<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Hi everyone,<div>Happy first day of October!</div><div>I am taking a short story class, in which we are currently working on flash fiction. This, for these of you who don't know, is a very very short story, and can be 1 to 3 pages in length. </div><div>I wrote the following story for my class last week. My class workshops them without much feedback. This story is currently the one I'm happiest with of all of them. I'm considering possibly submitting it for publication for one of my school's fiction maga"es. </div><div>Any feedback would be appreciated. The story is pasted below.</div><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Vejas Vasiliauskas</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Short Story 4: The Piano Room</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"I'm so claustrophobic in here," moaned Carys. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"I have better things to do than be here. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>My boyfriend, Ralph, for example. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Whom I could hang out more with, if it weren't for you and this stupid..." She slumped down with shame.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">This monologue shocked me. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Carys Lamb was most certainly not my best student: in fact, she was one of the worst. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>She only showed up because her parents forced her to, and I often had to tell her, "Sorry, I'm not yawning because of you, I'm yawning because I'm tired." She played with a scowl, but at least she played. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In an odd way, I was happy that she snapped and felt comfortable expressing her feelings. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And yet, there was a part of me that wanted to tell her that she was my last appointment of the day, that if it weren't for her I could leave this room earlier and bake Snicker-Doodles.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">She had a point that the room was claustrophobic. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>When this house had been built 50 years ago, my parents had little concept of AC. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I always kept the door closed for privacy of lessons. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The room consisted of only an upright piano, a bench and one soft cushioned chair, for myself. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The chair was positioned close enough to the piano that I could reach it if necessary. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Carys was currrently attempting to play Mozart's "Piano Sonata No. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>10 in C" a piece she chose through vaguely liking one of her father's classical albums. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But liking the sound of it was obviously different to actually playing it, and despite us working for 3 months she had just grasped the second section the session before.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"I'm sorry you feel this way, Carys," I said finally.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"Can I please leave? My parents have already paid you for the month."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Seeing a pupil having such a blaséttitude about piano made me sad. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I thought of my father, who was a piano instructor himself, and how comments like this would have broken him.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">My father wasn't actually a piano player by trade. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He was a lawyer, who had to drive first a half hour to the train station, then one hour by train to get to his office. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Piano had always been his true love, and he would have persued it as a career, too, had his parents not demanded more of him. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>My parents had five children in all, which a meager income as a piano teacher would not have been able to support. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So he taught in this small room every Saturday, and for the first part of the morning every other Sunday.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"I don't care what your father thought," Carys said coldly. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Oh, had I said that out loud?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"Most of my father's students had to pay for lessons out of their own pocket, back then. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Naturally they therefore took playing much more seriously."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"Well, it's a new generation."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"I have lots of fond memories of this place," I mused. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"On Sunday evenings it was our special time. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>You see, that's when my father taught me. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We had hundreds of classical cassettes. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If I wanted to play a piece I liked from any one of the cassettes, I could, but boy did I have to work at it. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We'd have gotten through this in... <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>four sessions, probably."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"Did you practice?"</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"Yes, of course! How else could I do well? You remember he wasn't a teacher full-time? When he was away, for work... <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that's when I practiced. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It was a minimum of 30 minutes, but I could still be seen passionately playing after two hours."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">"Well, that's great," Carys snapped. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"So <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>you like to play piano. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I get it. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Well, times have changed, as your dad would undoubtedly say. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Parents force their children into an interest in music at about two and a half. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Then every day, it's "Have you practiced?" Look, I've had enough, and you going all sentimental is doing nothing to change my attitude. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If anything, it aggravates me even more. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So I'm off to my boyfriend's."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">She got up and I wouldn't, couldn't stop her.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"></span><br></p><div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Carys opened the door, and just as I thought she'd be out of my sight forever, she turned back and said, "Do you know something? I'm so claustrophobic when I'm in here.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Claustrophobic people get dizzy easily in confined spaces.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Just saying." </span> </div></body></html>