The Piano Man

Cortney Chintermeyer

A large crowd gathered in the noise and fray around the auctioneer.

The man in the red hat wanted to buy the piano.

The man in the green hat wanted to buy the piano, too. He called out a bid to counter the first offer.

A woman in the crowd asked who was bidding against the man in the red hat. Someone answered, "Frank Sutton."

I looked up at my Grandpa. His jaw was tight.  His eyes were focused. He held my hand, squeezing it too tightly.

Time seemed to stand still as my mind recorded snapshot moments. The sun in the blue sky. The man in the red hat. The man in the green hat. The auctioneer with his hands scanning across the sea of faces.

A hush fell over the crowd as the crescendo of anticipation intensified, but in my head there was a roar as loud as a freight train.

 "SOLD...to the man in the green hat.

Someone yelled,  "Did that little girl get her piano?"

Grandpa laughed and waved his green hat in the air as he pulled me into a hug.  My life had been forever interrupted,  changed by one extraordinary moment tucked into the corner of an ordinary day.

Usually we are too preoccupied with the mundane around us to live fully awake. But life is in the interruptions. The moments that catch us off guard wake us up and cause us to focus on the important rather than the urgent.

My piano student stopped suddenly in the middle of a song and stared at blood dripping on the keyboard..  As she touched her wiggly front tooth, her eyes widened with panic.

After I had pulled the tooth and cleaned her mouth, she poked her tongue through the hole and laughed. "I'm bigger now, Teacher! I got bigger right here in the middle of my piano lesson. We didn't know that would happen, did we?"