When I was a child,
My mother used to teach me piano.
She'd put her fingers over mine,
And move us along the keys,
Up and down.
Sometimes she would get angry with me if I stopped in the middle of a piece.
"Chris," she'd say, "You have to resolve the chord."
When I was ten,
Just a month before I left that house forever,
I met a girl my own age named Mary.
Her hair looked like a banana had come to life.
And she was all giggles and freckles,
Except for when she got mad.
But she would always come back later,
Crying for forgiveness,
She too,
Was always eager to resolve the chord.
When I came to camp,
Alone and tired and scared,
I met another girl,
Her name was Clarisse.
She shoved my head down the toilet,
Laughing as the water sprayed,
As I gasped and screamed.
But afterwards when I sat there helpless,
She just stood there hopeless.
There was no talking,
No taunting,
No sorry,
Maybe even no breathing.
She just walked away.
She didn't resolve the chord,
And I kind of liked that.
After that,
I follow her around like a lost dog,
Yipping around for scraps from her table.
At first she tries to push me away.
To cut me out and to cut me,
But I refuse to leave.
I refuse to leave until I am thirteen and I meet Luke Castellan and he whispers in my ear.
And the day before I do
Finally
Leave,
We take a canoe out on the lake.
I lean forward and intertwine our fingers,
I don't know what I'll do.
If I'll explain or kiss her or tell her I'm sorry.
But I keep leaning forward anyways.
And then the Stolls ram our boat,
And any resolution is forgotten.
For six long, hard months,
I live on a big boat that is too small to live on.
Horrified of making even a single mistake,
Of going even slightly out of tune.
But then I make a small, horrible error.
I hit natural when it should have been a sharp and destroyed the chord.
I let Percy Jackson get away.
I am thrown out of a nightmare and into insanity.
I enter the Labyrinth accompanying a girl
Named Mary.
Her hair is red but her temper is just as bad as my old friend.
And sometimes I laugh with her and forget Clarisse.
She's good company,
But our company is awful.
I think she would have chuckled at that,
If they hadn't torn out her vocal chords.
I run down the halls,
Screaming, yelling, scratching.
I don't know where I am anymore.
In my own head or in the desert.
I'm thirsty but the water is poison.
I'm lonely but everyone is just a twisted mirage.
My mother, who puts her hands on mine and then rips out my fingernails.
Mary, who cackles and giggles until a snake comes out of her eyes and bites me.
But worst of all is Clarisse,
Who leans forward in the canoe,
And then drowns me,
Forcing my head under the water,
And then laughing as I scream.
My life becomes dissonance,
I can feel nothing but the vibrations of something big and wrong.
And someone reaches for me and I know it must be Mary,
because I am still in the labyrinth and this is my chance to save her.
But she never seems to get my message.
One day a man comes,
I recognise him, but I don't know from where.
But he is nice, and gentle.
He coaxes me to put my hands back on the keyboard.
He shows me what notes to press to form the chord,
Just like my mother used to do.
And everything becomes too clear.
I am not in the labyrinth,
Mary has been dead for months.
I am safe.
When I wake up,
Clarisse is there.
She hugs me and cries into me,
And I sit back and just take her in.
And when she finally leans back enough to see my face,
To check that I'm still me, I'm still alive,
I kiss her.
I kiss her and the chord is finally,
Finally,
resolved.
