Chapel pianist · West Isle (2nd island), Rustwater (far-end exit town under the Spires), chapel (Chopin Op. 72 No. 1).
Talk
- “Name's Ira. I play the piano. It's an etude. Chopin. That's a practice piece. He said he never wrote a prettier tune. Then he put it in the practice book. That tells you what he thought of practice.”
- “Folks ask why a chapel out here, at the end of the waste. I tell them it was here first. The town grew up around it. Like a mushroom. The town's the mushroom. The chapel's the log. Nobody asked the log.”
- “The fog comes in under the door during the quiet parts. You can hear it. It doesn't make a sound. That's how you can hear it. If you've been out here long enough, that makes sense.”
- “Fella over at Ashen Landing plays the piano too. Woman, actually. Odette. Different song. We've never met. Too much fog between us. Probably for the best. Two piano players in a room just makes an argument.”
- “There's no preacher. The last one went out to bless the waste. He blessed about half of it. The other half's still out there, unblessed. So's he.”
- “My mother said, Ira, play something cheerful once in a while. I said, Mother, it's the end of the world out here. She said, then it's your last chance to be cheerful. I didn't take it. She moved to the desert.”
When you walk off mid-sentence
- “Go on. It's only a practice piece. You can walk out on practice.”
- “Walking out in the sad part. Well. It's all the sad part.”
- “Off you go. I'll play it again. I always play it again.”