beautiful music for ugly children. [sam]

[pika]

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][bg=2C2C2C] [atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true] l u k a s .

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we live in cities you'll never see on screen
not very pretty, but we sure know how to run free
living in ruins of the palace within my dreams
and you know, we're on each other's team

The bell signaling the beginning of lunch resonated in the dim hallways, and Lukas could not bear to stay in that classroom a second longer. The geography teacher led a dull, monotonous lecture today, one focusing on the borders and terrains of various Districts. Before the bell could even finish singing its song, Lukas’ bag was zipped shut and his feet were aiming towards the door. The familiar din of conversation greeted Lukas, and he maneuvered through the various voices as he made his way toward the exit to the gardens. Although District Nine was a factory District, and the sky was darkened and polluted with the expulsions from the smokestacks, and Lukas hated this District more than anything, somehow he still managed to find beauty within the small patch of grass in the back of the school.

The further he got to the back of the school, the less jammed the hallways were; the roar of noise calmed down, and eventually his footsteps were the only thing making a sound, tap tap tapping across the dusty tile. He slowly walked past two large double doors, undoubtedly leading into the music room. Lukas had been at this school for several years, but could not remember a time ever being within the confines of those two wooden doors. Music used to be acceptable in his household, cherished, even. But this was before Adal. This was when music meant happiness and beauty. Now was when anything remotely splendid or satisfying was not permitted in the house. When Adal died, so did the refined. When Adal left, so did the sublime. And so maybe it was this longing for a taste of the past, even just a lick of what life used to be before it all, that brought Lukas standing before the towering, intimidating double doors. That, or the indescribable, rippling sound emanating from within the doors.

Lukas pried open the door, wincing as it creaked with the sudden movement; Lukas wasn’t one to make an entrance, and the squawking of the door prohibited him from making a silent one. Regardless of the unwanted noise, though, the rolling of notes and sound continued on. The room was slightly darker than the hallway from which he just came, but enough light was available to discern the scene in front of him. A tiny, tiny figure, scrunched up on the rickety, unstable bench, sat before an even more defective piano, hands dancing across the keys; in a way, her movements were more musical than the sounds her fingers produced. The music, although she was clearly capable of producing melodies and cadences, was off-key. From what Lukas could see, several keys were missing, especially in the center of the piano, where most songs were performed; if not removed entirely, the key was at least in dire need of a good tuning.

Even with the unfortunate state of the piano, the girl was still able to produce something slightly appealing. So encompassed within her work, she had yet to acknowledge his presence. Lukas watched her as she played, half to focus on her swift, tidal movements, and half to attempt to put a name to the face. Although not a social butterfly, Lukas was familiar with most of the faces at the school. Observing her for a few moments more, he finally remembered her name. Cecilia, another quiet phantom in the halls of the school; she was just as transparent as he, merely floating through her day in an attempt to avoid contact with others. He admired her demeanour, though; where as she seemed rather docile and calm, Lukas radiated condescension and snottiness, perhaps why no one bothered to converse with him in the first place.

Her song was drawing to a close. Lukas could feel more than hear the notes begin to drop off, the tempo slowing, and the chord progressions becoming less complex until eventually her hands stopped moving altogether. She sat there for a few moments with her fingers still on top of the keys, a somewhat content look on her face. Lukas found himself clapping from the corner of the room where he stood, before he realized that his presence was unknown until just that moment. She jumped a little, clearly not expecting an audience to her song. Her eyes moved to his figure in the front of the doorway.

“Sorry to scare you. Your music drew me in here. It was really quite lovely, though,” he said softly, more to himself than to Cecilia. He walked a few steps into the room so she could see him better. “I haven’t heard music like that in a long time.”

i’m kind of over getting told
to throw my hands up in the air
i’m kind of older than i was
when i revelled without a care

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[Wonder]

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Curtains close. The house lights go down, and the audience’s screams and hollers shift to a dull whisper, slowly transitioning into a dead silence. An eerie silence sweeps the grand elegant theatre; terrifying figures of women, mermaids, carved into the forefront above the stage seem to hush the entirety of the audience. ‘Shut up or die,’ they seem to hack out. Red velvet curtains ascend revealing a boy, spotlight trailing him, blinding him (shown by the constant squinting of his dulled eyes) so she can no longer witness those who watch him keenly. The play begins. Tears sweep and haze over the eyes of the young girl who now sits centre stage. There is no way out once you’re up on stage.

Speak.

“What do I say?” The bright yellow spotlight dims, enough to see the few front rows of the crowd. Dead silent. Each and every one of them. Dead, that was a great way to put it. Corpses upon corpses filled the audience, row upon row. Thirty-five seats in row. How did she know that? Cobwebs danced playfully across the rotting corpses, some dangling from nose to chin, some from arm to forehead. They were all dead.

“Say something!”

They weren’t all deceased, hoots and hollers came from individual seats, the winners. Those were the ones dead inside, still dead, not as obvious. The stage lights seemed to get brighter and brighter until they lit up the poor girl alone on stage, she was now a star. Front and centre where every single person could see absolutely every little flick of the finger the young girl did. Run, run, run. The wings of the stage were blocked by large grey stones, impassible. Stuck, on stage, hopeless. Who are you? The mermaid sculptures hiss the words from up above as if the question was coming from whatever god is out there. [/i]What are you?[/i]

Who was she? The question pounded her like the heat pouring from the yellow lights that grew hotter and hotter with each second on the stage. Cecelia Morrisey, the girl who sits unmoving in front of an audience of corpses, melting slowly every single moment from ever glowing lights. Maybe soon she’d disappear under the spots that enlightened her, embodied her ever so much. Who was she? Cecelia Morrisey, the pianist, the loser, the freak. “I’m the daughter of a sadist and a coward.” What are you? What are you? What is she? The audience laughs, a booming deafening laugh, they were laughing at his uselessness. The whole theatre rumbled and shook, lashing her to her side, alone on the black stage floor. What are you? Nothing. Nothing, as blank and useless as the black floor, blank as the canvas behind her that slowly but surely closed in on her.

“I am nothing.”

Do something, girl. Do something - right now, entertain, remember you must thoroughly entertain the audience so that they sit on the edges of their seats. There was not much that would rouse this crowd, it seemed. They were already disconnected from reality, already messy and unresponsive - though they still hoot and hollered at the most inappropriate of time, what was she supposed to do, what, what? A spotlight flickered into reality, centre stage as the floor began to separate and move sideways revealing a grand piano of the utmost shiny features. New, beautiful, probably one that they would have in the Capitol, how beautiful. She grew mesmerized by the very piano itself, there was nothing quite like it in the world, it was wonderful, wonderful. Much different from the one back home, back home, where was home. Do something. The voice whispered, the audience chanted along. Do something! Do something! Do something! To entertain us, come on, I know you can do it, I know you can, I believe in you, I believe in you! Chanting, it was pressuring her, she could feel her gentle skin break into hives, this was an experience unlike anything that had ever happened.

"What am I supposed to do?" She trembled and quaked, she'd never been on a real stage before - the only people who had ever heard her play piano were her family, and her piano students. That was it. Never had she volunteered to take part of a show like this, to be able to convince others of her talent, it was beyond her entirely, it was something that she had never wanted to do, and yet here she was, an audience so literally bored that they died, and yet they were still eating away at her and egging her on to provide more for them; but they did not answer her question. However, it seemed obvious what she was supposed to do. The trinket stood before her, and yet she was reluctant to touch it's whitened keys - she had never in her life played something so elegant and beautiful. Never in her life had she even gone near such a fixture. "S-Should I?" Yes. They hissed along, a quiet quake of noise, all of them at once, it seemed impossible for any of them to talk, their jaws never moved, didn't unhinge, and yet still, they went on.

"Alright then." The piano bench was sleek and black, cold to the touch, immediately making Cecelia sit up right in her seat. Good posture was one of the first key points of playing piano, she knew that if any of her students were in the crowd - which she doubted highly - they would be utterly disappointed if she didn't practice what she preached. "Does a sonata work for you, you know, three parts?" Beginning, middle, end. A sonata was a story within itself, she got lost in the music, let it consume her. She had never played an instrument that went about in this fashion, so effortlessly with not a key out of tune, no broken or chipped off notes - scales that were easily played, and a pedal that didn't squeak upon contact, it was a wonderful experience.

The crowd began to cry, she could hear the skeletal sobs, and slow rounds of applause as she began the first movement. Is this what approval felt like? The warm wash carried over her and she felt amazing, different, beautiful, beyond anything she had ever felt in her life, and this - this was what learning to play was all about? Maybe. She had always preferred practicing by herself, never having anyone around to listen to her play, it was better that way. "I'm done now." The first movement was all she played, standing up, and taking a bow. Crowd booing intensely, rotten fruit loaded in their hands, she grew scared of the monsters in front of her, the were after her now, weren't they? Why couldn't she have just played the entire sonata? Just gone and succeeded, why?

The walls shook with a force that propelled an avalanche of goods down the stone walls. Gold, trinkets, slowly filling up the stage drowning her. Gleaming out of the bunch sat a silver locket, the one she’d once stolen from her mother's dresser in the middle of the night. The trinkets never stopped, gold, bits of sheet music, a couple of shoes. Raisa's harp, Clara's flute, all instruments that were so close to her life, and so close to her toppling out of the sky and enclosing around her. Cecelia wasn't normally claustrophobic but the room filled so quickly she wanted to die - she did die, she was floating in her siblings achievements and her failures.

Drowning, drowning, drowning, save me i’m losing. Why couldn't she just finish the sonata?

**

She fell in love of with the way of the keyboard at a very young age, this was, in fact, when her father had showed her her very first piano. It was never a shiny thing, nor had it be dastardly beautiful in any sense, it just was. Simply and purely, existed. As a matter of fact, this was how most things went about living, just simply being was in and of itself a way of being, it simply was, in every sense, beautiful. And for this, Cecelia fell in love with her piano more than any possible thing that she thought she could. Never would she fall in love with another human in that way, there was no chance in hell - her piano was hers to the very T. Her father had bought it in some run down market on the outskirts of the District, it was very bizarre for musical instruments to be any where at all within the town, music wasn't typically supported by the Capitol, but there it was. That's what her father had said at least, and she was never really one to doubt anything that the man said at that age.

Rickety and worn down, but still with a touch of character. It was a grand piano. The best kind that anyone could get now-a-days. But never better than the ones in her dreams. For the split seconds she got to touch those keyboards, it was a moment of pleasure, of relief. Instead of waking up to the surroundings of her current house and letting loose a large shrill scream into her pillow. The Morrisey household wasn't a place that one wanted to live, and she didn't want to live there any more. But where would she go? She was not good enough to live on the streets like her older brother. So her only escape was school, and her piano - and the piano at school. Just living day by day cooperating with the rules that her father set forth to ensure that all of them passed all of their classes and were talented enough to place well, so that eventually, they themselves could support their parents. Like that was ever going to happen.

Cecelia was sure that they all shared a general dislike for the harsh household that their father ran, and that as soon as they could support themselves - they'd be out of there in an instant.

The mornings ran by so quickly, and soon enough Cecelia was done with her morning classes. Dreading the maths exams she had just passed through, calculating her score at the end, she was sure that she had only successfully scored a total ninety percent, which really just wasn't going to be good enough if her father wanted her to get a ninety five. The world just wasn't fair something, it wasn't her fault that she didn't understand fractions, and what made her father think that she would even end up running the factory anyways? There was no part of her that wanted to crunch numbers for the rest of her life. Music, yes. She could imagine being able to stay home every day, teaching young children how to embrace their inner musical talent, and find love in the keyboard that she had, this was the dream, this was the life she wanted to live. And yet it was so far out of her grasp that she didn't know what to do.

By lunch time, these were the thoughts that swarmed in her head and hit her like a brick, she didn't want to finish her afternoon classes, she just wanted to play. And play she did. The music room had a rough piano of it's own, much rougher than that at her home, and demolished compared to the ones in her dreams, and yet she convincingly played it to the most of her ability. Today, the sonata in her dreams, finishing all three parts as best as she could, with the middle G missing, and the off tune notes. Soon enough it would be perfect as hers at home - and one day, she would play in the Capitol.

The music room was always hers for the taking, whether or not anyone ever really came here besides her was a mystery. Aside from the occasional teaching of choir singing, and the Panem national anthem, the room was quite dust filled and untouched. An eerie look, for sure. More often unwelcoming; however it had quickly become a usual environment for her to collapse right into. Her sonata escapes through her fingertips, a series of long legatos, paced allegretos, ticking staccatos, rushed arpeggios. All consisted into a series of three parts, when she was alone with the music it soothed her, she had so many pieces in her repertoire these days that she no longer filled her bag with a series of looseleaf papers fiddling around - it was nice.

Everything was peaceful, the room seemingly glowed with appreciation at the proper usage of the facilities. These were the moments she felt most at home, with the music, however off-tune, gasping in her ears, falling in love all over again with the great tunes of the past - how lovely it must have been to live in a world where all of this was commonplace. A world where pianos weren't smashed, and people loved just for the sake of it, not for some greater purpose. With the end of the third piece, she relaxed, her fingers aching slightly from a few harsh triads, and just general pains from an achy night of worry and torment - the door behind her squeaked slightly and she knew company had arrived - that someone was with her that she hadn't invited. Clapping, the sounds of appreciation, hoots and hollers, it was all too familiar in dreams. Skeletons were back to laugh at her, bury her in possessions - this caused her to jump suddenly.

Lukas was buried in his own emotions, a generous smirk across his face as he approach her apologizing. It was a commonplace attitude, it seemed, around here to be generally discontent with the state of living and that showed - she wasn't surprised. Cecelia had seen the boy around a few times, though never around these dank hallways near the music room, mind you she didn't particularly take notice of many other people from school. Homework did take up most of her time, and playing music.

"Thank you," She bowed her head and smiled politely, this was after all what one was supposed to do when complimented. He looked warm and welcoming, a worthy audience - a skeleton, perhaps. But wrapped in humanity. "It's just a sonata, it's nothing really." Pushing her loose hairs behind her ears, she turned back towards the piano motioning to the keyboard. "Hard you know, with some of it missing. It sounds better with everything functioning."


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