The Silence Between the Notes Their white bark was peeling in places, like old paint flaking from a forgotten house. T h a n o s K a l a m i d a s Thanos Kalamidas Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C The Silence Between the Notes The Silence Between the Notes Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2024 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C The Silence Between the Notes T he house stood alone at the edge of the vil- lage, past the bend where the gravel road thinned into a trail of pine needles and frost- bitten grass. It had been white once, but the years had left it gray, streaked with moss along the roofline. No one had been inside for a long time, except for the old man who lived there, a man the villagers called den blinde pianisten . The blind pianist. He wasn’t truly blind, but something in his gaze suggested he no longer saw the world as others did. His name was Emil Lang, a man whose fingers had once flown over the keys of Europe’s grandest con- cert halls, but who now spent his days in near silence, save for the occasional note from the piano in his study. The instrument had not been tuned in years, and when it did speak, it was a ghostly sound, as if the music itself had become weary. Thanos Kalamidas Then came Axel. Axel Karlsson was seventeen and restless. He was a boy of calloused hands and a heart too big for the place that had made him. His father laid bricks, his mother scrubbed hospital floors, and Axel was ex- pected to follow in one of their footsteps. He tried. He really did. But in his pocket, he carried a pair of earphones that hummed Chopin and Rachmaninoff when he should have been listening to the foreman’s instructions. He found the house by accident one afternoon, when he cut across the woods instead of taking the road home. The window was open just enough for the wind to carry out a melody, soft, hesitant, unfin- ished. He stood frozen in the cold air, listening. The next day, he knocked. Emil did not open the door right away. He sat in his armchair, staring at the knot in the wooden floor- board. He had not had a visitor in years, and he wasn’t certain he wanted one now. But something about the persistence of the knock, three times, then again, then again, made him rise with an exasperated sigh. When he opened the door, he found a boy who looked out of place. The Silence Between the Notes “You’re the pianist,” Axel said, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “I was,” Emil corrected. “I want to learn.” Emil started to close the door, but Axel stopped it with his foot. “Please,” he said. “I have no one else to ask.” The boy’s earnestness was a blade against Emil’s re- solve. He sighed and stepped aside. “Come in, then. But I make no promises.” * * * * * * At first, Emil refused to teach him. He let the boy sit in the corner while he played only scales, never a song, never anything that could be mistaken for the past. Axel listened. He watched. He asked. “Why don’t you play anymore?” “I play.” “No, you...” Axel stopped himself. It was true, in the strictest sense. Emil’s hands still moved over the keys, but it was mechanical, absent of something Axel had only heard in recordings of the greats. Soul, feeling ...life. Thanos Kalamidas Weeks passed. Axel came every day after work, shaking the cold from his bones, rubbing his hands together before placing them carefully over the keys. Emil corrected his form, his tempo, his breath. Music is not just sound, it is air, it moves through you. One day, Axel dared to play a melody of his own. Something simple, stitched together from borrowed notes. Emil said nothing, just sat in his chair with his fingers pressed against his lips. The next morning, Axel found a piece of sheet music waiting for him on the piano stand. Nothing was said about it, but it was the first time Emil had acknowledged him as some- thing more than an intruder. * * * * * * Spring came. Emil’s hands, once reluctant, began to remember. He played longer, with more intention. The house filled with music again, and sometimes when no one else was around he allowed himself to feel what he had spent years trying to forget. Axel was improving, and he knew it. He found himself craving the weight of the keys, the way his fingers could speak when his words failed. But music was not for boys like him. His father said as much when he caught him coming home late, his hands The Silence Between the Notes still smelling of dust and wood polish. “You waste your time,” his father muttered over dinner. Axel said nothing. He could already hear the an- swer forming in his father’s throat: Music is for those who can afford to dream. You can’t. But he could. He had to. * * * * * * One evening, Axel arrived to find Emil standing in the doorway, his coat buttoned to his chin. “Come,” the old man said. They walked in silence through the dim streets, past the butcher’s shop, the bakery, the church whose bells no longer rang. At the far end of the village, a small hall stood with its doors unlocked. Inside, a grand piano gleamed beneath the glow of a single spotlight. Emil gestured toward it. “Play.” Axel hesitated, but then sat. His fingers trembled. He played the piece Emil had given him months be- fore, the one that had sat on the piano stand, waiting. Thanos Kalamidas When he finished, Emil nodded. “Again.” Axel played until his hands ached. Until he forgot the world outside the music. Until he believed, if only for that moment, that he could be more. It was the first time in years that Emil felt hope. It was the last time he would. * * * * * * The accident was small in the grand scheme of things. Just a slip on the ice, an unlucky fall. The doc- tors said he had been gone before he hit the ground. No pain. No suffering. Just silence, all at once. Axel sat on the porch of the house that was no lon- ger Emil’s. Snow gathered at his feet, but he didn’t feel the cold. His hands were in his pockets, curled into fists. He had thought there would be more time. Inside, the piano stood untouched. The sheet mu- sic was still open to the last piece Emil had given him. Axel closed his eyes. When he reached for the keys, his fingers did not The Silence Between the Notes tremble. He played, not for himself, not for his father or the village or the people who would never under- stand, he played for Emil, for what could have been, for the quiet between the notes. The music did not stop until morning. And then, as always, silence. END Thanos Kalamidas The Silence Between the Notes Thanos Kalamidas Ovi eBook Publishing 2025 Ovi magazine Design: Thanos The Silence Between the Notes Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Thanos Kalamidas Their white bark was peeling in places, like old paint flaking from a forgotten house. T h a n o s K a l a m i d a s Thanos Kalamidas , a multipublished writer, cartoonist and illustrator; born and grew up in a picturesque neighbourhood on the moun- tainside of Hymettus in Athens, Greece. Then his life took him to Berlin, Germany and to London, UK for studies. After a brief stay in Yorkshire he moved his life to Paris, France while working in Tokyo, Japan and in Cape Town, South Africa. In the last 25 years he became a permanent Scandinavian resident and recently, in his glorious sixth de- cade, he moved to a scenic village in the Växjö area.