Nara's Opus

The absent shapes and strengthens.

🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹

Young Nara poised her fingers over the keys, ready to launch into a version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy that was distinctly hers—modern, upbeat, unconventional--very impatient. 

Nara was known for her divaesque displays--torn curtains and damaged floorboards remained, a testimony to her quick, sometimes violent temper. 

The dark concert hall enveloped her. She was alone onstage, save for the dim yellow spotlight that danced on the black and white keys. 

She began.

A crescendo of arpeggios in G enveloped the auditorium. She revelled in her magic---but her fingers hovered over the keys. 

The notes were almost too ethereal -- melding, harmonic---

Together. With a presence she hadn't welcomed to rehearse with her. 

One that was lingering too long, exacting pressure on the keys that complemented hers. 

The arpeggios had ascended with chords finished by something else. 

Her eyes flicked around the hall--she hadn't arranged for an accompanist's recording. 

She hadn't intended a harmonised sound for Ode to Joy. This resonated.

To her--off-key. She clenched her fists, ready to bang the ivories. 

🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹

The eclectic, yet dissonant harmonies drew her to the hall for practice each night--an unseen hand tweaking and melding phrases with hers. Their contrast with her legato runs had a piercing edge--far sharper than she intended to deliver as a pianist. 

Each legato returned to enwrap her, a cold blanket--not comforting. 

The music intoxicated--she swayed with it in almost drunkenness. 

The duets were at first routine---but her need for them grew. 

And grew--becoming obsessive. Urgent. 

She pressed the ivory keys--harder. 

Haunted. Her silence was full. 

Her ethereal notes were not lost on her audience--the harmonic layers even more prominent. 

🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹

She was faithful to her practice sessions---her unseen partner just as dutiful. They came with musical highs and lows--unforced errors, too-loud legatos, and crescendoes that went off-key when they transcended scales. They were her guide--calming her trembling fingers, shaping notes when they needed sculpting. 

Her inner diva became smaller--there was less need for a tuner to repair ravaged keys. The omnipresent being kept time with her--and reined in her temper.

🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹

The day of her grand performance dawned, along with rising anticipation and expectation. Nara had nurtured her soul and talent for this--nothing could fail. 

She launched into an eclectic blend of legatos and staccatos--naughty notes that sneaked in when no one expected them in a performance of Ode to Joy. The echoes of her notes crescendo---they would rise with her, a duet with an omnipresent, invisible partner. 

But they didn't. 

Just as Nara held the sustain pedal to bring the Ode to a thundering climax, there was nothing. 

But--silence. 

She paused, eyes flickering over the hundreds of pairs in the hall staring back at her. 

Not. A. Single. Note. 

Then, she broke the wait. 

She had quiet power in her hands. Anticipation.     

Nara's fingers climbed the ascending steps of the scale with her 'partner'---

Resonant. 

Beautiful.

Confident. 

She continued gracing the ivory keys with her fingers, notes rising to that climactic crescendo, vibrating and cajoling ivory keys---in a virtual duet. 

And the missing echo became the loudest note. A silent accompanist. 

🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹

Nara's concert tour ended in calls of "encore" after every performance--calls generated by a humble accompanist who melded with the hall's velvet curtains. 

She never heard from him--or her--again. 

But her fingers kept tracing the keys--each time as if their presence was in perfect sync. 

Her crescendoes resonated to their peak, swelling like invitations -- answered by an ever-growing audience. 

She played for the echo that never abandoned her--it had stood, comfortable with her talent, in the shadows. 

She graced every single performance--unlike the temperamental diva that once lay within. 

The absent conductor continued to mould her sound. 

🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹

For Vocal's The Shape of the Thing Challenge