The smooth keys gently rest below my fingertips, begging me to let them sing. Oh the sorrows this piano has witnessed. The secrets she’s heard whispered. The sadness I try to forget in this song.

I can hear the evening breeze rustle the sheets I’ve never read. Yet every week the man brings new ones to place on the stand. I guess he feels no musician should be without an ample stock of sheet music.

I’m not a musician. I have never read the lines of Bach or Beethoven. As absent as the latter’s ears heard, my eyes have never seen.

I can smell the bitter scent of a cigarette. It floats in the air before my face. Smoke that burns. Smoke that blinds.

I can hear soft hums from a woman’s voice. I used to dream they were from the delicate mouth of a beautiful maiden in love. But long since I resigned them to be a waning fantasy of my disillusioned mind.