present

Music "One of our colleagues has decided that we are all crap, and that he is a far finer musician. He is indeed a fine musician when he is present. However, he has completely withdrawn. He sits between the treble and the bass and up against the radiator (to nurse the grating cough he has had for the four months I have known him) with a corduroy cap drooping over his eyes and an indigo scarf drawn Berber style across his nose and mouth, fearful that our imperfection is contagious and that he will catch it on the fierce desert wind of Lyon. As he gets angrier his strokes get more aggressive; as he recoils from us his ability to enter into another?s gesture disappears; as the élan and soft lines of his spirit abandon him he is left with harsh square noises in the place of music." -- Ruth experiences music differences.