Fingers Piano Quotes

you son of a bitch, she said, I am trying to build a meaningful relationship. you can't build it with a hammer, he said.

I love being a pavement artist; seriously, I do. It's like when guys who would normally hate being freakishly tall discover basketball, or when girls with abnormally long fingers sit down at a piano. Blending in, going unseen, being a shadow in the sun is what I'm good at. Seeing the shadows, it turns out, is not my natural gift.

If I ever go to China, I’m going to find a piano and play “Chopsticks”--only not with my fingers, but rather I’ll be using two forks.

When there's a moon the shadows in the house grow larger; invisible hands draw back the curtains, a pallid finger writes forgotten words on dust of the piano...

it's good to have things done with when they don't work it's also good not to hate or even forget the person you've failed with.

Long ago, among other lies they were taught that silence was bravery.

I like to prowl ordinary places and taste the people- from a distance.

But Jace", Clary said. "Valentine taught him more than just fighting. He taught him languages, and how to play the piano" "That was Jocelyn's influence." Sebastian said her name unwillingly, as if he hated the sound of it. "She thought Valentine ought to be able to talk about books, art, music...not just killing things. He passed that on to Jace." A wrought iron blue gate rose to their left. Sebastian ducked under it and beckoned Clary to follow him. She didn't have to duck but went after him, her hands stuffed into her pockets. "What about you?" she asked. He held up his hands. They were unmistakably her mother's hands - dexterous, long-fingered, meant for holding a brush or a pen. "I learned to play the instruments of war, " he said, "and paint in blood. I am not like Jace.

hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.

If, while at the piano, you attempt to form little melodies, that is very well; but if they come into your mind of themselves, when you are not practising, you may be still more pleased; for the internal organ of music is then roused in you. The fingers must do what the head desires; not the contrary.

love needs too much help, he said. hate takes care of itself.

To me, life is sad, like a piano with no pedals being played by a person with no fingers.


I have lost my rhythm. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I have been robbed of my filth.

I have, he went on, betrayed myself with belief, deluded myself with love tricked myself with sex. the bottle is damned faithful, he said, the bottle will not lie

As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop.

for me obedience to another is the decay of self

for me obedience to another is the decay of self. for though every being is similar each being is different and to herd our differences under one law degrades each self.

people used to tell me that i had beautiful hands told me so often, in fact, that one day i started to believe them until i asked my photographer father, “hey daddy could i be a hand model” to which he said no way, i dont remember the reason he gave me and i wouldve been upset, but there were far too many stuffed animals to hold too many homework assignment to write, too many boys to wave at too many years to grow, we used to have a game, my dad and i about holding hands cus we held hands everywhere, and every time either he or i would whisper a great big number to the other, pretending that we were keeping track of how many times we had held hands that we were sure, this one had to be 8 million 2 thousand 7 hundred and fifty three. hands learn more than minds do, hands learn how to hold other hands, how to grip pencils and mold poetry, how to tickle pianos and dribble a basketball, and grip the handles of a bicycle how to hold old people, and touch babies , i love hands like i love people, they're the maps and compasses in which we navigate our way through life, some people read palms to tell your future, but i read hands to tell your past, each scar marks the story worth telling, each calloused palm, each cracked knuckle is a missed punch or years in a factory, now ive seen middle eastern hands clenched in middle eastern fists pounding against each other like war drums, each country sees theyre fists as warriors and others as enemies. even if fists alone are only hands. but this is not about politics, no hands arent about politics, this is a poem about love, and fingers. fingers interlock like a beautiful zipper of prayer. one time i grabbed my dads hands so that our fingers interlocked perfectly but he changed positions, saying no that hand hold is for your mom. kids high five, but grown ups, we learn how to shake hands, you need a firm hand shake,but dont hold on too tight, but dont let go too soon, but dont hold down for too long, but hands are not about politics, when did it become so complicated. i always thought its simple. the other day my dad looked at my hands, as if seeing them for the first time, and with laughter behind his eye lids, with all the seriousness a man of his humor could muster, he said you know you got nice hands, you could’ve been a hand model, and before the laughter can escape me, i shake my head at him, and squeeze his hand, 8 million 2 thousand 7hundred and fifty four.

it's so easy to be a poet and so hard to be a man.

I've learned to feel good when I feel good. it's better to be driven around in a red porsche than to own one. the luck of the fool is inviolate.

I like to prowl ordinary places. I feel sorry for us all or glad for us all caught alive together and awkward in that way. there's nothing better than the joke of us the seriousness of us the dullness of us

they pulled Ezra through the streets in a wooden cage. Blake was sure of God. Villon was a mugger. Lorca sucked cock. T. S. Eliot worked a teller's cage

there's no defense except all the errors made

waiting in a life full of little stories for a death to come

I wait on my fix: I am a poetry junkie.

On the stage Tristen bent over the piano, his fingers swift and sure, his blond hair gleaming under the spotlight. I glanced around at the audience, watching their faces, gratified that they were as captivated as I was by the dark, thunderous song that Tristen conjured.

I care for you, darling, I love you, the only reason I fucked L. is because you fucked Z. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N. and because you fucked N. I had to fuck Y. But I think of you constantly, I feel you here in my belly like a baby, love I'd call it, no matter what happens I'd call it love, and so you fucked C. and then before I could move you fucked W., so I had to fuck D. But I want you to know that I love you, I think of you constantly, I don't think I've ever loved anybody like I love you.

permanent living peace is permanent living death.

we should have known. maybe we wanted cotton candy luck. maybe we believed. what trash. we believed like dogs believe.

meat is cut as roses are cut men die as dogs die love dies like dogs die, he said.

The effect is captivating as all of the tones mix, like a watercolor with hues swirled together, and lovely carrying notes long after the fingers are lifted from the keys.

Write it. Just write it. Write it on receipts in the car while you wait for your kid to finish their piano lessons, scribble on napkins at lunch with friends. Type on crappy typewriters or borrow computers if you have to. Fill notebooks with ink. Write inside your head while you’re in traffic and when you’re sitting in the doctor’s office. Write the truth, write lies. Write the perfect spouse. Write your dreams. Write your nightmares. Write while you cry about what you’re writing, write while you laugh out loud at your own words. Write until your fingers hurt, then keep writing more. Don’t ever stop writing. Don’t ever give up on your story, no matter what “they” say. Don’t ever let anybody take away your voice. You have something to say, your soul has a story to tell. Write it. There is never any reason to be afraid. Just write it and then put it out there for the world. Shove it up a flag pole and see who salutes it. Somebody will say it’s crap. So what? Somebody else will love it. And that’s what writing’s about. Love. Love of the art, love of the story, and love for and from the people who really understand your work. Nobody else matters. Love yourself. Love your work. Be brave. Just write.

She always paid attention to fingers rather than faces because they told so much more. People remembered to guard their faces. They forgot their hands. Her own were small, though strong and supple from all the hours of piano playing, but what use was that now? For the first time she understood what real danger does to the human mind, as flat white fear froze the coils of her brain.

I wish Mara knew that I’m jealous of her.” I whipped around to face him. “You can’t be serious.” Brooke shook her finger. “No interruptions, Mara.” My brother cleared his throat. “I wish she knew that I think she’s the most hilarious person on Earth. And that whenever she’s not home, I feel like I’m missing my partner in crime.” My throat tightened. Do not cry. Do not cry. “I wish she knew that she’s really Mom’s favorite—” I shook my head here. “—the princess she always wanted. That Mom used to dress her up like a little doll and parade her around like Mara was her greatest achievement. I wish Mara knew that I never minded, because she’s my favorite too.” A chin quiver. Damn. “I wish she knew that I’ve always had acquaintances instead of friends because I’ve spent every second I’m not in school studying or practicing piano. I wish she knew that she is literally as smart as I am—her IQ is ONE POINT lower,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine. “Mom had us tested. And that she could get the same grades if she weren’t so lazy.” I slouched in my seat, and may or may not have crossed my arms over my chest defensively. “I wish she knew that I am really proud of her, and that I always will be, no matter what.

Will’s hand looked brown and sunburnt by contrast, their fingers dovetailed together like piano keys.

Arin remmembered seeing her hand in Javelin’s mane, curling into the coarse strands. This made him remember the almost freakish lenghth between her littlest finger and thumb as her hand spanned piano keys. The black star of the birth-mark. He saw her again in the imperial palace. Her music room. He’d seen that room only once. About a month ago, right before Firstsummer. Her blue sleeves were fastened at the wrist. Something tugged inside him. A flutter of unease. Do you sing? Those had been her first words to him, the day she had bought him. A band of nausea circled Arin’s throat, just as it had when she had asked him that question, in part for the same reason. She’d had no trace of an accent. She had spoken in perfect, natural, mother-taught Herrani.

If I had four fingers growing out of my forehead, I wouldn't try to play the piano with my nose.

the lies of centuries, the lies of love, the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christ will be your bedmates and tombstones in a death that will never end.

I wondered if she was truly Rahtan. Yes, she was skilled, but she didn’t exactly possess brawn—even if she had managed to overtake me and slam me up against the wall. But juggling? Riddles? Her age. Her poise and demeanor was that of a cynical tested soldier, but her appearance—she was young, younger than me, I was certain. Her black hair fell in thick, long waves, and her hands were delicate, her fingers more suited for a piano than a sword.

What about you, Ellen?' he asked. 'What does music mean to you?' It was a while before she answered. 'When I was at school... quite little still... there was a girl there who had perfect pitch and a lovely voice and she played the piano. I used to hear people talking about her.' She paused, lacing her fingers together. '"She's musical," they used to say, "Deirdre's musical," and it was as if they'd said: "She's angelic." That's how it seemed to me to be musical: to be angelic.' Isaac turned to her. 'My God, Ellen,' he said huskily, 'it is you who are angelic. If there's anyone in the world who is angelic it is you.

Once you begin deliberating about where your fingers are jumping on the piano keyboard, you can no longer pull off the piece.

I'm again a twelve-year old dreamer, a girl fascinated by an ancient piano and with Rona Lubliner's fingers.

I can play … I mean, as an effort of will I can sit down and learn a piece at the piano and reproduce it, so that those who hear will not necessarily move away with their hands clutched to their mouths, vomit leaking through fingers, blood dripping from ears.

I'm gonna go put my earplugs in and practice piano for hours until my fingers bleed. I practice the piano with the focus of Helen Keller—and nothing can distract me from the scent of the music. -Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz

tu figlio di puttana, disse lei, sto cercando di costruire una relazione che abbia senso. non puoi costruirla con un martello, disse lui

I turn my back on him as he goes, and settle myself in the parlor, and touch Ma's piano. My fingers leave sighs in the dust.

In the dream, the height doesn't scare me at all. My fingers dance across the top of the railing like it's a set of piano keys.

The clockwork octopus came out. It extended a tentacle with a clicking of metal joints. Around it was looped the chain of his watch. He hesitated, but took it. The chain skittered over the metal tentacle with a high, thin pitch like incoming sea. It was quite a coincidence for a mechanical sea creature and he was speculating whether it could possibly have been done on purpose when Katsu stole his other sock and flopped on to the floor with an unbiological bang, whereupon it octopused out of the open door and slid down the banister. He exclaimed at it, was ignored, and then went after it just in time to see it disappear into the parlour. It was climbing up the leg of the piano stool when he caught up. The watchmaker confiscated the sock and threw it over his shoulder to Thaniel, who caught it with the tips of his fingers. The octopus settled in his lap. ‘Thank you for finding him,’ he said. Against the piano keys, his hands were too warmly coloured for the watery morning. ‘I was looking for him earlier. He plays hide and seek.

At the end of our visit, Fleisher agreed to play something on my piano, a beautiful old 1894 Bechstein concert grand that I had grown up with, my father's piano. Fleisher sat at the piano and carefully, tenderly, stretched each finger in turn, and then, with arms and hands almost flat, he started to play. He played a piano transcription of Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze," as arranged for piano by Egon Petri. Never in its 112 years, I thought, had this piano been played by such a master-I had the feeling that Fleisher has sized up the piano's character and perhaps its idiosyncrasies within seconds, that he had matched his playing to the instrument, to bring out its greatest potential, its particularity. Fleisher seemed to distill the beauty, drop by drop, like an alchemist, into flowing notes of an almost unbearable beauty-and, after this, there was nothing more to be said.

It was true that Odette played vilely, but often the most memorable impression of a piece of music is one that has arisen out of a jumble of wrong notes struck by unskilful fingers upon a tuneless piano.

I began guitar after coming here as there wasn't a piano about. I taught myself, but my fingers just aren't cut out for the guitar, so I can't seem to get very good. Still, I like the innstrument. It's light, simple, straighforward, like a warm little room, nice and cozy.

A lot of habitually creative people have preparation rituals linked to the setting in which they choose to start their day. By putting themselves into that environment, they start their creative day. The composer Igor Stravinsky did the same thing every morning when he entered his studio to work: He sat at the piano and played a Bach fugue. Perhaps he needed the ritual to feel like a musician, or the playing somehow connected him to musical notes, his vocabulary. Perhaps he was honoring his hero, Bach, and seeking his blessing for the day. Perhaps it was nothing more than a simple method to get his fingers moving, his motor running, his mind thinking music. But repeating the routine each day in the studio induced some click that got him started. In the end, there is no ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there, and once you find it, stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming. All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they compel you to get started.

~Dance~ My fingers dance On the set Of ivory & black pirouettes. I let go While my fingers fly, Making music through the night. This is the best therapy. A place of release, House of freedom & relief. My oasis of redemption. My river of gentle. My ocean of mental. My mind is relieved. My fingers are free To let go, making music sweet. Rache Nicole Wagner Original

I close my eyes and try and shut him out. My fingers don’t want to stay in time. They want to race ahead in fury, plunging into the dense fog of black notes, pulling the music out by its roots, hurling it up out of the piano and into the air.

Learning” virtue—becoming virtuous—is more like practicing scales on the piano than learning music theory: the goal is, in a sense, for your fingers to learn the scales so they can then play “naturally,” as it were. Learning here isn’t just information acquisition; it’s more like inscribing something into the very fiber of your being. Thus

Stage 13 was, then, a toy shop, a magic chest, a sorcerer’s trunk, a trick manufactory, and an aerial hangar of dreams at the center of which Roy stood each day, waving his long piano fingers at mythic beasts to stir them, whispering, in the ten-billion-year slumbers.

Instead of putting a Band Aid on your cut finger, why not just amputate at the elbow? See, I’m a problem solver. I should go into politics.

you son of a bitch, she said, I am trying to build a meaningful relationship. you can’t build it with a hammer, he said.

agony can kill or agony can sustain life but peace is always horrifying

I like to prowl ordinary places and taste the people—from a distance. I don’t want them too near because that’s when attrition starts.

... often the fairest impression that remains in our minds of a favourite air is one which has arisen out of a jumble of wrong notes struck by unskillful fingers upon a tuneless piano.

A woman bathed in gold came out and took a seat at a piano keyboard. Behind her a second woman, dressed in similar fashion, came to sit nearby with her violin. The pianist’s fingers began to dance across the keyboard, giving it a voice. Her hands were a work of art, speaking a language that predated words.

I’ve had my fingers in your cunt, my cock in your mouth, and your taste on my lips. I’m the only person on the planet who knows how beautiful you look when you come. All those freckles on your thighs, the sounds you make when you sleep, the passion you evoke with a piano, everything about you is priceless and irreplaceable.

Hand over the fairy," Peter Pan demanded. The captain couldn't tell if Peter was deliberately taunting him, but he still cringed at the word hand. "Do you know what I wish I could do more than anything else in the world, Peter?" Captain Hook said. "Clap?" Peter Pan guessed. "What?" the captain asked. "No!" "Do a handstand?" "NO!" "Play the piano?" "STOP IT! STOP MAKING APPENDAGE JOKES!" "Why? Is it getting out of hand?" "YOU ARE SO IMMATURE!" "Captain, now is not the time to point the finger." Peter Pan was beside himself with laughter. Captain Hook growled angrily and got back to his point.

E' così. Lo sei. Sei acida e sarcastica e lucida e critica e odi tutto e tutti. Ma questa tua capacità di immedesimarti, di vedere le cose con gli occhi delle altre persone, di interpretare il mondo da dentro la loro testa... o il loro cuore. Questa che a te può sembrare una mera abilità professionale, be', si chiama empatia, sai. E tu puoi fingere con tutte le tue forze che sia il contrario, ma la verità è che fa di te la persona più compressiva, più tollerante e persino più clemente, che io abbia mai conosciuto.

Each stroke of your fingers is a different word that describes the story. By itself it’s meaningless, but—” I pushed down on a few fingers helping her play a few notes. “String them together and you have a melody. You have a story. So, Saylor, what story do you want to tell?

She wondered how those fingers would feel sifting through her hair, stroking the side of her face, sliding over the skin of her neck down to her breasts, playing her like the piano she’d seen him on that first night. Her nipples pebbled. “That’s not a look you give your teacher, little crow.

I try not to hate anybody. "Hate is a four-letter word," like the bumper sticker says. But I hate book reviewers. Book reviewers are the most despicable, loathsome order of swine that ever rooted about the earth. They are sniveling, revolting creatures who feed their own appetites for bile by gnawing apart other people's work. They are human garbage. They all deserve to be struck down by awful diseases described in the most obscure dermatology journals. Book reviewers live in tiny studios that stink of mothballs and rotting paper. Their breath reeks of stale coffee. From time to time they put on too-tight shirts and pants with buckles and shuffle out of their lairs to shove heaping mayonnaise-laden sandwiches into their faces, which are worn in to permanent snarls. Then they go back to their computers and with fat stubby fingers they hammer out "reviews." Periodically they are halted as they burst into porcine squeals, gleefully rejoicing in their cruelty. Even when being "kindly," book reviewers reveal their true nature as condescending jerks. "We look forward to hearing more from the author," a book reviewer might say. The prissy tones sound like a second-grade piano teacher, offering you a piece of years-old strawberry hard candy and telling you to practice more. But a bad book review is just disgusting. Ask yourself: of all the jobs available to literate people, what monster chooses the job of "telling people how bad different books are"? What twisted fetishist chooses such a life?

But the scientists had the other half of their group of volunteers only imagine playing the notes; they did not actually touch the ivories. Then the researchers measured whether the motor cortex had noticed. It had. The region that controls the fingers of the right hand had expanded in the virtual pianists just as it had in the volunteers who had actually played the piano. Thinking, and thinking alone, had increased the amount of space the motor cortex devoted to a specific function.

Belinda decided that she could miss doing her room with a clear conscience, as there were so many more important things to be done. It was unlikely that Miss Liversedge would be visiting them and putting them to shame by writing 'E. Liversedge' with her finger, as she had once done when Emily had neglected to dust the piano.

When I point my fingers at the keys, the music springs straight out of me. Right hand playing notes sharp as tongues, telling stories while the smooth buttery rhythms back me up on the left.

Outside . . . the street . . . the city . . . the darkness! O how the night was with me, taunting the rolls of thought that cuddled my brain. My memory like an old piano roll . . . four hot hands at the keys . . . wobbly fingers in my mind . . . my whole life ragtime in broken shoes . . . tiny mallets striking the strings of my soul . . . Ah, Tim, I tell you there's a tune left in the old box yet.

Maggie Botwin. Prim, quiet lady, like an upright piano, seeming taller than she was because of the way she sat, rose and walked, and the way she held her hands in her lap and the way she coifed her hair up on top of her head, in some fashion out of World War I. I had once heard her on a radio show describe herself as a snake charmer. All that film whistling through her hands, sliding through her fingers, undulant and swift. All that time passing, but to pass and repass again. It was no different, she said, than life itself. The future rushed at you. You had a single instant, as it flashed by, to change it into an amiable, recognizable, and decent past. Instant by instant, tomorrow blinked in your grasp. If you did not seize without holding, shape without breaking, that continuity of moments, you left nothing behind. Your object, her object, all of our objects, was to mold and print ourselves on those single fits of future that, in the touching, aged into swiftly into vanishing yesterdays.

Charles had climbed on a bench and was calling out that he had something to say, creating a racket that quickly got the attention of the room. Everyone looked immensely surprised, including Tessa and Will. Sona frowned, clearly thinking Charles was very rude. She didn’t know the half of it, Cordelia thought darkly. “Let me be the first to raise a glass to the happy couple!” said Charles, doing just that. “To James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs. I wish to add personally that James, my brother’s parabatai, has always been like a younger brother to me.” “A younger brother he accused of vandalizing greenhouses across our fair nation,” muttered Will. “As for Cordelia Carstairs—how to describe her?” Charles went on. “Especially when one has not bothered to get to know her at all,” murmured James. “She is both beautiful and fair,” said Charles, leaving Cordelia to wonder what the difference was, “as well as being brave. I am sure she will make James as happy as my lovely Grace makes me.” He smiled at Grace, who stood quietly near him, her face a mask. “That’s right. I am formally announcing my intention to wed Grace Blackthorn. You will all be invited, of course.” Cordelia glanced over at Alastair; he was expressionless, but his hands, jammed into his pockets, were fists. James had narrowed his eyes. Charles went on merrily. “And lastly, my thanks go out to the folk of the Enclave, who supported my actions as acting Consul through our recent troubles. I am young to have borne so much responsibility, but what could I say when duty called? Only this. I am honored by the trust of my mother, the love of my bride-to-be, and the belief of my people—” “Thank you, Charles!” James had appeared at Charles’s side and done something rather ingenious with his feet that caused the bench Charles had been standing on to tip over. He caught Charles around the shoulder as he slid to the floor, clapping him on the back. Cordelia doubted most people in the room had noticed anything amiss. “What an excellent speech!” Magnus Bane, looking fiendishly amused, snapped his fingers. The loops of golden ribbons dangling from the chandeliers formed the shapes of soaring herons while “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” began to play in ghostly fashion on the unmanned piano. James hustled Charles away from the bench he had clambered onto and into a crowd of well-wishers. The room, as a whole, seemed relieved. “We have raised a fine son, my darling,” Will said, kissing Tessa on the cheek.

She turns to the piano and begins a song, slow, mournful, that sounds like the wind in my dreams. As her fingers drift over the keys, the song wakes something inside me besides grief - a shadow, shadow of a shadow in the library of my mind, something I never knew forgotten.

She threaded it into the music and found the song was different to the one she'd practised. What was coming out of her was new, painful to the touch, as if her fingers were leaving their usual bloodstains on the keys: she was locked in a dark cupboard; watching a picture of her mother curling in the flames of a fire; falling asleep, one hand in Effie's; Attis was reaching out to touch her neck; breaking up pianos in his forge, white keys scattered like bones; there was a small white key she wanted but could not have; a door that was locked, forever.

Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I asked leave to look at it and read, ‘Don Juan Triumphant.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, 'I compose sometimes.’ I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.’ 'You must work at it as seldom as you can,’ I said. He replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a time.’ 'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?’ I asked, thinking to please him. 'You must never ask me that,’ he said, in a gloomy voice. 'I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven.’ Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano. He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.’ He spoke these last words as though he were flinging an insult at me.” “What did you do?” “I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words. We at once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us. I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed before. As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul at every note. Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowing cries. Erik’s black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice. He was Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to see beneath the mask. I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a movement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore away the mask. Oh, horror, horror, horror!” Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her, while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now thrice moaned the cry: “Horror! … Horror! … Horror!

I like the name writing practices better than Creative Writing. As I have said, nobody can teach creative writing—run like mad from anybody who thinks he can. But one can teach practices, like finger exercises on the piano; one can share the tools of the trade, and what one has gleaned from the great writers: it is the great writers themselves who do the teaching, rather than the leader of a seminar. It doesn’t take long for the gifted student to realize that there are certain things the great writers always do, and certain things they never do; it is from these that we learn.

The answer is three, I said as I held up three fingers—my middle through my pinky—and I formed a loop with my index finger and my thumb, which also shapes the universal sign for “asshole.” A verbal response, backed up by its unspoken reflection, with a hidden hand gesture buried in the sub context.

He walked over to the piano and lifted the cover revealing black and white keys that my fingers knew all too well. “Play for me?” I looked at the piano hesitantly and I felt the passion start to grow back inside of me. My fingers itched to play and suddenly my body was moving towards the piano and I sat down, my posture back to where it should be, my fingers hovering over the keys ready to play a song that I hadn’t heard in years. I closed my eyes and slowly breathed in and out. And then my fingers flew across the keys, the music filling the room. The music moved me both emotionally and physically as I rocked my body to the music, putting all of me into the song. The music took me to a different place than where I was here and now. This is the melody I always seem to come back to, always finding myself lost in the notes. The song is a part of me as it tells a story. A story about loss and recovery.

I’m looking down on the estate from above, and then I’m on the balcony, sitting all the way at the edge, legs pressed through the wooden rails and dangling down, down in the night. In the dream, the height doesn’t scare me at all. My fingers dance across the top of the railing like it’s a set of piano keys.

Funnel The family story tells, and it was told true, of my great-grandfather who begat eight genius children and bought twelve almost-new grand pianos. He left a considerable estate when he died. The children honored their separate arts; two became moderately famous, three married and fattened their delicate share of wealth and brilliance. The sixth one was a concert pianist. She had a notable career and wore cropped hair and walked like a man, or so I heard when prying a childhood car into the hushed talk of the straight Maine clan. One died a pinafore child, she stays her five years forever. And here is one that wrote- I sort his odd books and wonder his once alive words and scratch out my short marginal notes and finger my accounts. back from that great-grandfather I have come to tidy a country graveyard for his sake, to chat with the custodian under a yearly sun and touch a ghost sound where it lies awake. I like best to think of that Bunyan man slapping his thighs and trading the yankee sale for one dozen grand pianos. it fit his plan of culture to do it big. On this same scale he built seven arking houses and they still stand. One, five stories up, straight up like a square box, still dominates its coastal edge of land. It is rented cheap in the summer musted air to sneaker-footed families who pad through its rooms and sometimes finger the yellow keys of an old piano that wheezes bells of mildew. Like a shoe factory amid the spruce trees it squats; flat roof and rows of windows spying through the mist. Where those eight children danced their starfished summers, the thirty-six pines sighing, that bearded man walked giant steps and chanced his gifts in numbers. Back from that great-grandfather I have come to puzzle a bending gravestone for his sake, to question this diminishing and feed a minimum of children their careful slice of suburban cake.

When his wounds cut too deep for the blues--when he couldn't sing himself out of his own sorrow--when he was too wounded to shimmy his fingers over piano keys--he came to the healing waters of the Alapaha River. And on the river he recounted his sins, confessing to the ancient rhythmic flow of the current. Communion.

We have seen that imagining an act engages the same motor and sensory programs that are involved in doing it. We have long viewed our imaginative life with a kind of sacred awe: as noble, pure, immaterial, and ethereal, cut off from our material brain. Now we cannot be so sure about where to draw the line between them. Everything your “immaterial” mind imagines leaves material traces. Each thought alters the physical state of your brain synapses at a microscopic level. Each time you imagine moving your fingers across the keys to play the piano, you alter the tendrils in your living brain. These experiments are not only delightful and intriguing, they also overturn the centuries of confusion that have grown out of the work of the French philosopher René Descartes, who argued that mind and brain are made of different substances and are governed by different laws. The brain, he claimed, was a physical, material thing, existing in space and obeying the laws of physics. The mind (or the soul, as Descartes called it) was immaterial, a thinking thing that did not take up space or obey physical laws. Thoughts, he argued, were governed by the rules of reasoning, judgment, and desires, not by the physical laws of cause and effect. Human beings consisted of this duality, this marriage of immaterial mind and material brain. But Descartes—whose mind/body division has dominated science for four hundred years—could never credibly explain how the immaterial mind could influence the material brain. As a result, people began to doubt that an immaterial thought, or mere imagining, might change the structure of the material brain. Descartes’s view seemed to open an unbridgeable gap between mind and brain. His noble attempt to rescue the brain from the mysticism that surrounded it in his time, by making it mechanical, failed. Instead the brain came to be seen as an inert, inanimate machine that could be moved to action only by the immaterial, ghostlike soul Descartes placed within it, which came to be called “the ghost in the machine.” By depicting a mechanistic brain, Descartes drained the life out of it and slowed the acceptance of brain plasticity more than any other thinker. Any plasticity—any ability to change that we had—existed in the mind, with its changing thoughts, not in the brain. But now we can see that our “immaterial” thoughts too have a physical signature, and we cannot be so sure that thought won’t someday be explained in physical terms. While we have yet to understand exactly how thoughts actually change brain structure, it is now clear that they do, and the firm line that Descartes drew between mind and brain is increasingly a dotted line.

I can whistle almost the whole of the Fifth Symphony, all four movements, and with it I have solaced many a whining hour to sleep. It answers all my questions, the noble, mighty thing, it is “green pastures and still waters” to my soul. Indeed, without music I should wish to die. Even poetry, Sweet Patron Muse forgive me the words, is not what music is. I find that lately more and more my fingers itch for a piano, and I shall not spend another winter without one. Last night I played for about two hours, the first time in a year, I think, and though most everything is gone enough remains to make me realize I could get it back if I had the guts. People are so dam lazy, aren’t they? Ten years I have been forgetting all I learned so lovingly about music, and just because I am a boob. All that remains is Bach. I find that I never lose Bach. I don’t know why I have always loved him so. Except that he is so pure, so relentless and incorruptible, like a principle of geometry.

Then, quietly, he said, “I could do it.” “What?” “I could braid your hair.” “You?” “Yes.” Kestrel’s pulse bit at her throat. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything he had crossed the room and swept her hair into his hands. His fingers began to move. It was strange that the room was so silent. It seemed that there should have been some kind of sound when a fingertip grazed her neck. Or when he drew a lock taut and pinned it in place. When he let a ribbon-thin braid fall forward so that it tapped her cheek. Every gesture of his was as resonant as music, and Kestrel didn’t quite believe that she couldn’t hear any notes, high or low. She let out a slow breath. His hands stilled. “Did I hurt you?” “No.” Pins disappeared from the dressing table at a rapid rate. Kestrel watched small braids lose themselves inside larger ones, dip in and under and out of an increasingly intricate design. She felt a gentle tug. A twist. A shiver of air. Although Arin wasn’t touching her, he was touching no living part of her, it felt as if a fine net had been cast over Kestrel, one that hazed her vision and shimmered against her skin. “There,” he said. Kestrel watched her reflection lift a hand to her head. She couldn’t think of what to say. Arin had drawn back, hands in his pockets. But his eyes held hers in the mirror, and his face had softened, like when she had played the piano for him. She said, “How…?” He smiled. “How did a blacksmith pick up such an unexpected skill?” “Well, yes.” “My older sister used to make me do this when I was little.

She ran her hands, butterfly fashion, over the keys. "A little morsel of Stravinski?" she said. It was in the middle of the morsel that Adele came in and found Lucia playing Stravinski to Mr. Greatorex. The position seemed to be away, away beyond her orbit altogether, and she merely waited with undiminished faith in Lucia, to see what would happen when Lucia became aware to whom she was playing. . . . It was a longish morsel, too: more like a meal than a morsel, and it was also remarkably like a muddle. Finally, Lucia made an optimistic attempt at the double chromatic scale in divergent directions which brought it to an end, and laughed gaily. "My poor fingers," she said. "Delicious piano, dear Adele. I love a Bechstein; that was a little morsel of Stravinski. Hectic perhaps, do you think? But so true to the modern idea: little feverish excursions: little bits of tunes, and nothing worked out. But I always say that there is something in Stravinski, if you study him. How I worked at that little piece, and I'm afraid it's far from perfect yet.

I loved to take her hair down and she sat on the bed and kept very still, except suddenly she would dip down to kiss me while I was doing it. She had a lovely face and body and lovely smooth skin too. We would be lying together and I would touch her cheeks and her forehead and under her eyes and her chin and throat with the tips of my fingers and say, ‘Smooth as piano keys,’ and she would stroke my chin with her finger and say, ‘Smooth as emery paper and very hard on piano keys.’ ‘Is it rough?’ ‘No, darling. I was just making fun of you.

Analysis shows that when activities like playing the piano, writing or even walking are subjected to neurotic inhibitions it is because the physical organs brought into play—the fingers or the legs—have become too strongly erotized. It has been discovered as a general fact that the ego-function of an organ is impaired if its erotogenicity — its sexual significance — is increased. It behaves, if I may be allowed a rather absurd analogy, like a maid-servant who refuses to go on cooking because her master has started a love-affair with her.

He pulled back, dropped his hands, feeling unspeakably awkward. What did you say after a terrible kiss? He’d never had cause to wonder. That was when he saw Kuwei standing in the doorway, mouth open, eyes wide and shocked. “What?” Jesper asked. “Do the Shu not kiss before noon?” “I wouldn’t know,” Kuwei said sourly. Not Kuwei. “Oh, Saints,” Jesper groaned. That wasn’t Kuwei in the doorway. It was Wylan Van Eck, budding demolitions expert and wayward rich kid. And that meant he’d just kissed … The real Kuwei plunked that same listless note on the piano, grinning shamelessly up at him through thick black lashes. Jesper turned back to the door. “Wylan—” he began. “Kaz wants us in the sitting room.” “I—” But Wylan was already gone. Jesper stared at the empty doorway. How could he have made a mistake like that? Wylan was taller than Kuwei; his face was narrower too. If Jesper hadn’t been so riled up and jittery after the fight with Kaz and the argument with his father, he would never have confused them. And now he’d ruined everything. Jesper jabbed an accusing finger at Kuwei. “You should have said something!” Kuwei shrugged. “You were very brave on Black Veil. Since we’re all probably going to die—” “Damn it,” Jesper cursed, stalking toward the door. “You’re a very good kisser,” called Kuwei after him. Jesper turned. “How good is your Kerch really?” “Fairly good.” “Okay, then I hope you understand exactly what I mean when I say you are definitely more trouble than you’re worth.” Kuwei beamed, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Kaz seems to think I’m worth a great deal now.” Jesper rolled his eyes skyward. “You fit right in here.

I shook my head. “Tomorrow you won’t even remember my name, my face—” He stepped closer, eyes scanning me. “Emerson Wingate. Dark hair with reddish highlights. Bright blue eyes.” His gaze dipped, roaming over me. “Hundred ten. Hundred fifteen pounds. Your hands . . .” He plucked one of my hands up, pressing his palm flush to mine. He considered our kissing palms, my hand so much smaller than his own. The tips of my fingers barely passed his middle knuckle. “Beautiful hands.” My chest tightened at his deep voice washing over me. “Slender. Fine-boned but strong. Like they play an instrument. Piano maybe?” His eyes locked with mine. A dark eyebrow arched in question. “I-I paint,” I admitted. He smiled as if he had just solved some kind of puzzle. “You paint,” he echoed and continued, marking characteristics like he was reading off a chart. “Skin smooth. Pale. A tight little body perfect for tying guys up in knots.” My eyes shot to his face and I yanked my hand away from his. I rubbed my palm against my thigh, still feeling his touch there. “Go to hell.” “Temperamental.” He gave me his half smile. “See? I’ll remember you.

The piano entered the story, bringing a new voice to the narrative. Her fingers brushed the keys, her heart straining to find satisfaction in the harmonic shifts and subtle colorings. It wasn't there. Leila closed her eyes, tried new ways of speaking a phrase - holding back, pushing forward, adding an unexpected accent, waiting a breath before the harmonic resolution. But she couldn't find it. She pushed the music forward with frantic exhilaration, dragging the orchestra behind her.  René shot her a warning look. Leila drove hard, demanding they follow, viciously attacking the finale as she searched for what eluded her. But when the last chord exploded, ringing with a rage composed of love and longing, Leila felt nothing but a drained emptiness. It was as if the reins keeping her in control, in the carefully constructed environment where she'd always created music, had snapped and broken away.  Everything had felt just beyond reach. The notes had danced before her but she'd been unable to grasp them, to own and mold them into what she wanted to say. "Brava!" Leila blinked. People stood, flooding the hall with a deluge of approval for her sacrifice on stage.

Before he could say my name, I closed the space between us. Quickly, my lips moved against his. The mental and emotional emptiness took over instantly, but physically, I was more alert than ever. Wesley’s surprise didn’t last as long as it had before, and his hands were on me in seconds. My fingers tangled in his soft hair, and Wesley’s tongue darted into my mouth and became a new weapon in our war. Once again, my body took complete control of everything. Nothing existed at the corners of my mind; no irritating thoughts harassed me. Even the sounds of Wesley’s stereo, which had been playing some piano rock I didn’t recognize, faded away as my sense of touch heightened. I was fully conscious of Wesley’s hand as it slid up my torso and moved to cup my breast. With an effort, I pushed him away from me. His eyes were wide as he leaned back. “Please don’t slap me again,” he said. “Shut up.” I could have stopped there. I could have stood up and left the room. I could have let that kiss be the end of it. But I didn’t. The mind-numbing sensation I got from kissing him was so euphoric-such a high-that I couldn’t stand to give it up that fast. I might have hated Wesley Rush, but he held the key to my escape, and at that moment I wanted him… I needed him. Without speaking, without hesitating, I pulled my T-shirt over my head and threw it onto Wesley’s bedroom floor. He didn’t have a chance to say anything before I put my hands on his shoulders and shoved him onto his back. A second later, I was straddling him and we were kissing again. His fingers undid the clasp on my bra, and it joined my shirt on the floor. I didn’t care. I didn’t feel self-conscious or shy. I mean, he already knew I was the Duff, and it wasn’t like I had to impress him. I unbuttoned his shirt as he pulled the alligator clip from my hair and let the auburn waves fall around us. Casey had been right. Wesley had a great body. The skin pulled tight over his sculpted chest, and my hands drifted down his muscular arms with amazement. His lips moved to my neck, giving me a moment to breathe. I could only smell his cologne this close to him. As his mouth traveled down my shoulder, a thought pushed through the exhilaration. I wondered why he hadn’t shoved me-Duffy-away in disgust. Then again, I realized, Wesley wasn’t known for rejecting girls. And I was the one who should have been disgusted. But his mouth pressed into mine again, and that tiny, fleeting thought died. Acting on instinct, I pulled on Wesley’s lower lip with my teeth, and he moaned quietly. His hands moved over my ribs, sending chills up my spine. Bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss. Only once, as Wesley flipped me onto my back, did I seriously consider stopping. He looked down at me, and his skilled hand grasped the zipper on my jeans. My dormant brain stirred, and I asked myself if things had gone too far. I thought about pushing him away, ending it right where we were. But why would I stop now? What did I stand to lose? Yet what could I possibly gain? How would I feel about this in an hour… or sooner? Before I could come up with any answers, Wesley had my jeans and underwear off. He pulled a condom from his pocket (okay, now that I’m thinking about it, who keeps condoms in their pockets? Wallet, yes, but pocket? Pretty presumptuous, don’t you think?), and then his pants were on the floor, too. All of a sudden, we were having sex, and my thoughts were muted again.

You have asked too many questions. If you want more, you will have to win them.” He showed no sign of distraction now. As they played, he ignored her attempts to provoke him or make him laugh. “I’ve seen your tricks on others,” he said. “They won’t work with me.” He won. Kestrel waited, nervous, and wondered if the way she felt was how he felt when he lost. His voice came haltingly. “Will you play for me?” “Play for you?” Arin winced. In a more determined tone, he said, “Yes. Something I choose.” “I don’t mind. It’s only…people rarely ask.” He stood from the table, searched the shelves along the wall, and returned with a sheaf of sheet music. She took it. “It’s for the flute,” he said. “It will probably take you time to transpose it for the piano. I can wait. Maybe after our next game--” She fanned the paper impatiently to silence him. “It’s not that hard.” He nodded, then sat in the chair farthest away from the piano, by the glass garden doors. Kestrel was glad for his distance. She settled on the piano’s bench, flipping through the sheet music. The title and notations were in Herrani, the page yellow with age. She propped the paper on the piano’s rack, taking more time than necessary to neaten the sheets. Excitement coursed through her fingers as if she had already plunged her hands into the music, but that feeling was edged with a metallic lace of fear.

Baby,” Day said softly, his throat still sore from being choked. God turned around slowly and faced him. Day choked up at the pained expression on his man’s face. He could see that God’s eyes were moist and red-rimmed. Day inched toward him and didn’t stop until he was pressed against that broad chest. God’s strong arms came around him and squeezed him hard. The guttural moan the man released against his temple made Day’s heart seize. God pulled back and gripped a handful of Day’s hair pulling so that he was looking up at him. God bent down and oh so gently grazed his soft lips across his. Day’s body vibrated from the sensual feeling. God rubbed his face all over Day’s as if he was marking him with his scent. God’s grip tightened in his hair and he moaned again. Day could feel God’s body trembling and Day didn’t know at that moment if the shaking was from residual fear or need, so he didn’t move as he let his lover do what he needed to do. God released the punishing grip and his large palms shook as they ghosted over Day’s face. His chin was tilted up by firm fingers and again was blessed with feathery-soft kisses. God leaned back in and draped his arms completely around him and Day embraced him back. The soft piano from the album serenaded them and God just barely rocked their bodies back and forth in a very slow dance. Every few seconds he’d stop to place kisses on his forehead before leaning back in.

How long have you known about him?” I asked Jesse, using my free hand to gesture toward his guest. “Forever. Nearly as long as I did about you.” “God, Jesse. Why didn’t you say anything?” “He was a shadow of you.” Jesse shrugged. “His background is diluted, his dragon blood les strong. Even with you in his proximity, I wasn’t certain any of his drakon traits would emerge. He hasn’t anywhere near your potential.” “Pardon me,” Armand said, freezingly polite, “but he is still right here with you in this room.” “Do you mean…I did it?” I asked. “I made him figure it out? What he is?” Jesse gave me an assessing look. “Like is drawn to like. We’re all three of us thick with magic now, even if it’s different kinds. It’s inevitable that we’ll feed off one another. The only way to prevent that would be to separate. And even then it might not be enough. Too much has already begun.” “I don’t want to separate from you,” I said. “No.” Jesse lifted our hands and gave mine a kiss. “Don’t worry about that.” Armand practically rolled his eyes. “If you two are quite done, might we talk some sense tonight? It’s late, I’m tired, and your ruddy chair, Holms, is about as comfortable as sitting on a tack. I want to…” But his voice only faded into silence. He closed his eyes and raised a hand to his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose. I noted again those shining nails. The elegance of his bones beneath his flawless skin. Skin that was marble-pale, I realized. Just like mine. “Yes?” I said, more gently than I’d intended. “Excuse me. I’m finding this all a bit…impossible to process. I’m beginning to believe that this is the most profoundly unpleasant dream I’ve ever been caught in.” “Allow me to assure you that you’re awake, Lord Armand,” I retorted, all gentleness gone. “To wit: You hear music no one else does. Distinctive music from gemstones and all sorts of metals. That day I played the piano at Tranquility, I was playing your father’s ruby song, one you must have heard exactly as I did. Exactly as your mother would have. You also have, perhaps, something like a voice inside you. Something specific and base, stronger than instinct, hopeless to ignore. Animals distrust you. You might even dream of smoke or flying.” He dropped his arm. “You got that from the diary.” “No, I got that from my own life. And damned lucky you are to have been brought into this world as a pampered little prince instead of spending your childhood being like this and still having to fend for yourself, as I did.” “Right. Lucky me.” Armand looked at Jesse, his eyes glittering. “And what are you? Another dragon? A gargoyle, perchance, or a werecat?” “Jesse is a star.” The hand went up to conceal his face again. “Of course he is. The. Most. Unpleasant. Dream. Ever.” I separated my hand from Jesse’s, angling for more bread. “I think you’re going to have to show him.” “Aye.” A single blue eye blinked open between Armand’s fingers. “Show me what?

STAINS With red clay between my toes, and the sun setting over my head, the ghost of my mother blows in, riding on a honeysuckle breeze, oh lord, riding on a honeysuckle breeze. Her teeth, the keys of a piano. I play her grinning ivory notes with cadenced fumbling fingers, splattered with paint, textured with scars. A song rises up from the belly of my past and rocks me in the bosom of buried memories. My mama’s dress bears the stains of her life: blueberries, blood, bleach, and breast milk; She cradles in her arms a lifetime of love and sorrow; Its brilliance nearly blinds me. My fingers tire, as though I've played this song for years. The tune swells red, dying around the edges of a setting sun. A magnolia breeze blows in strong, a heavenly taxi sent to carry my mother home. She will not say goodbye. For there is no truth in spoken farewells. I am pregnant with a poem, my life lost in its stanzas. My mama steps out of her dress and drops it, an inheritance falling to my feet. She stands alone: bathed, blooming, burdened with nothing of this world. Her body is naked and beautiful, her wings gray and scorched, her brown eyes piercing the brown of mine. I watch her departure, her flapping wings: She doesn’t look back, not even once, not even to whisper my name: Brenda. I lick the teeth of my piano mouth. With a painter’s hands, with a writer’s hands with rusty wrinkled hands, with hands soaked in the joys, the sorrows, the spills of my mother’s life, I pick up eighty-one years of stains And pull her dress over my head. Her stains look good on me.

Arin said, “If I win, I will ask a question, and you will answer.” She felt a nervous flutter. “I could lie. People lie.” “I’m willing to risk it.” “If those are your stakes, then I assume my prize would be the same.” “If you win.” She still could not quite agree. “Questions and answers are highly irregular stakes in Bite and Sting,” she said irritably. “Whereas matches make the perfect ante, and are so exciting to win and lose.” “Fine.” Kestrel tossed the box to the carpet, where it landed with a muffled sound. Arin didn’t look satisfied or amused or anything at all. He simply drew his hand. She did the same. They played in intent concentration, and Kestrel was determined to win. She didn’t. “I want to know,” Arin said, “why you are not already a soldier.” Kestrel couldn’t have said what she had thought he would ask, but this was not it, and the question recalled years of arguments she would rather forget. She was curt. “I’m seventeen. I’m not yet required by law to enlist or marry.” He settled back in his chair, toying with one of his winning pieces. He tapped a thin side against the table, spun the tile in his fingers, and tapped another side. “That’s not a full answer.” “I don’t think we specified how short or long these answers should be. Let’s play again.” “If you win, will you be satisfied with the kind of answer you have given me?” Slowly, she said, “The military is my father’s life. Not mine. I’m not even a skilled fighter.” “Really?” His surprise seemed genuine. “Oh, I pass muster. I can defend myself as well as most Valorians, but I’m not good at combat. I know what it’s like to be good at something.” Arin glanced again at the piano. “There is also my music,” Kestrel acknowledged. “A piano is not very portable. I could hardly take it with me if I were sent into battle.” “Playing music is for slaves,” Arin said. “Like cooking or cleaning.” Kestrel heard anger in his words, buried like bedrock under the careless ripple of his voice. “It wasn’t always like that.” Arin was silent, and even though Kestrel had initially tried to answer his question in the briefest of ways, she felt compelled to explain the final reason behind her resistance to the general. “Also…I don’t want to kill.” Arin frowned at this, so Kestrel laughed to make light of the conversation. “I drive my father mad. Yet don’t all daughters? So we’ve made a truce. I have agreed that, in the spring, I will either enlist or marry.” He stopped spinning the tile in his fingers. “You’ll marry, then.” “Yes. But at least I will have six months of peace first.” Arin dropped the tile to the table. “Let’s play again.” This time Kestrel won, and wasn’t prepared for how her blood buzzed with triumph.

He was almost at his door when Vik’s earsplitting shriek resounded down the corridor. Tom was glad for the excuse to sprint back toward him. “Vik?” He reached Vik’s doorway as Vik was backing out of it. “Tom,” he breathed, “it’s an abomination.” Confused, Tom stepped past him into the bunk. Then he gawked, too. Instead of a standard trainee bunk of two small beds with drawers underneath them and totally bare walls, Vik’s bunk was virtually covered with images of their friend Wyatt Enslow. There were posters all over the wall with Wyatt’s solemn, oval face on them. She wore her customary scowl, her dark eyes tracking their every move through the bunk. There was a giant marble statue of a sad-looking Vik with a boot on top of its head. The Vik statue clutched two very, very tiny hands together in a gesture of supplication, its eyes trained upward on the unseen stomper, an inscription at its base, WHY, OH WHY, DID I CROSS WYATT ENSLOW? Tom began to laugh. “She didn’t do it to the bunk,” Vik insisted. “She must’ve done something to our processors.” That much was obvious. If Wyatt was good at anything, it was pulling off tricks with the neural processors, which could pretty much be manipulated to show them anything. This was some sort of illusion she was making them see, and Tom heartily approved. He stepped closer to the walls to admire some of the photos pinned there, freeze-frames of some of Vik’s more embarrassing moments at the Spire: that time Vik got a computer virus that convinced him he was a sheep, and he’d crawled around on his hands and knees chewing on plants in the arboretum. Another was Vik gaping in dismay as Wyatt won the war games. “My hands do not look like that.” Vik jabbed a finger at the statue and its abnormally tiny hands. Wyatt had relentlessly mocked Vik for having small, delicate hands ever since Tom had informed her it was the proper way to counter one of Vik’s nicknames for her, “Man Hands.” Vik had mostly abandoned that nickname for “Evil Wench,” and Tom suspected it was due to the delicate-hands gibe. Just then, Vik’s new roommate bustled into the bunk. He was a tall, slim guy with curly black hair and a pointy look to his face. Tom had seen him around, and he called up his profile from memory: NAME: Giuseppe Nichols RANK: USIF, Grade IV Middle, Alexander Division ORIGIN: New York, NY ACHIEVEMENTS: Runner-up, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition IP: 2053:db7:lj71::291:ll3:6e8 SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-4 Giuseppe must’ve been able to see the bunk template, too, because he stuttered to a stop, staring up at the statue. “Did you really program a giant statue of yourself into your bunk template? That’s so narcissistic.” Tom smothered his laughter. “Wow. He already has your number, man.” Vik shot him a look of death as Tom backed out of the bunk.

Since Alexander came back, Tatiana had become fixated on his hands, and on her own by contrast. His hands were like the platter on which he carried his life. They were large and broad, dark and square, with heavy palms and heavy thumbs, but with long thick flexible fingers—as if he could play the piano as well as haul lobster trawls. They were knuckled and veined, and the palms were calloused. Everything was calloused, even the fingertips, roughened by carrying heavy weapons over thousands of miles, hardened by fighting, burning, logging, burying men. His hands reflected all manner of eternal struggles. You didn’t need to be a soothsayer, or a psychic or a palmreader, you needed not a single glance at the lines in the palms but just one cursory look at the hands and you knew instantly: the man they belonged to had done everything—and was capable of anything. And then take Tatiana and her own square hands. Among other things, her hands had worked in a weapons factory, they had made bombs and tanks and flamethrowers, worked the fields, mopped floors, dug holes in snow and in the ground. They had pulled sleds along the ice. They had taken care of dead men, of wounded men, of dying men; her hands had known life, and strife—yet they looked like they soaked in milk all day. They were tiny, unblemished, uncalloused, unknuckled, unveined, palms light, fingers slender. She was embarrassed by them— they were soft and delicate like a child’s hands. One would conclude that her hands had never done a day’s work in their life—and couldn’t!