The room smelled of olive oil and sea salt, the organ humming even before it was touched.
“Don’t rush the notes,” his grandfather said. “They come when they’re ready.”
The boy pressed a single key and held it, letting the sound echo in the air.
“What happens when it stops?” he asked.
His grandfather almost smiled. “That’s when the music begins to listen back.”
Years later, the boy would still be listening, inside the spaces between things, where sound turns to light and silence hums like memory.