curtain

I left the class just to see him away. The old man was tall but I could not see him. When I came he was in the building and all his family and friends were outside, quietly greeting and kissing one another. Silence, few candles and a common dress code were prevailing factors of this quaint scene. At these places one often sees a long lost friend or acquittance and people summarize their last five or ten years in a sentence or two. I stood next to L. whom I last saw many seasons ago, we both had our hands crossed one over other resting this natural arm lock on our very stomachs. L. turned 45 and still did whatever gray matters he has been doing since the last war. After brief listing of our accomplishments and failures in the past decade we decided to create some distance between us and the slowly increasing group of people, but not before we shook hands with the family. Shortly after, a short skinny woman dressed in black called us inside. She had a face that has seen many farewells and a gentle almost broken walk. I don't remember when I last saw a door of that size. I stood right beneath them wanting to reflect the minimalism of my self under this great arch of passage, but I was rushed in by L. and there I was. The last man to enter the room which was to my surprise locked by the fragile old woman who also bore the role of key bearer. Only few door lock clicks away and we were locked inside...with him...whom I still was not able to see. There was a tall gray curtain in this high ceiling room including another set of really polished immense copper door right behind gray curtains and this what looked to be a stage. His name was written on a small warn out wooden panel....Without a que or a word classical music began to play. It was either Bach's Air or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata... I always mix those two. So the Air or Sonata was playing this afternoon away as most of us looked down at our feet... I tried not to look for him any more. I started to notice numerous tiles on the floor. Small, perfect in shape yet imperfect in the way they where placed with each other. Somehow they managed to make a mosaic of perception of something beautiful. I knew it could be any of us, any time and any place but that was it. Besides that my thoughts were very empty. Humans are after all just animals... What's the point... of it all when we are all one Air or Moonlight Sonata away. As the Air or Sonata was coming slowly to its melodically enchanting end, so were the curtains of his life closing down. His show has ended. As if by design with the last piano key I "saw" the last of him... People who were sitting got up, and the gentle old key bearer with a tear in her eye and a key in her hand opened the disproportional to her size door and let us all out.. All were gone, except her... even him, as he was starting his night journey somewhere in the back stage of this universe....
A tram took me back to school and I continued participation in the organizational behavior lecture... I came home and checked the music, it was neither Air or the Moonlight Sonata. I don't know what it was, but it was beautiful. Farewell my friend...