After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

Post by cindyrae77 »

Eep! missed one. "Staring INTO the void again."

and not 'back to his lonely.' Back to his loneliness or back to his lonely self.

And one little aside, not an error. I've been calling her "Miss Kendrick" and in this paragraph you have Rolley calling her Ms Kendrick. You're not wrong, and whichever way we go is fine, but we should pick one, I think, and stick with it, just to be consistent.

Sorry to not have caught it before! I was all caught up in the narrative and totally missed it, would have sworn it was mistake free just as it was. Thank you for giving me a nudge backward to look at it! (I didn't mean to let you down by being an enthusiastic audience but a sucky editor!

Hugs!

Cindy
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Ok, thank you. Corrections made, paragraphs copied in the Clean Copy.

Your turn.

Ciao,
S
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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For a moment, Rolley wasn't going to answer him. There was a bench. There was a bench and so what? So what, indeed? There was a bench loaded with treasure, secret treasure that Beethoven and Chopin and a bunch of other dead guys and written, and Miss Kendrick, dead Miss Kendrick had touched.

Play something you like to play. Something you like to play when mean old ladies like me aren't bothering you.

Adagio, junkie? You out f your mind? Ain't no word in any language going to describe how slow you need to...

Slow. Adagio. Slow like stoned. Slow like dead. Slow, slow, slow.

"The bench is just a lid." That couldn't be his voice. To Rolley's own ears it wasn't, but it was. It was a slow voice. An adagio voice. A sound that pushed through, but was still uncertain. Baby steps. Adagio steps, unsteady and uncertain, but wobbling forward.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
REMOVED

Pascal smiled. Zach understood and grinned a toothy grin. Rolley looked at his friends. Ready to laugh, swing, or play the silence with him. He removed his hands from under his thighs. Middle C. He had found it.


REMOVED

~ * ~
cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Zach, ever the anxious youngter, brimmed with enthusiasm "A lid like a secret lid? Like on a treasure box?" Zach jumped up.

Pascal, Pascal the quiet one who never stopped listening, Pascal whose 'voice' was a pair of metal bars more than it was vocal cords, understood Rolley's contemplative demeanor. "Slow down, Zach. Slow," Pascal cautioned, watching the play of emotions across Rolley's face. Adagio. Pascal, unlike most people, was not afraid of silence, and saw no need to rush to fill it. Pascal knew that silence on the pipes meant something, and that it was a different something. That it could either mean that all was well, or it could mean that a sentry report was late, and there might be trouble. Pascal knew how to 'play the rests,' to 'play the silences' just as you played the notes. That the pause between the taps was a vital part of the message.

"Adagio. It means 'slow' in Italian," Rolley said.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
“Slow. No hurry, in fact,” Pascal replied. “If there’s a treasure there, it has been waiting for you. For you to be ready to… discover it.” He looked at Rolley, intently. “It can still wait, if it’s not the right time. For now… or forever,” he added, smiling. Zach understood and nodded, grinning a toothy grin. Rolley looked at his friends. Ready to laugh, swing, or play the silence with him. Or music, with him. He could decide that the lid of that bench, close to a grand piano which had been playing silence for so long, was be the covering of a treasure chest, or of an honored grave. And he would be loved anyway. But… he could decide that it was both, he suddenly thought. “Oh, Rolley, you are a treasure!” had said Miss Kendrick. No, Miss Kendrick. You are a treasure. He removed his hands from under his thighs. Middle C. He had found it.

----

Ok. I removed my last paragraph, as it was useless there, and your paragraphs flow better one after the other. I included it in this one instead, and I think that this can really be the last paragraph of this long scene, so that you can start with another scene now. What do you think?


S
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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He rose slowly. Not 'adagio' slowly, but like a man in no great hurry. Treasure. Miss Kendrick was a treasure. The "Pathetique" was a treasure. Dead Beethoven was a treasure, and so had Rolley been, once, in the eyes of a beautiful black woman. Zach jumped up as Rolley achieved his feet, and Pascal rose to steady his arm. Treasure. That thing you put away for safe keeping until the day you needed it. The thing you drew a map to, lest you forget. The thing you set in low, deep places, and kept as a secret in your heart. Rolley knew where his lay. Or at least he thought he did.
"Let's go find out if it's still there," Rolley said, unable to promise more than that, but knowing what it meant that he wanted to look.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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~ * ~

Scales, scales, and scales. Their sound filled the tunnel leading to the grand piano chamber, and Vincent smiled, while approaching it. Like long ago, and like many nights more recently, Rolley had not joined them for supper. This time, along with his admiration for the young man’s perseverance, Vincent was carrying a loaded tray.

.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Rippling sound as the scales moved a little faster, and faster still, each time. Ringing sound for the chords as 'scales' was often a thing not just accomplished one finger at a dancing time, but by the whole hand, spread into position and brought down, with steady speed. Tempo. Tempo. Adagio was for the beginning. This was not the beginning, now. Vincent saw perspiration sheen on the black skin, as Rolley worked. Sweating, down here, was no easy feat, especially if one was seated, and Rolley was. And he was sweating. And sitting on his treasure chest. Reading its priceless contents, in front of him. There was a stub of a pencil in his mouth, and he stopped to make some sort of random note on the page in front of him. Vincent knew he hadn't had much in the way of food in that mouth, not lately. His passion and his addiction had something In common. Both kept him thin.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Vincent carefully put down the tray on the piano lid, and resisted the impulse to stop those frantic hands with his own hand, like long ago. He simply stood, respectfully waiting for Rolley to remember on his own that he was still much more than his music for his tunnel family.

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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The sweat-slicked hands stuttered as the tray settled on the lid of the piano. Reset, and tried again. Slower at first, a little, then with their building tempo. Then, another stumble. They both heard it. He was going too fast, trying to do too much, too quickly. "Gotta practice. Gotta get good." It was so much like what he'd said when he was young that Vincent's heart broke for him, a little. Dark eyes darted back to the beginning of the line of music and tried again.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
It was so much like what he’d said, so much like what he wanted to accomplish then, that Vincent fleetingly wished that all the time in-between could magically disappear, with its burden of pain and soul scars. He slowly poured a glass of water from the jug, and his hand crossed the wall of notes being built by the keyboard to place it in front of the young man’s nose. The wall crashed down, and Rolley looked at it confused.

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Water. A glass of water. Rolley stared at it as if he'd never seen one, as if he'd forgotten its use. The confusion that clouded his dark eyes lingered a moment longer, and his tongue went out in an unconscious gesture to lick his parched lips, yet he ignored the relief before him. "Why'd you do that?" he demanded of Vincent.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
"Do what?" Vincent asked.

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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"Stop me. Interrupt. I need to work, Vincent. Got to do this." Vincent wasn't sure if the dark eyes looked like they were asking for understanding or holding a touch of mutiny. Either way, there was an emphatic nature to them which Vincent recognized all too well.
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