{Contest Entry} Strings

Part Four: Tyler

Despite my minimum wage, I enjoyed working in the lobby of the hotel. The music I produced was my solace from this reality we so desperately survived in. I was told on the first day, "Play any song you want, just so long as it isn't horrible." This gave me tonnes of creative freedom. I played ballads some days, or other days I'd play slow, melancholic songs, trying to wordlessly remind people of what's going on outside their sheltered lives. The children running around in the lobby, laughing joyously, while others couldn't smile at all. They had the privileges most didn't and they didn't even know it.

Today, I was playing a quartet of songs produced all by the same person, all of them slow and having an underlying tone of longing or sadness, in my opinion. My fingers danced along the keys which produced the notes of the first song, "Dream of Dream". This one was my favourite only because of its violin accompaniment that would make the whole song complete if I had a violin player with me. It was light-hearted, but sadly dancing along with its minor chords.

No one really notices the piano guy. To them, I'm scenery, just a background character. There are those who pause to listen if I'm noticed, but mostly, I receive a sideways glance and a brisk departure as if they're interrupting me when I have these songs memorized for the most part.

I am friends with the receptionist, Seto, though. He and I only share a mutual friendship since we both work in the same place. I wonder if he ever notices me like how I notice him. He has the same routine every morning, and yet there are little sparks of life in him ever so often, giving me hope that he hasn't become completely affected by the damned Melancholy as most people call it.

The Melancholy is this inexplicable disease everyone is born with in Minecraftia. How and where it evolved from is unknown. It affects the brain, dampening all emotions from birth unless there is substantial amounts of something connected with joy or happiness or love that bring the emotions back to the brain. Most remedies are unaffordable to the working class citizens-which is most of the population of Crafter's City-and the lower class. Drugs that produce the chemicals for happiness or joy have been produced but are only obtainable through illegal trading or distribution with foods or drinks injected with the stuff.

I only know so much about it because my father was one of the cure researchers at MineTech. He worked closely with Notch and other important political figures and often told me about his work and what was going on, despite it being classified information. He died just a few years ago. I remember playing the piano at his funeral...

Seto, on the other hand, is a mystery to me. I know so little about him, despite working with him everyday, even weekends. I know his name because of the infamous "Team Crafted Scandal" that went on a few years back. Seto was kicked from this clique of YouTubers that had wrongly thrown him out without warning. Team Crafted consisted of Sky, Deadlox or Ty, Jason, otherwise known as MinecraftUniverse, Mitch or BajanCanadian, ASFJerome, a.k.a., Jerome, SSundee-Ian-, and HuskyMudkipz, or Quentin.

I knew most of them just because I had once been a YouTuber as well. Now, the YouTube industry has dwindled to those signed to a company that keeps them afloat. Not many people watch videos nowadays either. They're all too concerned with keeping happy and blissfully unaware of the suffering around them. It sickens me.

Yet, there are times when I see the occasional person who cares, to some extent, and sympathizes with the lower classes. Those people are rare and eventually become politicians, forgetting all about their original intents. Us in the working class and lower class are doomed never to rise above our set status. We can, but it's only very minimal. However, you can plummet downwards easily. Just like climbing a hill, I suppose.

I ended the song with the final minor chords, letting them ring out through the lobby. I glanced up and saw Seto checking in some guy who looks a lot like Sky without his sunglasses or ponytail. He has some stubble lining his jaw and his hair is fluffed and curly, obviously retaining its natural curl as his haircut is so short. He entered into the elevator and I watched him ascend up into the floors of the hotel, destined to never see him until checkout, most likely.