Motion Sickness (standard:drama, 2594 words)
Author: Giovanni	Added: Apr 13 2001	Views/Reads: 4082/2401	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
In a small town a little girl who wants nothing more than to play as a child does is forced to master the piano. her father who is too busy slaving away his life at work, afraid of his wife doesn't pay enough attention to his virtuoso daughter, till it is

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door, his English muffin crumbs sliding down his tie. Shutting the door 
behind him, the doorknob fell. Linda chuckled. 

"Mommy why does he leave so early now?" 

"You're daddy works very hard so you can have your piano lessons, which
you have no other choice but to attend today. You also have the 
privilege to attend Wycliffe and-" 

"Buy your Prada shoes", Linda routinely replied. 

"Don't forget your pastels today. We have to go to Mrs. Gertrude's
before the piano lesson." Linda hummed; she didn't like when her mother 
called someone Mr. or Mrs. and then added their first name, this drove 
her batty. It sounded silly or perhaps condescending, whatever Linda 
disliked about the way her mother said her piano teacher's name it all 
boiled down to Linda sitting down two hours a day to practice something 
that she loathed. 

"And be ready and on time when I pick you up." Linda's mother was seldom
was on time and when she did arrive her mother raced out the parking 
lot usually hitting one of the bumps on the way out. Linda always felt 
motion sickness in her mother's car. 

Queasiness must have run in the family though as Leland's insides were
constantly turning at work, so much so that he was branded with the 
nickname "the washing machine." Which had sort of a double meaning 
behind it, notorious for cleansing his hands, visiting the restroom at 
least eight times a day and out of those eight times, at least six and 
a half could be set aside for imaginary grime removal. Which for the 
germ conscious Leland was an unending battle. No matter how often he 
scrubbed his hands, he felt dirty and grimy. Germs were carried into 
the office by peoples' hands and remained in the office taking over the 
peoples' souls: eager young executives, cut throat veterans with 
vendettas and punch drunk stalwarts were all too infected by this money 
driven plague. Restroom breaks were a retreat for Leland, he took them 
as often as possible because it relieved him from the hot corner, which 
was every seat on the left side of the office, the same side as the 
branch manager, where Leland was stationed. The branch manager was 
blessed induced nervousness and sneezed open mouthed. Leland kept 
windex, hydrogen peroxide and brillo pads inside his desk. [father's 
neck twitched] 

Linda felt her neck cramping in her passenger seat, hating the seat
strap, caging her movement, holding her hostage, subjecting her to a 
boring talk radio station, on her way to the dreaded piano class. She 
thought about smudging her pastel covered fingers on the window, her 
mother, who had not yet had her afternoon martini would have a 
conniption upon seeing an iota of damage inflicted onto her Beamer's. 
Outside the window the blind man, who they had driven past every day on 
her way to her piano lessons, was tapping his stick in front of him, 
apologizing as he accidentally poked a young man's ankle. "Could 
someone please guide me to the Blue busline?" he pleaded. He might as 
well have been invisible; droves of people went by. Linda's head spun 
watching the blind man spin around begging anyone at all for some 
assistance. Her mother flipped through the dials and stumbled upon a 
show that struck her fancy. 

"The point is that Europe is considering a shorter work day", Prof.
Starks said to his colleague on the air. "How dreadful", Janette said 
to herself, convinced that there should be a mandatory twelve hour 
workday. The talk show host continued to query the professor, "I 
believe you recently published a book on how to die broke and if I'm 
not mistaken and please correct if I am -but the point of the book, 
your new release?" 

"That's correct." 

"The point of your new release by Spartacus Press?" 

"That's correct" 

"Has something to do with the current corporate model of America. It's
a- it's eating away at the life- the lifeblood of it's workers." 
Janette, having heard enough at that point, found another station with 
some preacher advocating for removing male toy dolls from all stores 
that had the symbol of a purple triangle on their sweater pockets. 
Leland flipped on his radio at work, but made sure it was visible only 
to dogs and himself. He tuned into the station that his wife was 
previously listening to, in her car. He sat sharpening his pencil. 

"I guess what I'm wondering Prof. Starks whether my stock values in Coke
and Disney will plummet because of your thesis. I mean is ah- is there 
some sort of correlation between the amount of hours and work that we 
as Americans put into the machine. Let me rephrase that, to put it 
bluntly are we being shortchanged? 

"That's correct." 

"So then the main reason why you wrote this book is to discourage people
from taking unnecessary promotions. You know it's actually funny how I 
actually was encouraged to read your book. I'll make it brief so that 
we have time for one more caller. While I was visiting a Wells Fargo in 
Chicago I noticed a bunch of workers scrambling up an escalator that 
was running downwards. Both escalators were running the same way and 
they did not have a staircase, so instead of going up in smaller groups 
on the elevator, hordes of people scrambled up the escalator. Speed 
matters more than anything, anyway this guy standing next to me 
mentions your book, that this Prof. Starks describes the phenomenon the 
Modern urban Reflex." 

"Well Put." 

Lethargically Linda practiced her scales for a total of seventy-three
and three quarter hours, over the next few weeks, according to her 
mother's Fendi timepiece, which included taking turns between her 
instructor's piano and home piano since she was only a few days away 
from her recital. Miles absently stared off into space on top of her 
piano, his left eye seemed as if it were closing. Under the watchful 
eye of her martini-enhanced mother Linda seldom rested her fidgety 
fingers from frolicking with the keyboard, even with her runny nose. 
She quickly wiped it with the outside of her sleeve, every so often, 
when her mother's back was turned. Every so often her thoughts drifted 
into playing with her stuffed toys and sometimes imagined miles sitting 
next to and playing along side her instead of watching from on top of 
the piano. Her mother's burning tongue sloppily pouring more Vodka into 
her glass had no idea that Linda's unbridled imagination enhanced the 
melodious sounds decorating the house's soundscape. The sound of pure 
genius produced by Linda's fingered, that ultimately emanated from her 
soul was more beautiful than any of adornments in the living room: the 
fine linens, the china, the crystal or the white marble table. 

She woke up the next morning with a terrible fever, above one hundred
and three. Bed ridden for the day, she was filled with every possible 
liquid and feel better concoction, that her tiny stomach needed to 
appease itself every so often by tossing her cookies in the bathroom, 
sometimes she couldn't make it that far. The next day with a 
temperature still well over one hundred Linda was sent off to her dress 
rehearsal, but remained a trooper nonetheless, striking the keys as she 
had done every day that month. Her face was so red and her body was 
burning up so much that she felt she had been shoved into a Grimm's 
Tale oven. She swore that she smelled freshly baked brownies as she 
played. Suddenly all the faces around her seemed to be moving around 
like one giant merry go round; it was anything but merriment. She 
swayed a bit to keep in sync with all the movement that she perceived 
to be around her and fell out of her chair. 

That night, in a state of wooziness, she heard both of her parents
arguing which was an uncommon occurrence, as the two seldom came in 
contact with each other. For some reason that night her father came out 
from behind the pile of articles stacked up in his room. It was not 
enough being worried to death every day at work, but now he had to come 
home to realize that his little pumpkin was ill and that she was 
undoubtedly going to perform in a stupid recital. He smashed his plate 
to the ground the way Linda had once seen her Greek teacher demonstrate 
to her class. Muffin the kitten hid underneath the Laura Ashley 
tablecloth as the ceramic plate smashed to bits on the floor. 

The next day Linda performed in her recital, the non dress rehearsal,
the all important moment that her mother drilled into her head. A large 
crowd filled the school auditorium. The event was supposed to be the 
big night for its participants, when in reality it was a bragging 
rights session for the players' parents. Usually nannies brought and 
picked up the kids to school. Recital night was parents' night. The 
movers and the shakers did spend a good bit of time shaking hands for 
their own personal business matters and when the show had gotten 
underway, there was the staccato of pulsing pagers and singing cell 
phones. Linda wished her father was there, but knew that he had an 
obligation. "Run along Linda, think like Chopin. Play like a gem", her 
mother said pushing her daughter off the way a person might send off a 
carrier pigeon. 

"Take your pills before you go on." Linda ran off, sweating profusely
and left behind the comments of a few people, remarking about her over 
active glands. 

She fainted again, this time during the performance and a look of
despair grew along the contours of her mother's face. How could her 
daughter embarrass her the way she had in front of such a large crowd 
of spectators? She was a spectacle. Doctor Aston, her father's 
physician, who was greatly concerned about Leland's condition, sprung 
up and jumped up onto the stage. 

"Where is her mother? We need to get this girl to a hospital right now!"
He paced by the side of the stage looking into the crowd for Linda's 
mother, then told his wife that he would take the little girl to the 
hospital himself. Linda's mother had just left the school shortly after 
her daughter's fainting spell, properly informing Jenny her fifteen 
year old neighbor by telephone the whereabouts of her daughter and that 
she needed to be picked up, as soon as conveniently possible. Doctor 
Aston reassured the woozy Linda that she would be fine, as soon as she 
was at the hospital. Aston feverishly drove, rushing through the red 
light, not noticing the sign saying ON WAY, or the green paint covering 
up the E, driving through he came face to face with an enormous set of 
floodlights, blinding him and then there was a loud honking sound. 


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