After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Sometimes they spoke to each other, but just as often, they didn't. Pascal was not the kind of man who needed to fill an empty silence. If anything, in this room, it was hard to find one. But the nattering, codified conversations were a thing you could either tune in to or tune out of, as you chose. Rolley had barely learned tunnel code when he'd been here before. Most of his time had been spent with Miss Kendrick, learning rhythms and patterns of a different kind. Patterns that were gone, all gone, now. All of it. All of her, and what she'd given to him. All of what he'd given to it as well.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Lost once more in his neverending brooding, he barely noticed that someone had come close. “Hello, Rolley,” Zach said, and let himself plop aside him, legs swinging hanging in the void like his were.

{changed swinging into hanging}

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cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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"Hey," Rolley replied, eying the gangly adolescent with a mixture of acceptance and unease. He wasn't sure he wanted to be around children much, yet. Kids could sometimes be intrusive, or even terrifically blunt, neither of which Rolley wanted, right now. He realized as he looked at Zack that the young boy was about the same age he had been, when Eli had first brought him down to the tunnels. He'd been sleeping in Eli's basement, to escape Anthony's... wilder times.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Zach sat there, swinging his legs. Just sat. Close to him. Said nothing. Listened to the tappings, swung legs. And seemed to simply enjoy being there, sitting close to him, swinging legs and saying nothing.

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cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Silence could be as nerve-jangling as cacophony, in its way, and Rolley found Zach's long limbed presence if not intrusive, at least a little unnerving. The child seemed to want nothing of him, not even conversation. Rolley wasn't sure which one of them would break the silence first, or even if it should be broken. Silence was like a rest, in music. As a matter of fact, in music, the word 'rest' meant 'silence.' Rests were the places where you didn't play. Where you allowed your fingers to reset to the keys, allowed your thumb to find that middle C again. The player's position was a 'resting' position, at first. Every musician 'played the silence' for just a moment, before he set himself to the opening notes. Was that what Zach was doing? Playing the silence? Was that what he, Rolley was doing?

Note: Change Listened to the tappings, swung legs. to Listened to the tappings, and swung his legs. Also on the last sentence, insert the word 'his' again, as in 'swinging his legs and saying nothing.'
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

Post by 222333 »

{oh, beautiful!}

*
Tap… tap… tap… Rumble… rumble… rumble… Pascal’s quiet steps in the background… and Zach’s legs swishing sound. The silence was far from silent. Yes, you could either tune all that to or tune out of. What if that middle C was the starting point of a dialogue with the surrounding audience, rather than with a void to be filled with beautiful, parroting notes?


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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Very subtly at first, but then with more strength, Rolley began silently swinging his legs.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
OOooooh.... brillant! Perfect!

S - thinking, now
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Zach grinned. Rolley could not see it, as he was staring into the void in front of him. But he… perceived it. He could not help smiling as well, all the time swinging his legs. And noticing that Zach was swinging in sync. Perfectly in sync. Rolley’s smile widened, and he marvelled at being still able to use those almost forgotten facial muscles. Felt good. And then he chuckled, a strange sound to his own ears, and heard Zach’s chuckle echoing. He finally looked at Zach, and Zach looked at him. Neither of them stopping swinging their legs. And they both burst into laughters.

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cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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A small correction "And they both burst into laughter." (no 's' on the end of laughter.) And you nailed it for brilliant!
Something like this? And smack me if I'm pulling it off track. It can be changed.


Full laugh. Belly laugh, and if at any time it threatened to stop, one of them simply started it again, the pealing volume and staccato tempo increasing like a symphonic movement headed for the crescendo. Low sound from Rolley, the underpinning bass. Higher sound from Zach, the adolescent alto of a voice not yet changed by puberty. If smiling felt unfamiliar, laughter felt absolutely alien, to Rolley. His chest muscles, entirely unused to having to expand as he took in air deeply, ached right away from the necessity of doing so. His sides hurt almost immediately. His cheeks felt stretched in an utterly uncomfortable way, his neck and jaw tight. And not for the world did he want it to stop. Not for the world. Breathing, that other nearly silent thing the body did, was something his had been doing very shallowly. Shallowly for years, perhaps, but now that was not possible. It felt good to take air in and expel it again, in large whooping gusts. Felt good to need to. Felt good to watch Zach have to struggle for air as much as he was. Zach's expression was joyful. And neither of them stopped swinging their legs.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Perfect. Perfect! A symphony.
Again, I need to think a bit now.

FYI - last couple of days my mailbox has been hiccupping. If you wrote to me, I received nothing.

S
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
In their blur of exhilaration, it took them a bit to realize that the couples of legs swinging in sync had become three. And that a certain unusual tapping, iron against wood, was accompanying the rhythm.

S
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Six legs now swung in time, as Pascal's metal pipes beat a tattoo on the wood. Simple rhythm. Nothing complex, or overdone. Zach began to pat his legs with his hands, setting up a double-time beat. Rolley marked the time signature. 4/4 time. Common time. One, two, three, four, their legs like a soundless metronome, swinging to the beat. Pascal hit on every down beat, Zach took the space between. Between the striking of the pipes and patting of Zach's legs, they were a 'one-and-two-and-three-and-four' combo.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
What’s missing? Hands clapping, of course. On the “ones”. Okay good, okay fine, as Mouse would say. But before Rolley could proceed, something else marked the "ones". Pling… pling… pling… Something incongruous with the vigorous, rhythmical pulse suddenly emerged from… from nowhere… and lightly landed on the top of the energetic beats like a kind blessing. Rolley looked around. No. It did not come from outside. He closed his eyes. There. 2/4, bravely trying to tame a spirited 4/4 metronome. His left hand stirred. Pling, pling, pling, pling, pling, pling… Incongruous, but SO beautiful. “Rolley, that’s the second movement.” How did she call it? “It doesn’t matter if you like it better: you’re allowed to play it only if you can play the first before.” A strange name… something that had to do with sadness? Miserable… Pathetic! Yes, pathetic. It did not sound pathetic then, like it did not sound pathetic now. It sounded sweet, and soothing.

{if it sounds too obscure, I'm ready to change, or feel free to change it yourself. I'm posting it before pondering too much, also to test the new upgrade of the Forum and see if everything works properly. Does it for you after the changes?}

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cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Muscles had memory, and Rolley's fingers were full of those. it didn't matter that his brain struggled to remember. Without being aware of it, Rolley's left hand began to 'play' on his thigh, the swinging thigh muscle beneath the baggy slacks keeping time. Thumb down. Index up. Shift. Change. Three flats in the key of the first movement, and was that why they called it 'grave?' But it wasn't. It wasn't grave and it wasn't pathetic. It had low drama and for a moment, the melody that seemed to begin on the bass clef moved to the treble. No, it wasn't grave or pathetic. It was a gift. A gift of music. Rolley didn't know the moment his eyes closed. For several long minutes, he still saw the tunnel world around him. Then he saw something else.

It's not too vague for me if it's Beethoven's Pathetique you're referring to. (I used to have it on an old LP vinyl record that included the Asspasionata and the Moonlight Sonatas)

If you were driving somewhere else, however, I just threw us off and will have to retract something.
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