flash fiction: waves

dalila runs her fingers across the keyboard, her left ring finger catches on a black key c-sharp or d-flat, a thin layer of dust now streaked by her dabbling, the sting in her cuticle surprises her, her hand freezes, the lack of a ring on that finger now stings her too, and she presses the key, it sounds, her son kristian runs behind her with a football in his hand — he fell yesterday, the football tumbled into an empty wine glass she left on the floor, the glass broke into two, dalila also was sitting at the piano at the time, about to touch this same black key, instead she turned and grabbed kristian by the arm and called him an idiot, and she ordered him to clean up the glass and then sleep — she didn’t return to the piano and cried for a minute and then splashed her face with cold water —

children, they’re just children, they run and throw, and they don’t care, they should be outside, they don’t learn, they break, and things — dalila hits the next note, which vibrates atonally with the c-sharp, kristian catches the ball this time, stands stable, turns, and sprints out of the room, dalila won’t grab his arm today, won’t leave marks, kristian’s had enough — dalila perches both of her hands, all 10 fingers, on the piano, and she plays a song called waves, which her girlfriend natalie composed during college — dalila played it to a small crowd of mostly students and some professors, with natalie hiding behind a curtain peeking out every 30 seconds to their faces, their reactions — it’s the only song that dalila memorized completely, and she never forgot because she often used it as a warmup, the complete song lasts 4 minutes and 40 seconds, a convenient length for a warmup — and because they’re waves, the notes span the length of the keyboard, the song requires every note on the piano, all keys, the span of the ocean as natalie said, when she first described the song and asked dalila to play it for her —

dalila thinks she should call natalie, to tell her what happened —

but kristian is calling, he can’t find the food for his goldfish, well — she thinks at least she finished playing waves —

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