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Study, For Solo Piano

by Genevieve Valentine

The Circus waits in leaking trailers while Boss takes her lieutenants through the house.

Then, her lieutenants are Elena from the trapeze, and Panadrome the music man, who presses his accordion bellows tight to his side to keep it from sharp edges, and Alec, their final act, who folds his gleaming wings tight against his back so he can fit through the hole in the wall.

Inside, the ceiling is waterlogged and sagging, but when Alec opens his wings even the nails sing for him.

Alec laughs, and the birds in the rafters scatter as if he’s called them down.

(Alec will be dead in a year; these are the last birds he sees.)

 

Unfortunately we don’t have the full text to this one, but you can read the rest of the story here!

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Host Commentary

…aaaaand welcome back. That was STUDY, FOR SOLO PIANO by GENEVIEVE VALENTINE, and if you enjoyed that, there’s one other episode of hers in our archives: Podcastle 119, BESPOKE. There’s also a full novel set in this same world of the Circus Tresaulti, MECHANIQUE, so if you want to see more of the world we only glimpsed here, that’s available from anywhere you usually get your books.

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Beauty is where you find it in the world, I think, and it’s so individual and even unpredictable where and what will catch your heart. You have to fight for what you love, because otherwise what’s the point? What are we here for if not that? There’s no rhyme or reason given for why we have the higher faculties we do, our aesthetic sensibilities across all our senses; in lieu of clearer instructions, why shouldn’t appreciation of beauty be our guiding light? Why shouldn’t we strive to grow and to thrive in pursuit of experiencing more beauty? Of creating, and witnessing creation in turn? I’ve yet to think of a more compelling reason. Beauty can be anywhere, if only we slow down enough to look, to listen, to learn. If you can make something so beautiful, why would you ever stop? If you can experience something so beautiful, why would you ever stop?