Richard Hamilton Campus felt like it should be shut. Late at night, it had an echo and the occasional blast of cold, thin air embraced with the smell of old furniture. Beyond the building, it seemed dark as contemplated, couldn’t see anyone else at this moment, but the footstep clop-clop from nowhere. As usual, down some turning, the cold pale light leading me to the piano room which located in the basement. This really an ideal time to practice my new founded piece, when hardly anyone else was able to see my bad performance.

The black Grand Piano located at the middle of this huge room. It is archaic, unique, and I believe everyone might be able to experience soul connecting for the very 1st time when you touch on it, quite subjective to describe though. It was almost half past seven. Occupied with such a huge room with utterly silence atmosphere rendered me so drowsy. Yawned wearily, flipping through the file and looked for a song for warming up purpose. (*Forbidden Love* which you are listening now)

Fingering well across the keyboard, take a few second pause until the spirit and emotion of mine moving in synchronization. Spontaneously, the 1st note hit coupled with the pin knocked on the string. Rhythmic melody gashed the silence and flowing in the air.

However, such a relaxing moment didn’t stand for long. Couple minutes later, six-sense appeared abruptly that I had been gazed by something behind me and so I turned around and looked. (I couldn’t explain that how this sense is developed, presumably everyone is capable to do it so.) A girl flinched back from peeping me furtively outside the door. Without concerned on it, I still playing with the song, and then…it came with the sounds where the door is opened.

A lady walked into the room. It seems like part of the movie scene where the girl is shined under a spotlight and renders her look so charming.1st impression! A pretty lady!

And so, the conversation commenced.

“Hi…….so sorry for the interruption, I was just curious that somebody is playing Japanese song in U.K. That’s why I drop by to have a look, hope you don’t mind.”
“You know about this song?”
“Barely! It is composed by….Err...I couldn’t recall their name, Haha”
“By S.E.N.S”
“Yes, it is!”
“You don’t look like local, but you have British accent, where are you from?”
Paying me with her sweet smile, “I’m local, my mummy is Chinese and daddy is British.”
“You have a very nice gen, don’t you? And you look pretty, seriously…”
“Thanks for your compliment. I’m sure you play jay’s songs too, don’t you.”

Without responding to her question, I gave her a wave and dabbed on the chair softly, implying her to sit beside me. It happened so naturally without any more questions and she just step forwards and sat down.

Regretful would be the best word to describe the situation where proposed such a gentleman request! My fingers turned out to be blunt and tough as my olfactory nerve struggled to function due to her seductive scent of perfume.

The state of emotion was so intense that it was beyond my rational thought and self-control. Yes, exactly, I was pretending calm.

“Let’s see…Erm…Ok, I’ll play you a song called 蒲公英的约定( *Dandelion’s promise* ).”
“Great! This is one of my favourite song.”

Sarcastically! I couldn't denied the fact that I played like a Grade 1 student! It was not supposed to happen on me since thousand times of practicing for this song which I’m quite confident with. What an embarrassment I could tell, but of course it was unwise to blame for a perfume which causing my fingers having a hard time.

Notwithstanding with the bad performance, she still spent me an applause after the song. I tried to rise up some other topic instantly in order to divert such a shameful situation. “Have you watched his movie?”
“The Secret! I suppose what you asking about.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Yes, I love this movie so so much, especially the duet songs in this movie. Would you like to give it a try, duet with me?” Not surprisingly, citizens of Western are always enthusiastic as it can be seen visibly from the emotion on their face.
“You meant Now?! Err… I have the score with me now, but I’m not really good with it yet. Can we duet…maybe some other time?”

I was actually tried to avoid the next embarrassment which could be happened sooner or later. However, she still insisted practicing together. To be frank, my piano skill isn’t that expert enough to convince much audience and so the duet process did not went smooth as I thought so. But, still, we were enjoying despite of running out of tempo, wrong pressing of the note…etc.(*4 hand duet & Lu Xiao Yu*)

After half an hour practicing, we had some chit-chat while taking break, and she was curious “Are you a music student.”
“No, I’m not, I graduated the Law degree in Oxford Brookes, but heiii, dun tell anyone that I’m still using the Uni’s facilities!”
“No worry, it is so hard to look for someone sharing the same common interest with me.”
“And why are you here?”
“I’m teaching piano in this campus.”
“……………………..”

Until this point, I guess it is not difficult to imagine how my face looks alike. What sort of emotion I still been able to show on the spot other than just stunned in astonishment. BIG 4 words appeared in my mind. “O.M.F.G”


“Are you serious?! Oh my goodness, it must be VERY shameful of me. I shouldn’t show off in front of you with my awkward skill. Why don’t you tell me earlier?”
Affable smile again and looking at her watch. “No, no! You’re doing great! Anyway, my student probably might be here now and I got to go. I’ll see you around later, would I?”
“Yupe, I’ll see you soon.”

I had been in a daze while looking at her leaving in a sudden and still not been able to recover from the inebriation of her perfume. Identical brand of the perfume could have different taste in respective peoples when it blended into the sweat of a body in order to produce a brand new taste. I guess she has a unique feminine sweat thus produced such an ecstasy smell which I guess every man would like.

Once sobered down, I just recalled that the campus door will be locked automatically at nine o’clock which was 15 minutes left. I prepared for the leaving as quickly as possible and managed to look for her and say goodbye. It could be quite convenience to look for her by following the sounds of piano as there were only 8 piano rooms in this campus which were all located at the Ground floor. However, when I got myself out from the piano room, first thought came to my mind- It was odd! Simply because the Ground floor filled with amazed silence and dark, it looked like no one else was there except…ME.

The wise choice was to look for the guard in this campus and so I did.

“Hi, do you know a Chinese girl who is teaching piano today? She is a Chinese but with British accent, tall and around 24 or 25 years old.”
“Well, you must be joking. Look at the time, what is the time now? The piano lessons finish at 5pm everyday. I’ve been working here for so long and I never see anyone teaching piano at night. And I’m pretty sure there is no Chinese teacher in this campus.”
“……”
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. I felt drawn into a qualm but “Yes! How could someone teaching piano at night?” A big question mark to myself. *(Majority of Uk citizens stop working after 5pm)

Without anymore question, I walked out from this building. The grey sky darkened and the rain was falling heavily. For the next three or four minutes I stood still and stare in silence at the building. Richard Hamilton Campus looked odd with no lights on. I was struggling to justify her existence with rational explanation, but there were more and more questions: “Why did she appear at that moment? Why she lied to me? Is that any more piano rooms in this campus which I didn’t know?...etc.”The gusty wind drove low-lying clouds over me, turned my umbrella inside out and whipped the rain on my face. It made me more in clear-headed, but still providing no answer.

Will this be a fantasy like what my friend had told me? This girl probably came from the future or the past as the movie in the -~Secret~- shown. Was or wasn’t she? I do not know, because until today I have never seen that girl again in the piano room. And I don’t even know what her name is. However, there are so many things in our life are unexplainable and why would we bothering search for the answer rather than just keep it as a part of our memory- Yes, A beautiful piece of memory.



The End Of The Story.