I stare out the large windows that surround me, large water droplets slide down the wet glass and the sound of rain hitting the tin roof fills the cozy house. The hum of the ineffective furnace offers a counter melody to the constant sound of rain. I look at the piano music in front of me briefly before realising just how dark it really is, the room is usually bright and breezy, for in the summer we open all the large windows framing the room. However, today only a single window is open and through it a cold breeze blows in, bringing goose bumps to my bare arms.

“Esmee, I don’t hear you practicing piano!” Mum calls from upstairs, I can smell a bad storm brewing and I know she can too, for she is making large amounts of food upstairs. I don’t know how to explain the smell of a storm, before the rain comes everything seems to be stronger, the grass smells a little sweeter, the sun is a little brighter, the wind is a little colder, I guess that's just how it is. But the real sign lies in the animals, thatߴs what my 90 year-old neighbour Martha always tells me at least. She says that wolves howl before the storms because they can hear the rain, but she always says the real signs lie in the birds. She always told me If the birds fly low, then rain we shall know, or, birds on a telephone wire predict the coming of rain, or, If the rooster crows on going to bed, you may rise with a watery head. Of course it may all be nonsense, but so far every time the flocks of birds dart quickly in the forest or we hear the cry of her rooster, Rodger, it always seems to storm the next day. Of course living in a part of the world where it rained nearly every day we were accustomed to showers, its the bad storms we prepared for. “Esmee!“ Mum yells again. I play a quick scale in thirds to make it seem like I'm doing something. I can play my piece fine by now, I've been practising for months and it's just boring classical fugue by Bach. I eye my mum's phone sitting mantel, I should check the weather, I think as I stand up slowly and walk towards the small new mobile phone. Martha always said “Those weather people are not reliable Esmee, they just read from teleprompters, you know that. Checking the weather is useless.”  

I hold the cold metal object in my hand, I tap the middle button and the screen immediately comes to life with a picture of me and my three younger siblings. I navigate my way through the new phone to the weather app. Rain. How predictable, honestly I think the weather forecasters could predict rain every day here and 95% of the time they'd be correct. Maybe that's what they do… I click out of the unhelpful weather app and go into the safari app. The blank search bar taunts me with all of its knowledge, with all that I could learn from it. I slowly type in Bach Prelude and Fugue No. 9 in E Major, the results take a few seconds to load but when they do there are so many. From sheet music, to tutorials, to videos, to simplified versions, everything is at my fingertips. I scroll quickly through the results, my index finger throbbing from pushing so hard on the screen and my vision blurry from the brightness emerging from the small device. I grab my glasses from the side of the piano, slipping them on before continuing to scroll. I click the video icon and millions of pictures with triangle buttons on them show up, these are the moving pictures mum showed Luuk and I the other day. I watch a girl who was maybe 30 play the simple yet beautiful fugue. The camera captures each delicate movement of her fingers gliding across the ivory keys of her grand piano. I’ve always wanted a grand piano, they sound much nicer than the cheap electric one I have. The beauty of her playing brings a smile to my face as the sounds surround me, everything is so smooth, connected, and flawless when she plays. The right notes are staccato and the right notes are long, the phrasing is perfect, and I don’t think she messed up a single note. On the contrary, when I play I lack steady beat, my phrasing sounds like kindergarteners sentences, and I butcher the key signature.

I close my eyes and let the beauty of the song wash over me, a song I’ve never really appreciated because all I can hear is the flaws in my playing of it. Music has this effect on me, I can’t really explain it, but it’s always been there. It envelops me in its sound, giving me a special place that’s just mine in a way, I can taste the notes like they are flavours, the sweet taste that major chords leave with you and the bitter tang of a V7 or a diminished chord. Music leaves my foot tapping a steady beat and my fingers drumming rhythm on whatever is nearest, it leaves me with colours behind my closed eyelids, with pictures and memories and feelings and passion. Music lets me become myself in a way, it lets me see whatever I fail to see or feel. Maybe that happens to everyone, but I have never seen anyone my age appreciate music the way it deserves to be appreciated. I understand the appeal of modern music, and I get it music should change with the times, but I feel like sometimes people lose sight of the past, the classics, and get too caught up in the future. You won’t go anywhere if you always forget where you came from.

As the song comes to an end the pinks and reds vanish as I open my eyes again, the light momentarily blinding me. “Meisje, that sounds very good,” my mum calls from upstairs. She thinks the video is me playing, I think to myself with a grin. I start the video again from the beginning, I listen to the phrasing and I get a feel for the music, it’s amazing how much of a difference rallentando's and dynamics make. I listen again and again on full volume just listening, but listening isn’t bad, I’ve learned more from listening than I ever have from talking. I listen over and over again until the screen of the small mobile phone goes dark and I’m left with my own music. I set the warm phone back down on the mantle where I had found it, my feet cold on the uncarpeted floors.

I start to play the song again, but I can only hear the many flaws in the playing. It’s like my mind can’t compliment itself, only criticise and criticise and criticise. I begin again and again but it never sounds right, never. Just as I’m about to miss another C# the room goes dark, the piano no longer plays and I’m left alone with only the light coming from the large windows rattling against the storm outside. “Kinderen, upstairs now,” Mum yells as my siblings trample up the stairs. “Someone bring the mobile phone!” she adds. My eyes go wide with fear, of course she needs the phone, I wasn’t supposed to use it after all. It was supposed to be in case the storm got too bad. My heart hammers in my chest and fear takes over. I grab the device and run upstairs to find my siblings, mum, and Martha sitting around a warm fire.

“I… I… think the phone is uh dead,” I fib timidly.

“Huh?” my mum says, clearly confused. “I remember charging not too long ago,” she adds, taking the device from me.

I shrug and take a seat next to Martha. “Esmee, heb je de vogels gezien?” Addie, did you see the birds.

“Ja mevrouw,” I answer. Yes ma’am.

“De vogels liegen nooit.” The birds never lie. I nod, they don’t lie unlike me… Maybe mum won’t notice or figure it out? I think to myself.

Suddenly mum stands up abruptly. “I bought a special battery in case this happened,” she announced, walking briskly towards the kitchen, her footsteps heavy on the hard floors. She returns quickly with a large silver prism and thin cord in hand. She plugs one end of the chord into the battery and the other into the phone. After a few seconds the screen comes alive. “There we go,” she states, unlocking the device. The screen goes straight to the Bach fugue I had been playing, my heart hits the floor. “Esmee, isn’t this your song?”

“Yes ma’am,” I answer. I can’t deny it now, I just have to tell her.

“So you weren’t really practising piano?” she asks with a disappointing look.

“Kind of?” I mumble, feeling a little bad.

“So you wasted all the battery?” she continues, her eyebrows raised.

“Yes ma’am,” I state, tears threatening to fall from my eyes.

“Well…” she states after considering the information for a minute. “How badly you will probably perform in your competition tomorrow should be enough of a punishment, yes?”

I nodded in agreement, but I wasn’t going to perform badly, I was sure of it. You can’t mess up a piece if you know it, all you have to do is play the colours behind your eyelids, the pictures in your mind, the memories in your head, the emotions in your heart, and the passion in your blood. That’s what makes music hard, playing with heart, simply moving your fingers will never get you anywhere.

With that Martha tells us about all the funny things my mum did when she was younger, I don’t think they’ve ever not been neighbours. As this happens I rehearse the song in my mind over and over again, tapping my small fingers on the wood floors, closing my eyes, and playing Bach's Prelude and Fugue No. 9 in E major.