music teacher · piano motif · chaotic energy · war setting · dual nature · glasses · white hair · black and white · eighth notes · despair
The music room held its breath, the last vibration of the slammed door fading into a thick silence choked with chalk dust and the acrid scent of panic. A slant of afternoon sun sliced through the gloom, illuminating a crumpled sheet of music splayed across the floorboards like a fallen bird. Mr. Silas stood paralyzed in the doorway, his white hair a luminous halo in the beam, his rectangular green eyes wide and unblinking behind his glasses. The two pencils speared through his hair seemed less like decoration and more like the broken spines of some strange crown. He eased the door shut; the click echoed like a final note. His striped arms shook as he lowered himself onto the piano bench, his black hands stark against the ivory keys. He looked up, his voice a frayed thread of sound. "Whatâ…