Dora Gao

Inspired by the Barenaked Ladies Song by Kevin Hearn

He was only twenty-five.

That’s what they all said when they heard about it.  That he was only twenty-five, and that such a talented young man shouldn’t have been cursed with such a horrible disease.  And he was starting to believe it.

Why?  He often asked the ever-silent shadows in his apartment, slowly growing as the afternoon wore on.  How?  He had never been an orthodox believer in vegetables, but he ate healthily on the whole.  A devout hockey player, he had more than his share of exercise.  How could it have been possible?

The piano—his very own Steinway grand—which he had so painstakingly saved up for and coveted but weeks before now lay in a dark corner of his studio, dust collecting in little delicate clumps on top.  He usually avoided it, looking immediately at the other wall when he entered the room.  On each and every key there lay a dream, a dream that would forever remain in the sweaty throes of his nightmares.

But today was different.  Walking slowly to the bench, he sat down, staring at the looming black shape in front of him.  What used to be a comforting childhood friend was now a stranger, a monster, taunting him.  What used to be his source of refuge and relief was now the root of horror and despair.  Trembling, he reached out a single, slim finger to strike a key.  Middle C.  The first note he had ever learned.

The oh-so-familiar pitch rang through the air, then faded.

He couldn’t understand it.

Trying again, he bit his lip, raising his other hand and spreading his fingers out, slowly brushing the dust away.  Fingers whiter than the keys themselves, he moved them in position for the opening chord—of what song, he didn’t know.

He stayed like that for a moment, a strained, tense moment longer than eternity.  Willing himself to just press the keys, he bit down harder on his lip, ignoring the metallic taste of blood.  His fingers trembled from the pressure, pressure that would not leave his hand to spill onto the keys.

Defeated, he slumped, taking his shaking hands away from the keyboard and laying them once again on his knees. Tears that he had tried so hard to restrain came forth, burning him, daring him to keep them in his eyes.  The black and white keys blurred together; the gold lettering on the front of the piano joined into distorted scars of yellow and black.

“You okay?”

He looked up to see his best friend standing at the door of the studio, concern contorting his usually cheerful face. 

“Yeah.” He bent down, quickly swiping the back of his hand across his eyes, wishing his friend had not seen but knowing that he had.  Standing up, he smiled—one he had practiced so much when no one was looking.  “Thanks for doing this.”

His friend cracked a wry grin.  “I wish there was more I could do.”   There was a moment of silence in which their eyes met and locked; then his friend looked down.  “Come on,” he said with a choked voice, turning away, “it’s time to go.”

He nodded, silently retrieving the bag that he had packed almost anxiously the night before, lying in the corner of his bedroom.  Thankfully, his friend had decided on waiting outside, and he took a moment to once again sit down at the piano.  He stared at it, trying to recall the feeling he experienced only when he was behind it, the exhilaration, the wild passion that flowed through him as he struck the keys. The power of telling a story, each note a different word, spilling his soul into the music through his fingers. 

It wouldn’t come to him, or perhaps he was unconsciously denying it, refusing the obvious reality that he would never again be able to truly feel the energy flowing through his body as he let his heart run free.  Slowly he stood, gently pushing the bench in, then with an afterthought, reached up to lower the cover.  With one last look around the empty apartment—his empty apartment—he left to meet his friend outside, quietly locking the door behind him.

The car ride to the hospital was silent, an impenetrable block of uncomfortable air separating the two of them.  They arrived at the hospital soon enough, and desperately hoping to avoid unnecessary words, he unbuckled his seatbelt.  With a small nod of thanks, he ducked, stepping out of the car to get his bag from the back.  He had slammed the trunk and turned to walk down the path to the hospital entrance when he heard his friend call out behind him.

“Wait.”

With his back turned to his friend, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm his rising frustration.  Why, why couldn’t they just leave him alone?  Couldn’t they see they were just making it harder?  He composed himself, then turned around. “Yeah.”

He watched his friend jog up the path, stopping an arm’s length in front of him.  The face before him was still the same as it had been that first day of school in freshmen year—littered with faded freckles (though still very visible to the trained eye), topped with a crop of blindingly red hair, defined by green eyes that usually shone with mischief but shined with tears today.  A face, he realized, that he had been inseparable with since high school, and one he would not be able to see for a long time.

“Take care, all right?” his friend whispered, reaching out a hand.  “We’re all in on this together.”  He hesitated for a second, then reached down to pick up the black case that was lying by his feet.  “Thought you might need this.”  He tried to smile.  “It’s no piano, but we can’t let you just slack off, can we?”

He took the case from his friend silently, knowing that he would never touch the guitar that was waiting inside.  “Thanks,” he murmured, refusing to look up and meet those unknowing green eyes.  “I almost forgot.”

His friend watched him, frowning.  “If you need to talk, I’m here.  Me, or any of the other guys.”

If only you knew.  But he only shook his head.  “I’m fine.”  He hefted the guitar case, once again putting on his false smile.  “See you in a little while, then.” Without a second word, he turned, walking determinedly towards the forbidding hospital doors, willing himself not to look back.

They started him on the chemotherapy right away.  The physical pain that came with the needles was in no way comparable to the emptiness he felt inside of him, and every morning through the treatment, he glared at the long, cold spikes as they protruded from his arm in a one-sided staring contest.  He firmly told himself over and over again through those long hours that this would be the last one he would ever have to endure, that he would wake up the next morning to find himself in his own bed as if nothing had happened.  That he would once again be able to sit down at the piano and smell its musty smell of wood, hear the slight squeaking of the pedal when he pressed down with his foot and let his fingers dance upon the smooth, polished surfaces of the keys, choreographed however his heart so desired.

But it never happened.  He woke up everyday in the same funny-smelling room, the same white bed, light coming through the same glass windows.  And as the light through those windows faded with the approach of winter, so did his hope.  He stopped responding to the steady flow of emails his friends sent him, letting them sit as a pile of testimonies to a life lost in his inbox, the laptop becoming just a slim, silver piece of decoration forgotten under his bed.  For a while he had stared blankly at the picture of his family at Christmas—no longer anything more than a few random people with a tree in the background—trying desperately to recall the happiness he had felt while playing tournament foosball with his brothers or having snowball fights with his nephew.  But he soon gave up, turning the picture away from his bed to face a blank wall of nothing.

He no longer felt the music that once defined the very substance he lived and breathed.  The long, slim pianist fingers that always were moving, tapping on any sort of hard surface they could find were now still, obediently lying next to his body.  He had attempted to look at the sheet music that he had brought, but he could discern no more than little black dots in the middle of lines on a sheet of white.  He no longer saw the flowing, contour lines of music and melody as he had done ever since he was five, and in his frustration, he had taken what little energy he had and balled up the music, hurling it in anger at the opposite wall where it now lay.  The CDs of the artists he admired—Bach, Rachmaninoff, Hancock—now lay forgotten in a pile on the table near the window, dust collecting in layers on top.  And the unheard music that had always flowed through him, filling every single crevasse in his body and mind, was now replaced by an empty void of hatred and loneliness.  He no longer heard the curving lines of a piano or the fantastic magnificence of an orchestra—instead, all he could hear was his own spiteful voice, his own pity, his own despair.  

You’re a failure, he silently screamed at himself, too weak to physically voice the words.  No one would think of the great pianist you thought you could be when your name was said.  They would only think of a coward, a failure, one who couldn’t even keep himself alive.

He contemplated suicide almost everyday.  To end all the suffering, all the shame, to finally stop the shards of his crushed future stabbing into his heart every waking second of his life.  It would be so much easier than living through the pain, and at least in that final second before oblivion, he would be able to boast to himself that he still had power over his life, that he had enough guts to take ultimate control.  He finally made a deal with himself—if the cancer didn’t take his life by spring, he would.

His condition worsened steadily as the winter passed.  The doctors no longer smiled when they came into his room; the nurses would only avert their eyes when he tried to talk to them.  And he was left alone with his poisoned thoughts, with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, tormented by hatred and agony.  His fingers that had once been agile and muscular were now weak and limp, nothing but mere extensions of his dying body.  His calendar became covered with desperate red markings, counting down to the day when he could at last end his misery.

Finally, it came—a warm day, with clear blue skies.  For a fleeting, uncertain moment as he watched the sunlight stream into the room, he wondered if everything he had come to love was truly worth this one moment.  But then he looked down at the large, green bruise on his arm, at the discarded, yellowed sheet music lying crumpled in a corner and was once again filled with disgust and venom.  Blindly pushing aside the pain that came with his movements, he determinedly bent down and reached under his bed, pulling out his bag, reaching into the front pocket to dig out his Swiss Army knife.  Given to him by his friend on his sixteenth birthday, he had brought it with him as a keepsake to give him hope.    But it didn’t matter—a knife was a knife, and at the moment, it was what he needed.

As he brought the blade over his wrist, he remembered the guitar that his friend had given him.  It struck him that he owed his friend an explanation and a bit shaken, he set the knife down and quickly scribbled a few words on a sheet of paper he found nearby.  The guitar case would be a good place to put the note, and as far as he could recall, it was still under his bed where he put it on the first day he arrived.  Bending down, he pulled the case out.  A thin layer of dust wisped off the top, swirling in the air for a moment before disappearing.

He opened it slowly and cautiously, a glimmer of guilt running through his mind as a tired creak croaked from the case.  A golden guitar, garnished with Spanish engravings, lay waiting inside, reflecting the sunlight as it came through the window.  He stared at it for a moment, then realized with painful gratitude that it was his friend’s favorite guitar, fingerprints still gleaming on the perfectly burnished surface.  Slowly, a dormant being awoke in him, a faint echo of the burning desire for the music he had once possessed, growing louder with each second he stared at the instrument.  He was never very good with guitars, but he reached for it anyway, pausing only for a moment before tentatively plucking a string.  It was a D, about half a step higher than it should have been, its demented vibration softly shaking the air before vanishing.

Yet amidst the pained and agonized thoughts that now occupied his mind, it was a beaming ray of light and of hope, a soft and fleeting reminder to a life that he once had.  And for all the brilliant sinfonias and concertos that he had once played, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

Encouraged, he hesitantly took the guitar out, cradling it as if it would crumble into a thousand pieces if he did not take care.  Leaning against his bed, he ran his fingers against the six strings, back and forth, back and forth, feeling the metal brush his skin.  Finally, he mustered enough courage and softly strummed his hand down the six strings, letting it ring.  As he listened to the dissonant chord, he realized that he had been wrong, that his pride was in no way worth everything he had gained in his twenty-five years.  He realized that he would miss the friends he had laughed and grown up with, his little rundown car he refused to sell, his small yet cozy apartment.  He would miss the little things in life: sunlight streaming through the windows, the moths that always sat on his window screens, even the smell of cabbage that was always wafting out of the old lady’s apartment across the hall.  And most of all, he realized that he would miss the music that he so loved, that he needed, that he lived for.  And he knew in that moment, as the chord faded into nothingness, that he would fight to keep it.

It’s everything you’ve ever learned, he told himself.  All those hours spent squinting at the notes, counting ledger lines, all those bloody fingers from perfecting that one gliss.  All the willpower and determination in the face of pain and hardship you’ve developed through the years, all that you need to remember now, it’s all for the music.  

He tuned up the guitar to the best of his abilities, spending his entire days playing and writing.  Instead of keeping his fear and doubts inside, he let them out in the form of music, music that he never would have thought himself capable of creating.  As he plucked at the strings (his friend, characteristically, forgot to include a pick), his fingers regained their vibrancy, once again becoming strong and nimble.  And as the days grew longer, his own hidden sun rekindled inside of him, burning brighter with each passing day.

He began emailing his friends and family again, even challenging his brother to a game of foosball at the next Christmas party.  The CDs were once again put to use—baroque melodies of Bach, powerful chords of Rachmaninoff, jazzy tunes of Hancock, even the occasional riffs of Hendrix were now constantly filling the air in his room.  He played his music for the doctors as his sign of thanks, and fueled by the genuine smiles he received, aspired to write even better pieces than the ones he had before.  He once more could hear the notes in his head, feel the music as it streamed through him.  Yet he still could not capture the feeling he had longed for all this time, a feeling that could only come when he was seated behind a piano and disappeared with the guitar in his lap.  His fingers often tapped his bedside table impatiently as he jotted down notes, playing imaginary phrases and lines, trying his best to hear the sound his fingers would make.

It was almost surreal when he was released as a cancer-free patient three months later on his twenty-sixth birthday.  His friend offered to take him out to a hockey game that night, but he politely pushed it off to a later date, returning the guitar with his grateful thanks before continuing on to his own apartment.

His place, surprisingly enough, was much like how he had left it, with the exception of a freshly baked batch of misshapen cookies sitting on his living room table as well as a couple of balloons and what he suspected was a last-minute dusting from his friends.  He made a mental note of checking the cookies for strange ingredients before he ate them later, then continued on to his studio.

The piano was on the left side of the room exactly where he left it, but at that moment, it was center of the world, the only thing he could see.  He didn’t feel the giddy blast of excitement he expected, but instead, a deep stirring in the unfathomable regions of his heart.  Walking over, he laid a hand on top of it, taking in its wisdom, its perfection, its power.

He opened the piano, feeling the weight of the big, black slab against his shoulder.  Locking it in place, he stepped back and pulled out the bench, pausing before sitting down upon it.  He stared at the patterns of black and white for a long while, absorbing the knowledge and comprehension they offered.  Then slowly, once again, he spread his fingers onto the keys.

And he began to play.