me. She was playing the piano. She sat herself straight, an extremely good posture. Her face and eyes looked down at the keyboard, following the movements of her hands as she pressed on the key notes with her skillful fingers. I couldn’t see her expression, but I could tell she must have her eyes closed, like slowly tasting the music on her tongue before swallowed them up. She was wearing a white color sleeveless blouse and azure dress, her straight long hair hung down at her back like a piece of expensive black silk, swayed slightly as she turned.
I stood there for a long time, for exactly how long I wasn’t too sure. I have never kept track of time in ages, I could tell time only by estimating the height of sun hanging in the sky – the sun rise in the east at dawn and set in the west at dusk, it hits noon time when the sun shines from top of the sky, the brightest of the day. There were no TV programs and no people counts how many hours you work. So basically time was not much of a factor here. I listened to the sound of music produced from the decades old piano, trying my best not to move even just a little. I tried to breathe as slowly as possible. But as I attempted to control my breaths, my heart pounded even louder, too loud that I felt like she could hear it. I didn’t want to break the beautiful sound stream but my pounding heart just wouldn’t quiet down. So I retreated to a dark corner in the class, hided myself behind the mess of desks and chairs, where she wouldn’t see me.
She ran her fingers through the ending key notes and finalized the triad. The sound of the last chord echoed in the quiet air, lasted a while. She let out a breath while still looking down at the keyboard, and she closed the keyboard cover before resting both her hands on her laps. She tiled her head up a bit, looking straight. Now it was completely quiet, I didn’t know what she was looking at; she might be just looking at the blank wall, trying to make out the invisible pattern drawn on the wooden wall. Or she was thinking about something, something difficult. The silence grew louder as minutes added up, in this room where only me and her, it grew so loud, almost deafening. Now I knew silence was actually a kind of sound that we could hear.
Without warning, she stood up and headed to doorway in swift paces, not making any noise, she disappeared from my view. I got out from my hiding place and walked towards the piano, I stared at the piano and the empty stool, picturing the image of her sitting on the stool, playing the piano. I felt the cushion with my hand, the place where she sat was still warm but it was losing temperature, very soon it would be completely cold. By then, the image of her sitting here would be gone.
* * *
The war was drawing near; we knew it, it was right at the bottom of hill. Every now and then we could hear war plane flying back and forth in distance horizon, dropping tons of explosive onto heart of the land, blasting objects with shape into bits, and then it would be silence, eerily silence as if the earth was weeping in agony. It would not take more than half a month for war to sweep across this part of the land, so one year before today, father had already build an air raid shelter under our house. It took him a month to dig a hole under the ground that could stay up to a few adults and a few months to strengthen the shelter so it won’t collapse and buried us alive in there. It seemed like we would have to make use of it real soon. I collected as much dried food as possible to stock up in the shelter, so we could self-sustain without coming out from the surface. It was the safest way to live during war time, not guaranteed but that was what everyone was doing.
Until now, I had never failed to wait in the dark, for her to show up and play her favorite song. She played the same song almost everyday, there was time she played other songs but before too long she will swap and play her favorite old song again, I guessed the song bear special meanings to her. Compare to her favorite song, the play of the other chord sounded almost too perfect but a lot less emotional. Playing piano, she dipped herself into her own world of serenity and perfection, while I was in my world where there were only me and her. I stayed quietly in shadow, with myself invisible, listening to the nicest sound I ever heard, in appreciation. It was too beautiful.
As always I felt the warmth on the stool with my hand after she had left, until it cooled down and eventually became cold. Image of her playing piano disappeared naturally. Then I left the classroom, and took at walk near the hill slope, let the night mountain breeze caress me as I relaxed myself. I lied myself on the green pasture, looked up into the zillion stars sky. I closed my eyes, quietly listened to the revolving earth.
There, at the edge of the world, I witnessed the present transformed to become history.
These years had not been too peaceful, I didn’t know how many people had died out there but I would say there must be a lot of them; hundreds of them or maybe thousands of them. We moved into this village a few years ago when I was 15 years old, I didn’t understand why back then, but I guessed father had made the right choice. We didn’t know what had happened out there; occasionally there would be postmen sending us a newsletter or two published by non-pro government associations, but the newsletter had stopped to reach here for quite a long time. However we had fair amount of idea what was going on to the land. So we tried not to go out from the village, we led a peaceful life here; we tried to live as long as we could.
Night time was the most frightening hours of a day but at the same time, we also got so much used to the frightening experience which we felt somewhat scarily numb. They would send out scout in the midnight, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. From the inconsistency, it indicated two things; they didn’t have a proper schedule, or maybe, they wanted to strike the unprepared by surprise. What a cunning idea for me to realize. So we tried not to switch on any lights after sky got dark and we would stop all fires that generating smoke. The buzzing noise of the scout propeller would continue for ten to fifteen minutes before it disappeared. For entire 18 years of my life, those ten to fifteen minutes was like frozen. Never had a time in my life that the time was moving so slowly, and my heart was pounding so loud that it almost felt like it would jump out. We would leep our breaths as slow as possible as if playing dead to the man-eating bear, but there were no bears here. We were not sure whether this trick would work for the menacing flying beast on top, but we just did it spontaneously – that was the only thing we could do to lessen the chance of sky bombers from dropping a bomb into our home. We lived through this most of the nights.
Todays followed yesterdays, everyday was the same, I woke up early in the morning then I would join father to his small farm, we grew anything edible that it would grow fast enough, so we didn’t need to starve. Afternoon I would go into the forest to collect dry woods to start fire for cooking water and meals. We didn’t go market anymore, it was too dangerous down there, and I doubt there were anymore markets or shops that still doing business. Some unimaginable chaos was going on down there that we didn’t want to get involved in.
* * *
It was 27th March, I knew it. Although we had been forgotten by time long ago, but every year father would list out the date, date of the first day of month, date of the week, so on and so forth, just as accurate as real calendar. I didn’t know how he did it, with that home-made calendar we were able to track the dates, so if anyone asked me about something happened at what date, I would have some idea. That day a lady came to our place.
I’m looking for a place to stay. She said. I heard from the neighborhood that your place got extra space, so I come to ask. My father was too busy for his chores that he simply nodded and shouted for me to show her where she could have stay. We were quite used to people moving into this village, so we would just accept them without asking much question, after all this village was still consider as a safe zone. I saw her standing at the doorway; a not-too-big haversack slung to her back seemed like a little overwhelming for her size. She’s medium height; five feet three to four, neither she’s thin nor fleshy but just nice. She has got shiny black and straight long hair and complexion so good and fair that seemed like she could break at any time. She could have been in her middle twenty with beautiful face. The wooden house me and my father built was not too big, but having only two person staying were a little far more than enough just before she came. So, I showed her to the room where we used to store things.
How you manage to find our village? I tried to start a conversation as I opened the door to the room. Ever since I was isolated, I seldom talked to any strangers, so I would feel nervous whenever I talked to one, and set aside standing in front of me now was a charming female who was nearly a decade older than me. I met a kind old man on my escape out of town, he told me it will be safe here, he also told me what I should follow to come here and the direction. She explained and smile at me. I see. I actually blushed slightly, but I was too dark for people to detect that. I wondered who the old man could be, people seldom leave this village, the young one wouldn’t risk their lives, leave aside an old man? But the look on her face told me that she wasn’t lying – she had a sincere look, and there was no reason for her to lie as well. And we got nothing to lose. So, this is your room. I announced. Although it’s quite stuffy now, but after some rummaging, it should be more spacious. Its okay, a place with shelter and where I can sleep myself straight will be enough. She said and thanked me and my father for keeping her here. I helped her to move away some stuffs and cleaned the dust off. She thanked me again. I simply nodded in response without looking at her.
She was a teacher. I found out one day when I accidentally listened to the conversation between my father and her. Father refused to accept her rental payment, his argument was that money was not much of a use during war time, she should keep it to herself for future, and furthermore she was just a lady traveling alone. She would need it more. In return to father’s flavor, she offered to teach me English, she wanted to restart the school in village for English class, she would talk to the mayor about that and anyone who felt interested could attend the class. Not plenty of youngsters keened to go to school that time, and it was quite an odd idea of starting a school also. I quitted my school since 15 years old, I neither volunteered or protested it, come to think about it, I started to miss my English teacher back then.
We used to have a place we called school in the village; it was nothing looked like a school, rather it was like a storeroom with capacity to sit in no more than ten students. There were a few old desks and tables left in the place from the older time, now it had already been covered by thick layer dust. Sat aside the classroom was a solitary old piano, it was made of good piano manufacturer, and how it ended here was a true mystery. So we’re settled at the small room as our English school, classroom. Whenever I thought of the idea of attending the school, it gave me an odd feeling – I wasn’t sure what that was. The feeling is indescribable.
I was a bad student back then when I attended school, I skipped class far too often; I would find excuse not to go to school during rainy days, pretended to be sick or having a stomachache. Then I would go to the nearby river to join the other kid for some funs, we played hide-and-seek at the river bank and forest, and we would go fishing, used fishing rod that we made ourselves by rattans. By the end of the day we would just plunge ourselves into the water and got ourselves all wet and dirty. But no one really cared, parents were too busy for their rough life and house chores – struggled for a few cents in order to continue living, kids would have to live on their own, or at least find their own entertainment. I hadn’t have any interest to continue study but the fact that I would not have the chance to study again strike me, it’s like it was the last chance I had, and never again. So, whenever I didn’t need to help father with house chores, I would go to school. Most of the time, the classroom could be pitifully cold; never in my memory had more than five students attended the class. However, she was diligent; she would teach even there was only one student left in the class. I wanted to ask her if she want to skip it as only she and I, but I hesitated and in the end I never put it into word. In the classroom only me and her, she continued the lesson and I dissolved into her word that sound like some fairy tale stories to me.
In a kingdom, the princess slept for eternity. She lied flat on her bed of altar, lifeless. Her cheeks were as pales as dead. She dressed an elegant white gown and pearl necklace framing her delicate neck, like a bride after black out. The king came to visit her; he sat beside her and cried alone, almost like mourning. After a while, his servant came in and said something to him, he wiped his tears away before he started to talk to his servant, and both of them left the room. I found myself stuck inside the closet overlooking the whole scene, I could sense a pleasant fragrance lingered around the enclosed space, the garments of dresses gently brushed my neck and cheeks now and then; I gazed at the sleeping princess through the small opening of the closet for a while before I dared myself to step out from it. I stood beside her, now I could look at her close enough to make out the detail of her face, soon it stroke me that I couldn’t make out the detail of her face, it’s blurred. It’s like seeing someone’s face and forgets it immediately. I wiped my eyes for a few times for fear that my vision might be the problem, but still the same. Gave up, I reached my hand out to touch her cheeks, it still got warmth, I relieved. Her complexion was extremely fine, the touch of it felt like touching baby’s skin. I ran my fingertip across her cheek to her lips, and I was lost in her lips. All of a sudden I felt like kissing her lips, a surge of desire rushed towards my brain, it was overwhelming. So, I kissed her lips. I felt her lukewarm breaths caressing my cheek as I kissed her. Her lips were so tender and lively as though she had been awakened. But as I looked up at her again, that pale face of her still looked the same. As though the statue up in cold mountain, frozen dead. She must have witnessed me doing all this to her from her eternal dream. The thought of it made me felt guilty. I ran to a place which was completely dark, where no one could find me there. Then I tripped and fell unconscious. I saw myself falling into unconsciousness. In the darkness, I heard a familiar voice calling my name.
I opened my eyes, the light was blindingly bright, that I squinted my eyes before I could fully open them up. It took me a while to get use to the light, I saw a blurred figure of a person, and she was calling at me, before too long my English teacher’s image came into view. She was staring at me as I recovered from my drowsiness, then she smiled.
Sorry, I felt asleep! I apologized to her. She was not particularly shocked, her eyes were still as calm as ever and she didn’t look like she was going to lose her temper anytime soon. Using fingers, she brushed strains of her hair aside before she continued again. Is my English lesson boring? She asked and looked into my eyes. I kept quiet. I didn’t really know how to answer her. I wasn’t interested in studying but I attended the class anyway. Or maybe I should say that I’m trying to cultivate the interest in me and I’m trying hard now. People do get stumbled in the process of achieving something, as for me, I felt asleep in process of getting to like learning. I don’t know. I said, finally I squeezed the word out. Only then I started to realize that it might be her that I went to class again. Hearing my answer, she looked straight into my eyes.
“Well, what is your passion?” She asked.
“I have never thought of anything I wanted to do. Not a thing so strong that I will mention it straight away.” I said, sounded a bit uncertain, but really, I hadn’t thought of that just yet.
“You know, I have always wanted to teach. That is my passion, being able to teach in the classroom.” She said, and stared out through the window into the clear blue sky. Thousands words flicked pass her black pupils but I couldn’t quite understand them. I didn’t know how to respond to that so I kept quiet. Later she broke the silence. “It’s okay.” She ended the conversation.
Whenever I made it to class, I would stay until the class end to help her with clean up of the classroom. After that we would walk home together. My house was not so far away, so I didn’t need to worry about awkward silence whenever I walked with her. We didn’t have much in common to talk about, and she was quiet all the time. Most of the time I just walked behind her, distance between us was like two yards away. Occasionally she would greet the other villagers who we passed by, then she would turn around to check whether I was following, realizing that I was there might have further calmed her, I guess.
* * *
I jolted awake and sprang up straight in the middle of October night. Sat on my bed, I was breathing quick and shallow, I looked around the room which lied in the darkness, there was no light came from window. I barely made out the shape of window; air was still, curtain hung down from the iron string like frozen pieces of cloth with tons of weights. The air was silent, it had never been so quiet before, like after someone beats a drum in your ears hard enough that all that you can hear is deafening bee buzzing sound. But this silence was different, it lasted almost too long for bee buzzing effect. I got up from my bed and went out from my room. The house was in complete darkness, but I was able to make out most of the objects in the surrounding as my pupils were getting used to the limited source of light. I passed by the room where my teacher lived. I wondered what dream she is having now, is she having a good sleep? And I wondered how she looks like when she is asleep. I stared at the door knob for a moment before I went on out from the house to have a stroll.
At night, without the decoration of lights, the village was like cemetery with scattered tombstones. It has lose its’ color, woods didn’t seem like wood neither green looked like green anymore, all objects had been painted black and dark grey at this moment, not a hint of brighter color, not any blue color. Wearing my slippers, I walked down the village gravel path that my footsteps sounded almost too loud, it sounded unreal in the air. I wondered if it was I who making the noise under my feet. I didn’t have any particular destination to go to, but my feet were walking me to the edge of hill, the front yard of the village.
I stopped dead in the middle gravel path, something caused me came to a halt. I thought I was hearing something, but my footsteps were too loud for me to make out what was that. I stood in silence as the clouds above me glide across the twilight sky, nothing else was moving at this moment. I could faintly hear the earth revolved on its axis, suddenly it became so loud and audible – the deepest growl of revolving earth caused by friction of ground soils, sea surface, green forest, desert sand, and man-made concrete land against the air surrounding the earth, somewhere in the layers of atmosphere, the troposphere or Stratosphere, lightning was form as a result gases’ molecules clashing each others, contributing to another layer deeper growl. I closed my eyes. It has got to be music of piano I thought. It came from front yard of the village, there were no other places we had a piano in the village except the classroom. I tried to trace the sound of piano as I walked in slow paces; not wanting my footsteps to break the sound of piano came into my eardrums. Inside the classroom was as dark as outside, it might be darker inside as I couldn’t make out anything inside. The music of piano hadn’t stopped yet.
Standing at the doorway, I looked at the direction of the piano across the room. Its pitch black, my pupils self-adjusted to the darkness, making out the detail of every object in the room. A girl was sitting right in front of the piano, back facing me. She was playing the piano. She sat herself straight, an extremely good posture. Her face and eyes looked down at the keyboard, following the movements of her hands as she pressed on the key notes with her skillful fingers. I couldn’t see her expression, but I could tell she must have her eyes closed, like slowly tasting the music on her tongue before swallowed them up. She was wearing a white color sleeveless blouse and azure dress, her straight long hair hung down at her back like a piece of expensive black silk, swayed slightly as she turned.
I stood there for a long time, for exactly how long I wasn’t too sure. I have never kept track of time in ages, I could tell time only by estimating the height of sun hanging in the sky – the sun rise in the east at dawn and set in the west at dusk, it hits noon time when the sun shines from top of the sky, the brightest of the day. There were no TV programs and no people counts how many hours you work. So basically time was not much of a factor here. I listened to the sound of music produced from the decades old piano, trying my best not to move even just a little. I tried to breathe as slowly as possible. But as I attempted to control my breaths, my heart pounded even louder, too loud that I felt like she could hear it. I didn’t want to break the beautiful sound stream but my pounding heart just wouldn’t quiet down. So I retreated to a dark corner in the class, hided myself behind the mess of desks and chairs, where she wouldn’t see me.
She ran her fingers through the ending key notes and finalized the triad. The sound of the last chord echoed in the quiet air, lasted a while. She let out a breath while still looking down at the keyboard, and she closed the keyboard cover before resting both her hands on her laps. She tiled her head up a bit, looking straight. Now it was completely quiet, I didn’t know what she was looking at; she might be just looking at the blank wall, trying to make out the invisible pattern drawn on the wooden wall. Or she was thinking about something, something difficult. The silence grew louder as minutes added up, in this room where only me and her, it grew so loud, almost deafening. Now I knew silence was actually a kind of sound that we could hear.
Without warning, she stood up and headed to doorway in swift paces, not making any noise, she disappeared from my view. I got out from my hiding place and walked towards the piano, I stared at the piano and the empty stool, picturing the image of her sitting on the stool, playing the piano. I felt the cushion with my hand, the place where she sat was still warm but it was losing temperature, very soon it would be completely cold. By then, the image of her sitting here would be gone.
* * *
The war was drawing near; we knew it, it was right at the bottom of hill. Every now and then we could hear war plane flying back and forth in distance horizon, dropping tons of explosive onto heart of the land, blasting objects with shape into bits, and then it would be silence, eerily silence as if the earth was weeping in agony. It would not take more than half a month for war to sweep across this part of the land, so one year before today, father had already build an air raid shelter under our house. It took him a month to dig a hole under the ground that could stay up to a few adults and a few months to strengthen the shelter so it won’t collapse and buried us alive in there. It seemed like we would have to make use of it real soon. I collected as much dried food as possible to stock up in the shelter, so we could self-sustain without coming out from the surface. It was the safest way to live during war time, not guaranteed but that was what everyone was doing.
Until now, I had never failed to wait in the dark, for her to show up and play her favorite song. She played the same song almost everyday, there was time she played other songs but before too long she will swap and play her favorite old song again, I guessed the song bear special meanings to her. Compare to her favorite song, the play of the other chord sounded almost too perfect but a lot less emotional. Playing piano, she dipped herself into her own world of serenity and perfection, while I was in my world where there were only me and her. I stayed quietly in shadow, with myself invisible, listening to the nicest sound I ever heard, in appreciation. It was too beautiful.
As always I felt the warmth on the stool with my hand after she had left, until it cooled down and eventually became cold. Image of her playing piano disappeared naturally. Then I left the classroom, and took at walk near the hill slope, let the night mountain breeze caress me as I relaxed myself. I lied myself on the green pasture, looked up into the zillion stars sky. I closed my eyes, quietly listened to the revolving earth.
There, at the edge of the world, I witnessed the present transformed to become history.
Comments