A Time Traveling Fairytale

Chapter 27 | You Have To See It With Your Ears

Neither am I.

A smile stretched across my face, and I waved Ethan over. "Come here, you talentless prince, I'll show you why there's a difference between singing and playing - why a song and a symphony does not share a face."

He chuckled, but obeyed my request and sat down next to me. "Please, do show me, oh wise one."

And then I performed. I played a small part of the song One Last Time by Ariana Grande before I returned to the symphony, Mariage D'Amour. "You hear it?"

Ethan leaned his ear towards the keys, carefully listening to what I was trying to say. "Yes, I hear a cool song and a boring song."

My eyes rolled due to his lack of understanding in my double faced words. "No, you dimwit, listen closely now." And I played it again, and again, and again, and again. "You see it now?"

"I see a piano," I sighed, slightly annoyed at his answer. "No, but seriously, there's literally no difference, Ella, it's the same thing; piano. You can't hear anything else than the piano." Although his words were somewhat calm, I still caught the undertone of frustration.

"And that's why you don't feel it," I told him, looking into his warm, puzzled eyes. "You're too occupied listening to the melody that you don't see its soul. When someone's sad, how can you tell that they're feeling low?"

He hesitated before answering, bewildered over my odd question. "You see their tears."

"And when someone's happy, how can you tell that they're alright?"

Slowly but sure, he was catching on to what I was trying to explain. "You watch their smile."

"Exactly. And it's the same thing with music - you don't hear songs and symphonies." He met my eyes, watching my words spill out of my orbs. "You see it with your ears."

There was a pause following my statement, and I knew it was only Ethan taking his time to let my words melt in. He was watching the piano keys and tangents while swimming in his mind, and I took that as an opportunity to play the song and symphony again.

But this time, when I started playing Mariage D'Amour, it was different; I didn't stop the composition midways, I continued playing and followed the art to its death. Feelings and music danced everywhere, tangents and keys created a story; in other words, we saw the soul put into the work.

It felt like we were surrounded by an eternal forest, I could hear the birds' faint chirps and the winds lying. And suddenly all the seasons were in one place; snow was flying, flowers were thriving, we were bathing in the sun, and leaves were falling.

And the world ended when the symphony left with the final note.

"Wow," Ethan mumbled next to me, and I looked at him with a cheeky smile.

He definitively saw it.

"What is it, Your Highness, did you finally realize my words' true meaning?" I bumped into him, teasing him. "Aw, look at that, you do like the symphony better than the song!"

He snapped out of the hypnosis, shaking his head to hastily deny my statement. "Pfft, of course, I don't like it! It's so boring and. . . slow and. . . has no lyrics and. . . I think you should play it again, especially from the na na na na na na-"