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Word Count: 2094



//I started playing when I was four. Yeah I was always one of those kids, you know, the kind you love to hate because they're so perfect. I don't mean to be conceited but I used to think it was just the truth. I was perfect; the perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect pianist. Once I got to school I played the part of the perfect student. The other kids fucking hated that.

I remember once the whole class was out on the playground for recess. Alot of people were out because it was the first really warm day of the spring. The teachers stood on one end of the playground and watched all the kids as they ran around like decapitated chickens. Our class had just finished a mock spelling bee and of course I was the winner. Of course that didn't go over real well with the kids in the class. It was more than warm that day it was hot. I could feel the sun burning my skin which may or may not have been a good indicator of the heat since I was very fair skinned and burned easily. The mulch crunched under my feet as I ran to join the game of soccer out on the field. I always loved it when we played soccer in school because it was the only time I got to play like a real kid and not have my mother hovering over me worrying about my hands.

The ball was passed to me and as I moved it down the field all I can remember is getting the wind knocked out of me. The grass was sharp on my face and freshly cut because I could smell every bit of it and the dirt that I lay on. Lumis, a real scruffy looking kid from my class stood over me. Despite his appearance he was actually very nice, some of the time, and really bright, some of the time. The thing about Lumis was that he liked to win. All of the time. In the spelling bee it had come down to me and him neck and neck, tit for tat in points. The last word had gone to him; he botched it so I got it and I spelt it right. Apparently he was still sore about that on the inside so he saw that the only way to remedy the situation was to make me sore about it on the outside.

He walked around me once, twice, and then crouched down beside my stomach. 'You think you're some hot shot don't you, Hot Shot? My mom says to watch out for people like you because people like you think they're better than everyone else.' His breath smelled like the ugly looking slabs of turkey they served at lunch that day. There was a green smudge on the back of one of his small teeth, leftover peas I supposed. He sucker punched me in the gut. 'Well let me set you straight Hot Shot, you ain't better than no body.' Looking back on it I know now that Lumis' mother let him watch too many of those old movies that she loved so much. It's no wonder Lumis ended up charming and funny half the time and old New York ganster the other half. //




I watched the others at the bulletin board as the stood with friends in front of the sheet that I knew would change my life. I just knew that if I hadn't made this one or at least ranked at the top of the pack that this would be it for me and music. Cheers of joy filled the air and silent wails of barely concealed disappointment painted the faces of the young musicians checking the sheet. Others, it seemed, didn't care either way and had come out just to see the list. As the crowd thinned, the press of jackets becoming less, I found the nerve to look at that sheet of paper blowing lightly in the wind. The only thing keeping it in place was a little red tack. Walking up to it I shakily drew an invisible line from the name column to the scores. I must have done it at least 20 times before what I was reading finally registered in my stress deadened mind. I could feel my face fall as the knowledge of another failed audition settled in and after that I could feel the bottom of my eyelids getting heavier with the weight of water.

'I will not cry in public; I will not cry in public. Damn it, I'm crying.'

It was such a dissapointment, time after time it was such a spoon to the skin: this dull pain that would hurt intensely later and bruise in that half mooon shape that would hold all of my downfalls.

It sounds stupid but I had expected to at least be in the first half of the participants. But dead last... that was an all new low for me. Man, I couldn't even remember the prepared piece. My only saving grace was my scales, or so I thought but apparently not even those kept me from that glorious title of the lowest score. It hurt. Knowing that all of my efforts were not and might not ever be good enough. It hurt alot.




Not one foot away from where he stood was a black bench and directly in front of that a piano. Both were polished to the point where he could see his reflection in them as he waited for the judges to signal to him that he could begin. It had been brought to his attention earlier that when he became stressed his lips were former a very thin line of color across his face, a cleavage furrow would form on his brow, and his eyes would become impossibly large. He was ashamed to say that it was the truth and none of those responses made him look any better than he felt.

'So much for pretending to be confident,' he thought to himself.

The judges sat in front of him, a single row of isolated lights in the darkness of the theatre hall. Some had tape recorders to record their notes on each participant others felt it best to go the old fashioned way: pen and paper, jotting down all they could to find the best out of the bunch. The last judge on the right looked up, a balding man with very small glasses, and nodded to a short haired woman in the middle of the row.

"Micah Darcy, we're ready for you to start now," she said her voice carrying across the hall.

He could feel the tension in his fingers as he settled down on the black bench. His back straightened, pulling the dress shirt that covered his torso taut along his back. Cold sweat trickled down from his hairline and rolled down one smooth cheekbone. He could only hope that the judges were so far away that they didn't see that or couldn't see how badly his body was shaking. The muscles in his feet threatened to cramp as he placed them on the pedals. He wiggled his toes in his shoes hearing a slight squeak that sounded all too loud in the quiet hall. Long fingers skimmed over the ivory keys before settling on the right ones. With a firm resolve he began his prepared piece only to find that he couldn't remember it...

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//'It wasn't as bad as you thought.'

'I mean, you messed up, yeah, but it could have been worse.'

'It has been worse.'

"Shut up," I muttered to myself, stopping at the crest of the hill to catch my breath.

Campus had way too many hills. It's hard to believe that I couldn't wait to get here. Couldn't wait to get away from my stupid dad and that stupid town and get to this great place on my awesome music scholarship. Man, if I knew what was going to happen I would have gladly stayed in stupidville with all of the things in my life that I hated. Hell if I knew what was going to happen I would have gladly continued to torture myself back home, I would never have taken that internship, I would never have dropped music like a ton of bricks. The fact is that I didn't know what was going to happen and even when I knew all of the details things were so far out of my control that I didn't even try to pretend that I could stop what had already been set into motion.

Maybe stopping wasn't the best idea. Now I don't want to go any further although I think this might be far enough. Using my hands I push some snow off of the bench beside me. I try to get as much off as I can but the seat's still going to be wet and cold no matter what I do. Sitting down I can feel my jeans start to dampen a little; good thing I thought to double layer.

I think it's fair to say that I wish it had never happened, any of it. But you know what they say, if wishes were horses...

But I can't help but wish sometimes when I'm in the apartment by myself and I see a picture of the two of us. All the memories come rushing back and I have enough wishes to fill an apartment complex. I wish I hadn't seen the murder that night. I wish she hadn't gotten involved. I wish I hadn't told her anything. I wish....

Man, if wishes were horses, we'd all have fucking stallions.//

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I could see my breath in the air in front of me. It just kept coming out in little streams as I tried vainly to warm my fingers. I hated this cold weather. Of course I could just add it up on that long list of things I was beginning to hate about this place. Not all that glitters is gold. I wish I had understood that before instead of just saying, hell yeah it is.

I'm going to be frank with you Chicago sucks in the winter, especially if you're a kid from the sunny beaches of SoCal who's never had a snowy winter in their entire life. All my life I had wanted to come here. Well, maybe not all of my life but the part of my life where I played the piano. Since then, it was here that I wanted to study music.

It wasn't a matter of not having done enough research (I think I must've visited the place at least three times) it was a matter of not seeing something for what it really was until the thing in question decided to kick you in the gonads. Oh yes, the truth of the matter was that while I loved playing the piano it was becoming increasingly obvious that I just wasn't as good as I was before. Maybe that's the wrong thing to say. A better way to phrase it would be that I wasn't as good as I *thought* I was before.

It just seemed that even though my body was only 18, my hands and my career, if you will, were eons old. Right before I had to leave for college I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel and before that I had two cysts on each of my wrists. On top of all that I had botched every audition for the past two years. It was a wonder I got into the music program here in the first place. If it wasn't for my "glaringly obvious potential" and my stellar letters of reccommendation I don't think I would have gotten in.

Now here I was in a position that was becoming all too familiar. I felt like the sultan's favorite harem girl. Everytime I went into one of those auditions it was as if fate just tossed me on my back and fucked me over. I mean, I could practice for hours every day before hand but none of it would matter once I got in there and stood in front of the judges. I wasn't feeling very optimistic about this audition either. Nothing helps boost your score like forgetting your prepared piece, the one thing you should absolutely know. Frankly, I had always thought of it as give away points. And boy did I give them away.