May You Never Forget, The Youthful Road Ahead

"Somebody asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I asked them what they thought I wanted, they said that I wanted to be a doctor! No way!" The eight year old child said, crossing her arms at the thought she deemed preposterous. Giving a huff of exhaspiration, the child had stomped her foot on the floor.

"Oh, but Ellington, your mother's a doctor!" The elder woman replied, flipping the pages of Ellington's book. After all, the notes had not been able to flip themselves.

"Yeah! I hate that I have to decide now, now! I can always decide later, right, Teacher Flora?"

"Of course you can, Karen." The elder replied with a comforting smile.

"Karen is my mother's name! I'm Ellington!"

"Oh right, Ellington. Im sorry, my dear."

A silence ensued before Ellington had set her fingers upon the keys once more, playing the set of notes presented before her. However wondrous the melody had been!

Yes, it had been rather plain, and yes, the level that the child possesed had not even leveled Mozart's easiest pieces, but it had been the respect the child had for such instrument that had pushed the melodious tune forward.

As she had engulfed herself upon the notes, she stared at the paper laying before her holding it all. When suddenly, as quickly as the notes had made sense to her ear, they had been gone. Neither could she continue playing nor fathom the notes she had been using as wondrously as when she had beun the piece.

Lifting her leftt hand from the keys, she had traced the notes with her left in hopes of her recovery. Alas, all had proved futile, her efforts in vain as she squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She mustered her courage and uttered the simplest apology anyone may have uttered.

"My apologies, Teacher Flora.... can I restart? I just got so caught up in the notes that I-"

"Forgot." The elder woman finished the child's sentence.

"Yeah. Forgot." Ellington said staring down at her feet in what could be plainly described as guilt.

"You are as caught up in those notes, just as you are life. Don't get so caught up with the matters that mustn't be taken care of now, Ellington."

"I understand, Teacher Flora."

"My child! Do not take this lightly, for you really shouldn't take such lightly, for you are so fortunate."

The child's guilt had seemingly, suddenly, ceased to exist.

"What do you mean by fortunate, teacher? I am not! My mommy gets mad at me constantly!" The child said, exhaspiration evident.

"You are fortunate enough to be given the gift of youth. Not everyone has that anymore, Ellington. Keep in mind, little Ellington Cassidy, that you are still young and have the road of youth ahead. That may you never forget."

Another silence ensued, and when the child had refused any more of such dreadful silence, she had asked, her eyes widening in question.

"Gramma Flora, if you said I have 'the road of youth ahead' what do you have?"

"Well, dear. I'm nearing the end of my road. Like I said, you have a whole road of youth ahead of you."

Ellington could neither fathom nor comprehend such simple wisdom that her teacher had given her. She knew it had been a stab in the heart in a way, yet the blood she wished to get from that stab had not flown. Ellington simply could never fathom the depth of such a statement, causing the blood to remain motionless in her state of disarray.

"Oh, okay!" Was all the child could say. "Should I try to continue and finish the piece?"

Flora looked at the youth presented before her, with the slight melancholy laying behind the facade. Ellington had seen this upon taking a closer look into her teacher's eyes. 'Windows to the soul' she'd call them.

She shook her head quietly to dismiss the feeling of the melancholy getting to her.

"Wisdom that I don't understand." She said quietly to herself.

"But should I shrug it off?"

Weeks had turned into months, and months into years, as the child blossomed into a young lady. Ellington had been forced against her own will to move upon into the present tense.

She had left her piano teacher with of course a tearful goodbye, not once forgetting the words of wisdom which had embedded themselves into her heart.

The young Ellington Cassidy had grown into a lady of wisdom, only thirteen years of age, yet she possesed the knowledge about life beyond her years.

One night all those years later, just as the rain had poured down in an excess, over the nocturnal skies, Ellington had stared out a slightly opened window. Opening it fully, she stood still as the rain had pelted her skin, standing beteween the window and her piano.

"Whatever have I become? I now stress over my precussion, technique, intonation, and overall music."

Indeed it had been true. The young lady, Ellington Cassidy had joined a choir not long ago. In fact, in her second year there, she had been, along with her other choir mates, tasked to go to Europe and compete.

"I am a slave to music and I despise it! I shall not have something that I indeed have come to adore with such an excess, to engulf me with anger, hatred, rage. I wish not for it to happen. I wish not at all!"

And with great force, she slammed the doused piano, with her soaked clothes.

"Hear my groans of agony, dearest Heavens above! Take mercy, take mercy! Into your loving and caring arms, carry me above the turbulent seas! Carry me, carry me. Take mercy, take mercy!"

A sigh in ambivalence and exhaspiration had rested upon her lips, as a strike of lighting had struck the skies. In the flash of illumination which had spread actoss the skies, she had seen her piano in light.

Indeed, one side had been soaked, and she hoped it had not been drenched beyound repair.

With her tears now pouring down her face, she addressed the heavens once more, as she ran to get a rag. But unlike the anger that had rung in her voice, mere minutes ago, she had now a tone of remorse.

"Forgive me dear Heavens, I have no second chance to undo what I have done to my beloved instrument. For after all there are no second chances in life other than that to feel remorse. But for once, I beg of you, may my pitiful rag bring what I have done justice."

That night she spent beside her beloved, wiping away the water. In hindsight, she had thought of it's drenched side, to be it's tears, crying out to her for despising the music she had so come to adore.

Indeed the illusion of time had come once more, sweeping the child off of her feet. Now in front of her stood the Franz Liszt academy. Sending a text to her old teacher, she had said,

And so, on and on it had gone. When she had been to Salzburg, indulging herself in the wondrous scenery, (and the more than numerous things related to Mozart) she would take a photograph, sending it to her dearest teacher. When she had gone to Poland, she had taken a picture of Frederic Chopin

Now, here she sits at the piano. Her fingers caressing the keys once more. Delicate motions upon the monochrome keyboard, creating the most melodious of sounds.