Act III - Achievement

Planet Earth: unknown place, unknown Time. After traveling along phantasmagoric realities and endless lemniscates, Aeon uncovers the oval crystal roof of his battered ship. A warm ray of real sunlight caresses his face, while he rises up and tries to take a look round himself. As soon as his blurry vision manages to focus, the most surreal and marvelous sight lies there, all around him. A land which is so purely green, virgin and untouched by digital corruption. Over his head, there spreads a limpid and immaculate sky, made of the most beautiful blue he ever saw. It seems so fabulous… such an unravished nature wholly  created by itself, or perhaps by a much bigger entity than mortals; certainly not by humans. Also some monoliths, sculptures of human faces and huge pyramids made of big blocks of stone speckle the green expanse: but even these human constructions have something so incredibly marvelous, pure and real. Enraptured in such an amazing panorama, Aeon has not noticed the few dozens of primitive individuals who stand here and there, all around his spacecraft. But instead of running away or trying to attack him, as soon as the cybernaut turns his look towards them, the weird creatures simply bow their astonished petrified faces and kneel down on the ground. Aeon takes a look again at the sky: maybe he has really managed to outrun space and to defeat Time. The ambitious neuro-digital physicist has finally achieved his lifetime dream. Now he is a god among humans who has the tremendous power to rule the world.

London, Royal Court, year 1612. From simple craftsman of the middle-low bourgeoisie, Clogan has finally managed to become a rich magnate of his era, by selling hundreds of his eerie devices to any kinds of noblemen, authorities, churchmen and even common people. Presently, he has just finished a huge glittering golden clock, which was directly commissioned by king James I. Now Clogan has accomplished his aim of a lifetime, becoming a renowned man , who is amazingly rich and respected by everyone. However, his unbridgeable yearning will never be entirely fulfilled, at least until he manages to find the winning formula and assemble what has been haunting him throughout his entire life: the so aspired Cloc Amser.

The twilight slowly recedes, the night falls, but the surrounding atmosphere seems to get warmer, while the three American friends continue their stroll in the center of Milan. A pleasant smell of roast chestnuts coming from a street side kiosk entices the attention of the musicians, who approach to the booth and take a big portion together with three beers.  Joys and laughs, a meal to share, a perfect atmosphere and the deepest enthusiasm for their promising upcoming show. But, all of a sudden, something catches Peter’s attention, who then gets closer to the shop window of an ancient toyshop and halts there, motionless. He stays outside for a few instants; then he enters. Curious and quite puzzled, Andy and Daniel enter the toyshop too, seeing their mate Peter who stands speechless with absorbed fascinated gaze, while holding two hands a hand-wound music box. On that cubic music box, a statuette of an elegant black-haired musician is seated, playing his grand piano. Mr. Light rotates the small lever, releasing a heavenly intense melody, which softly chimes out of the picturesque artisanal device. Peter smiles of joy like a child, while the glare in his eyes increases. As soon as he hears Andy asking him some explanations about that eerie toy, he promptly replies that it is nothing in particular, just memories. Thereafter, he turns his head towards his friends and starts telling a story. Portland, Maine, spring 1978. Sir Henry Theodore Light came back home, after one of his long business travels in Europe. On the doorstep of his terraced city house, his smiling wife Angie was waiting for him, together with their 8 year old smart boy, Peter, who started running towards his father to welcome him with the strongest hug he could give, as usual. Those days were always like a party for young Peter, not just for dad’s arrival, but also because each Time Sir Henry traveled, he used to bring home a little present for his son. And also that specific day he did so. Young Peter entered home, struggling to drag daddy’s big luggage with him. Indoors, the boy began to rummage in the business suitcase and he picked out a small paper sack, containing a colorful pack. Unwrapping the gift, he found an artisanal music box: precisely the same hand-wound music box that Peter is currently holding in his hands. Young Peter was marveled by the beauty of that little character playing his piano, and the melody produced by such an industrious and picturesque device was even more enticing. Before that day, he had received many nice presents from his father’s business voyages, but that one was definitely the most original and significant. The years passed, but the boy never got tired of playing the music box, that he used to keep most of the Time in his bedroom, on his nightstand. Time to Time, he also liked trying to imagine how the life of that fascinating little musician could be, while he kept listening to the beautiful melody, again and again… thousandfolds. After more than a decade and a moving in between, the worn out music box ceased to work, so that Peter probably left it at his parents’ villa when he moved to the new house with Diana. Now, while clenching the brand-new shimmering device in his hands, as if someone would take it away from him, professor Light heads straight to the cash store and, despite its crazy price, he buys it and exits the toyshop, together with his academy mates and a childish euphoric grin on his face.

Almost one month later: Paris, middle of March 1996. The musicians of the New England Piano Academy jump out of the bus; one by one, they slowly queue up to take their bags and their instruments out of the trunk. A welcoming large crowd is being waiting for them right there, just outside the main entrance of the Grand Hôtel Parisien, the place where the American crew is going to be accommodated for the next three weeks. Now Peter and the other mates are almost treated like a football team of the European Champions League, rather than classic opera’s musicians. By the way, the rising gratifications in their hearts is indescribable, although a bit of their happiness is clearly perceptible on their elated smiling faces, as they are approaching to shake hundreds of hands, before entering the hotel. Professor Light and Mr. Faust are the last ones getting out of the bus, while they talk with each other, probably focused on very important business matters. Once everyone checked in and got his own key, the two business partners spend a couple of minutes more in the main hall of the hotel; then they say goodbye and sever. As soon as Peter drops his bag down on the carpet of his Napoleonic-style pretty little room, the telephone rings: it is just Sophie, the miss at the reception, communicating that a person is waiting for Mr. Peter Light in the lobby. Puzzled and quite annoyed, the young musician takes his Time just to unpack a few things and to wash his jaded face, then he heads downstairs, again. A last step, the turn of the corner and, subsequently, a partial view between the reception counter and the column, over there among the divans of the main hall. Suddenly, Peter’s heart pounds out just one unbridled beat… then it seems to halt for a while. His mind gets caught in bewilderment and disbelief… another heart pound… a pant… everything stops, hanged motionless in Time… finally a breath, with which all things and people come back alive again, in motion. Diana is seated right over there, in the central loveseat, waiting for her future husband with her unique sweetest smile. The smile… the only one! The young Nippon-Canadian lady has just taken ten days out for vacations, over the period between the closure of the end of winter and the spring season’s reopening of her hotel.

Diana stays in Paris for the following six days, but unfortunately she does not have the chance to see the Academy’s premiere at the famous Opera. Now, Peter Light is the man who really possess everything he ever wanted: fame, a wonderful career and the love of his life right there by his side. Definitely a complete person. Nevertheless, ambition is certainly human’s worse enemy. And for such an ambitious man, like Peter, completeness is always relentlessly partial. Maybe because of every day’s pressure and the sense of responsibility tied to such an important and imminent show as the one at the Opera… maybe because Time flies and Diana will have to come back home so soon… maybe because there is always space to improve our art and, as Peter perfectly knows, tomorrow we can definitely be better than today. Sometimes it seems just so difficult to take our Time and stop for a while, ponder, find our own perfect moment out of every day’s stress, and simply focus on the marvels our life can give us. However, if one person manages to do so, in whatever moment or place, perhaps only for an infinitesimal instant, he will really feel the purest happiness, witnessing to how “partial” may turn into “perfection”.