Dana sat in front of the piano. With shaking hands, she flipped open one of her music books to a Chopin prelude. She had loved this prelude – Opus 28 number 2. But recently it had been harder and harder to get the notes to sound like she wanted them to.
She started with the lyrical beginning. No, the left hand was too loud- a tad. So far so good. Three- no, four lines so far! Looked like today was going to be one of her good days.
At 3 am, the advertisements on TV were banal, but Dana watched them anyway, as an anasthesia.
Suddenly, something caught her attention.
“Problems at work? Frustrated? Trouble expressing yourself? This is sure guaranteed to work, no matter how desperate you may be!” a pimply teenager said enthusiastically. He held up an exam paper.
“I started off with consistently fail grades,” he said. Looks like his English hadn’t improved much. “But after attending Lillian’s hypnotherapy sessions, my grades improved!”
The TV showed the words, “THERE IS HOPE FOR EVERYONE” with a telephone number.
Dana hurriedly dialled the number.
“Lillian Poon speaking.”
“I’m, um”
“Looking for hypnotherapy,d dear?”
“Yeah! Yeah!”
“Yell you what. I’m free on Wednesdays, 4pm. You can come see me.”
“Sure! Where can I find you?”
“Coronation Plaza… just follow the signs. Have hope, dear!”
Dana felt alive again- alive with hope.