Disorder Chapter 1 (rough draft)

There wasn't much room in the world for men like Colin. A specialist in a field few cared to enjoy anymore. What was it all for? Why had he done all of this, worked for all of these years? He remembered his letter of acceptance from Harvard, tucked neatly away somewhere in a file cabinet. He posessed a brilliant mind. He could have gone into any field he wanted. But he chose the one the seemed to have chosen him. Not a day passed by in which there was not some sort of music in his life. Colin practiced every day that he possibly could. To him what he did was not practice, but performance. Over the years his talent had surpassed the need for rote and dogged repetition of the fundamentals. He thought of this as he tinkered through some old books of Chopin mazurkas.

But, he needed to pack. It was not a long ordeal. The last several years he toured for eleven months at a time and lived from suitcase to suitcase. It seemed as though he would unpack only to repack again. He laid all his pre-folded clothing carfully into his suitcase. When he had finished and his suitcase was shut, he noticed that he could hear the ticking of the living room clock. This was not as much a testament to the precision of his hearing as it was to the emptiness of his condo. A bitter lonliness prickled through him. He had to get on the road again, that would be the cure for it. O'Hare to Heathrow, first-class.