My last story

It is retirement’s day today. Finally the day that I’ve been waiting for has arrived, yet why do I don’t feel the excitement that I thought I would?

If you ask me to tell you something about my professional experience as a piano player in a dancing school, it is difficult to say really because above all else, it is just a job, not a career.

Nonetheless, piano playing is a reputable and harmless occupation. No family has been broken by the swift movements of the fingers on the piano. For fifteen bucks an hour one can play a full piece of moonlight sonata and Hungarian dance – if only one has the mind to do that.

But to tell you my story – it is a simple one. You have only got to imagine a girl in a four walled mirrored room with a piano at a corner. She had only to move her fingers on those black and white keys from nine o’clock to six.

But wait a moment. Playing music has to be something. Mine, I seem to remember, means something more than whatever I mentioned above. Certainly it’s very selfish of me for taking all the credit for myself, because the root of all this remains, that for all the monies I’ve earned in the last four years, they barely cover half of the capital invested on me fifteen years before.

What could be easier than to play music to pay for examination fees and lunch with the profits? At least I WAS able, though not without great labor and effort, to pay for them.

Sigh, maybe this freedom is just the beginning of something; though it very much feels like the end. Perhaps I should discuss more about my future plans but not now I guess, maybe next time.

I was pretty much aware of the stress level I faced for the last three and a half days ago. It was a scrutiny, double the time period I spent on the piano last weekend. That’s right, about a total of thirty two hours. No applause please.

The examination came and went as planned. The students were somehow quite nervous, or so they seem to be, as with every examination there will always be a few who are extremely scared to the verge of hysteria.

It is quite funny now when I think back, because an exam is just an assessment of how well you understand the syllabus. Nothing more nothing less. Nobody should in any way be judged by their results. But sad to say, people normally fix a certain standard on you by comparing to others so you know relatively well where you actually stand.

The situation I’m in now feels very much the same as when I graduated for my music diploma five years ago. Before I got it, I thought how happy I would be if I eventually get a scroll, but when I did actually get hold of it, the supposed excitement was not there at all.

Strange but true. Have you ever felt this way before?

Anyway, I left the piano with a little sigh just now. Goodbye my beloved, we may have been married for four years but most probably I will never see you again in my whole life, maybe I will not even step in to another dance studio again in my whole life, maybe I will not hear the sounds of laughter in this room again in my whole life, maybe I will not have the blessing of meeting such good humored people again until I die.

I remember taking a deep breath before walking out of the place for the last time, my job is done here. Somehow four years seem like a long time, but why is it that as I walked away, vivid memories rushed into my mind, as I see myself, just yesterday, walking up the same stairs for the first time, asking for a job as a piano player?