I've had a lot of fun showing some of my writing this week, and talking about my characters. So much so, that I wanted to solicit some feedback on one scene in the sequel to SLIPSTREAM. I hope you don't mind. Please don't feel obligated to read it. If you do, I ask that you please press play on the embedded video first because the music of Chopin really inspired me to write this piece, and it's classical music so you can read and listen at the same time. :)
I have always had a fondness for Chopin. I hope you liked this snippet.
Jordan checked behind him and saw no one. “Myd?” he whispered, not wishing to make too much noise. His eyes darted in every direction from underneath the shadow cast by the bill from the hockey cap. He strained to hear anything, but he heard no footfalls. A wind chime sounded its ghostly music on the far side of an open window.
He turned around and admired the baby grand; it called to him. He’d never played anything other than a guitar and most of that had been done on a game for the Sony Playstation 3. He didn’t understand the compulsion that he felt to touch it; to run his fingers over the white lacquer, to press its keys. His Adam’s apple bobbed under the smooth white skin of his throat, and he walked over, reached out with the fingers of his right hand, and gently stroked the tops of them. He caressed them like he would a lover. Wordlessly, Jordan moved the bench out, took a seat, and started pressing the keys as musical notes took root in his mind. He played Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2 by Frederic Chopin. He’d heard it before but had never played it, never dreamed of playing it, and suddenly he was able to do so as if he’d practiced it all of his life.
His fingers flew over the keys, pressing them in tune as if directed by a ghostly consciousness. He closed his eyes, feeling the music rise around him like a warm, soothing blanket. On the ephemeral wings of the Nocturne’s slow and exquisite rhythm, Jordan saw the sun drenched parlor of the home as it appeared in all seasons of the year. In the sparkling clear notes from the piano, he saw a man that looked much like him playing at the exquisite instrument. He was in his mid-twenties, blond, slender of build, wearing a blue denim jacket almost identical to the one he wore now.
Jordan lost track of time, playing the keys, long narrow fingers flying over them, eyes flitting back and forth as if reading invisible sheet music. Behind him, Myddrin entered the room, observing him at the piano. Next to her, stood a tall man whose age lay between sixty and seventy. He wore plaid pants, leather shoes, and his hair appeared as white as new snow. He had a mustache and pale green eyes. He looked on Jordan with fascination as the teenager played the piano, fingers finding keys that had been neglected for years. It was haunting and beautiful to hear the music once again, for he’d heard it before…played from a heart that cherished the sound in the same way that Chopin had cherished Nocturne. And then the strangest thing happened—Jordan began to cry. Tears welled up and streamed down his cheeks but he continued unfaltering, fingers guided by a ghost from his past—by someone that loved him more than his own life.
When he finished, Jordan sat there in complete silence, blond eyelashes restrained tears with nothing but surface tension, fully aware that Myd and a stranger watched him. But he couldn’t move as his mind raced. Jordan thought the unthinkable. A single tear fell from his chin and broke on the piano. “My father played this,” he said. “My dad played this every single day, right here, in this spot.”
“—Jordan,” the man said at last. His voice fell upon his ears like thick syrup.
He turned and looked at the speaker standing there next to Myddrin. He respectfully stood and removed his hockey cap and held it in his hands. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me—.”
“It’s all right, son” the man stated. “I haven’t heard Chopin played like that since your father played it for me—as you’d guessed already—almost eighteen years ago.”