Act VIII - Acceptance

Maine (US), January 31st, 2024. An enchanted whiteness covers the stone path in the wood, on the way that leads to the remote chalet. The softest sleet keeps pouring down moderately, veiling the trail where the absence of any human trace makes the silent landscape as if it were suspended between space and Time. Big black ravens are perched on the crumbled stone walls alongside the path; they almost seem the wardens of that virgin and recondite place. It is late morning and Peter Light is walking back home, after running some errands in town. Today, it is his 54th birthday and this afternoon he awaits the visit of her mother, Angie, together with some of his old friends from the New England Piano Academy he has not seen for years. Such a long Time has passed since when Peter was a young and ambitious composer touring the world, playing his music and hunting for his dream. So many hollow years uselessly wasted in between, spent in self-pity... frustration... laceration. While walking along that immaculate and almost surreal white trail, Peter thinks back to his whole life: a spring spent in search of perfection, constantly unsatisfied, always craving for more... an autumn lived among shadows, regretting youth. And now winter has come. Older, but wiser, today he feels stronger than he has ever been before... but within himself, all these memories leave such a strange, sour, bittersweet aftertaste.

The Aftertaste

The hasty and unstoppable clock hands of the pendulum hung on the maple wooden wall keep ticking Time away and Peter’s 54th birthday has come and gone in the twinkling of an eye. Even if it was not precisely a party, such an afternoon spent with friends and family was definitely the first birthday he has celebrated together with someone in the last 30 years. Now it is almost 7.00 PM, his guests have already gone and Peter finds himself alone, again, in his Canadian-style chalet: an isolated pale dot of warm and intimate light in the middle of the dark, shadowy winter wood... A LIGHT AMONG SHADOWS. Nevertheless, he knows the real shadow is not actually out there. The necessary evil lies within: the grudge counterbalancing serenity, the apathy contrasting zeal, the hate that restrains love... an inescapable duality that dwells in each human being and that must be kept perfectly balanced by means of a constant never-ending fight against yourself. And Peter is aware that, also tonight, like any other night, his double self is impatiently waiting for him... but let him wait! Before the usual meeting with his personal demon, Peter needs to do something first. A long b reath and a glance around him, at his weathered but yet somehow warm and welcoming chalet, where his whole world still lies. Then he approaches the slow-burning fireplace, where he casts two more logs on the fire and rubs his hands to warm them up a little. After gazing at the crackling flames growing bigger for a few seconds, Peter gets on his feet and slowly steps towards the black grand piano in the middle of the room. That dear old friend with whom he shared so many afternoons and nights when he was just something more than a kid... the sole thing in this world that used to make possible the projection and materialization of all those intimate and abstract emotions that lay within his soul... a friend who has been neglected, ignored and abandoned for too many years. Quietly and totally unhurriedly, Peter cleans up his grand piano before opening it and starting to meticulously tune all the keys, little by little, one by one. Minutes turn into hours and the pendulum clock strikes 9.30 PM when, finally, the process seems to be ended. Peter's heart inexplicably begins to pound loudly when he lets himself seat on the stool... is that really passion, perhaps? Another long breath, before easing both his hands down on the keyboard. Peter Light closes his eyes: an immaterial music score seems to take shape and scroll slowly, there in his mind. A first, harmonious chord, followed by another one. All the others follow, almost by themselves, and Peter's right hand start playing that distant and almost forgotten rhapsody he left unfinished 28 years ago, to finally complete and close it on the exact passage where a Bb major turns into a C minor... right there, where love meets art and merge with it, creating an altogether: a melodious, flawless, suspended point in the infinite space where the sands of Time freeze but for a moment in the huge hourglass of life. Frozen Sand: the perfect melody... one kind of purest artistic inspiration which is ultimately capable to win over space and Time.

Freezing Time, Seizing Space - The Final Chronicle (instrumental)