Is it the ocean moving or is it you? It is a simple answer, but the simplest are the hardest to answer. So when you hear a piano chord play in the distance why does it move your heart? Don't you feel a wave of emotions fly over you, or are you walking into the tears sitting at the edge of your eyes? Why is it that some simple cords are so powerful?
I mean showing me something sad is the definition of sad. Showing me someone who has lost a loved one will make me think, "I feel sorry that they lost a loved one." It is one dimensional sadness. But when you play the chords, one by one, patiently waiting for the previous one to fade. It makes you really think.
The first chord shows me someone sitting on a bench, alone in the rain. The fading shows me the train pass by in one quick swoop. The second ring shows me how empty the man sitting alone truly is. It forces this sensation behind my eyes. I'm not going to cry, but if I were to blink it would be the loudest thing in the room. The silence between chord two and three shows me the young man's past.
The fourth chord never plays in my ears, but plays in the weight on my shoulders. The thought hits me that this young man is me. Not physically, but not emotionally either. It's as if we share the same space. The fifth cord yells at me to wake up. This young man is on his way to a funeral. The sixth cord points out the empty casket, as the body of Ryan Seikatsu was never found.
The young man drops a bouquet of flowers onto the stone which stood above the hole. No one else is here. Maybe if the many gold diggers and distant relatives knew his belongings made it to shore, they would be by the young man's side. Maybe his name was forgotten because his yacht crashed two years ago. The young man walked away with no facial expression.
That is when the seventh chord played, when the dirt was being shoveled into Ryan's empty grave.