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There once was a piano. A grand piano, a shining black lake on the surface, a mass of cords and strings, all intertwined, underneath. The piano would live for the hours when the pianist would sit down and stroke the keys on its back with long, slender fingers, and send shivers down all the cords and strings, all intertwined, and the most beautiful music would come out of it. The piano could soar through the air on the music like it was a magic carpet, and glide through the sea and let waves of the beautiful music wash over it as the pianist’s fingers took on a life of their own and danced nimbly across the keys during the joyous pieces, and slid slowly and gracefully during the sad, harmonic ones. Even though, in reality, the piano could not move from its place in the center of the music room. And when the pianist would leave, and the lights would grow dark, the piano would wait patiently, thinking only of the unique ecstasy of making music, of doing what it knew it was made to do, and creating something for the world to enjoy, even if it itself was not free to move and experience as the people were. It was happy, more than happy, nonetheless. But then, one day, the piano tuner came, as he always did twice a year. But, this time, he pulled one string just a little too tight. And the next time the pianist sat down to stroke the keys on the back of the piano, The one string pulled on all the rest of the cords and strings, all intertwined, and they frayed, just a little bit, at the ends. And the magic carpet stayed firmly planted on the ground. As the weeks and months wore on, and the pianist sat down to play, the strings would fray more and more, closer and closer to the middle, and farther away from the ends. Just beneath that shining black lake, the mass of cords and strings was breaking. And now when the pianist’s slender fingers would stroke the keys on the back of the piano, it would scream in agony. But to the rest of the world, it sounded just like music.