Goodbye and Good Luck

In the heart of Paris, France, a beam of yellow light from a rusty street lamp flickered onto a nearby alleyway. CRASH! A man suddenly falls out of a dumpster, clinging onto some old Chinese take out boxes and a bag of plastic spoons. Félix. Félix, Florentin, a man who has had an unlucky streak that never seems to end.

As a child, Félix had a lot of promise. He had the luck that the meaning of his name implied. He had good looks, with his striking green eyes and curly honey hair. He often got bombarded with compliments from old women telling him that he would be "such a ladies man" in his future. Not only that, but he was incredibly intelligent. He never was the best, but he had fantastic marks in all of his classes. Along with his good looks and intelligence, Félix was gifted with a musical ability that few could only dream of. Since the age of seven, Félix was writing and performing complicated symphonies and sonatas. It was clear to everyone around him that Félix would be a famous musician. With the exception of two people, his parents, who were doctors and expected him to follow in their footsteps. Félix tried to please them but to no avail. Soon he was a penniless university drop out. It seemed as though as soon as he decided to throw away his musical dreams and follow the dreams of his parents, his life went downhill. This is why we find him here, in Paris, rummaging through dumpsters, with no friends, no money and no food.

"Sacré bleu!" he cries, as he opens his dumpster meal, only to find a half eaten egg and a few noodles, left over from what would've been some phenomenal ramen. He travels down the block looking for any sign of food, when out of the corner of his eye, he spots it. In the middle of a vacant building lot, surrounded by a sea of rubble and litter, he spies a rickety, rotting, ancient piano. His instincts take over as he finds himself practically sprinting to it. He plops himself down, the familiarity of the ivory keys reminding him of a simpler time. Félix played a French song about the tragedies of war, "Mort et Convoi de L'invincible Malbrough" (The Death and Burial of the Invincible Malbrough), perhaps to mimic how he feels living on the streets, constantly at war with society. He felt the stress of everyday life melt away as he poured his sorrows into the keyboard. He closed his eyes for a second, to fully disassociate from the world. When suddenly he was hit with an overpowering dizziness. He quickly opened his eyes and focused on the piano hoping that playing would distract him from his pain.

Eventually, he noticed some differences in the area around him. He felt the temperature increasingly become warm, he noticed that he could see the keys of piano much better in the now bright light, but the strangest thing of all was that he felt the hairs on his neck stand up, as if someone was watching him. Suddenly he heard a high pitched squeal behind him.

"Aaah monsieur, my favourite song! You have such wonderful taste!"

He quickly whipped his head around and was greeted with a pair of soft, sky blue eyes and some towering white hair. It took Félix awhile to fully absorb what she was saying to him, as her outfit was so ostentatious. She was wearing a big pale-blue dress covered in bows, frills and lace. Her colossal white wig was adorned with a white feather headdress. Her ruby red lips and rosy cheeks looked out of place surrounded by her fair, ghostly white skin. Despite her looking so odd, Félix felt that she was somehow familiar.

As he was pondering how he knew her, Félix heard her say in her distinct aristocratic tone, "You must play for me! François! François! SOMEONE GET FRANÇOIS!"

"She's quite rude," he thought. "Why would I associate myself with someone like that?.. Wait a minute, where am I?"

There was a short silence and the mysterious woman furrowed her brows. She then asked Félix in a thick, foreign accent, "Where are you from? How did you get in here?" Before he could respond, he heard her mutter, "Ugh, I should've fired those guards ages ago. They are absolutely useless. They can't do anything right."