"Okay. Okay, you can do this." James stared at the piano across the room from him as if that would provide him some sort of inspiration, furiously chewing his gum. "There's no pressure. You just have to write a piece of music in an hour and a half or otherwise, you will fail this class. There's no pressure, really." There was a pause as he watched his foot fidget on top of his bed covers, and he groaned. "And this just happens to be the one time I'm out of ideas."

   His mind frantically churned over all of the notes and chords and combinations he knew, trying to grasp something original. 

   Could he mimic the sound of the ocean, what it felt to be swimming deep in the waves, calm and dark even though it was storming above the surface? 

   No. That had already been done. Many times, actually.

   Could he depict nature? The twist and flow of vines, the sturdiness of trees and how they stood up against all who tried to knock them down?

   Again, no. That was cliche.

   He leaned back, running his hand through his copper hair.

   Everything he thought of was instantly shot down, but he needed to come up with something. As a music major, part of his class was to be able to create music; if he couldn't do that, then what sort of musician was he? 

   First, though, he needed to calm down. There was no way he was going to get anywhere as panicked as he was.

   James inhaled a deep breath, held it for a second, and then released it. He did this a few more times and then gently placed his hands by his sides, his eyes trained on the laptop that lay before him. He was already calmer than he had been only seconds before. 

   And then. . . . it began to take shape. 

   It started with a simple picture in his head: one of a flower, borne of the ocean, stranded on land. It longed to be back in the waves, but it was only a flower, and it couldn't get back to them. He thought of how lonely it would feel, and before he knew it, note by note a song was forming in his head.

   First, a G for two beats, and then, in eighth notes, F, E, D and C; immediately he pulled the laptop toward him and rapidly laid notes down one by one as if a dam had broken in his head. Ideas spilled over, flowing faster and faster as he desperately tried to keep up with them. 

   He could hear the lilting notes playing in his brain as he placed them down. There was no break in his movement, not even to check the pitch or fluidity of his piece. That could happen later if he still had time. The song didn't have to be long, only twenty measures, he could make it—

   "Hey James, do you want to go out tonight? It's Sunday night, and my schedule is really light tomorrow—" His roommate stopped abruptly in the middle of his sentence, still holding the door open. "Oh. It's not a good time, huh?"

   "You think?" asked James, exasperated.

   The roommate laughed nervously. "Okay, okay, I'll leave you alone." He partially turned around to leave when the laptop's screen caught his eye, music composition site still visible to him. "Oh, you're still working on the end-of-term project? I finished that ages ago!"

   "Well, good for you, Mark," he said derisively, his eyes never leaving the screen. He couldn't get distracted—the music had to be the sole recipient of his attention.

   "Do you want my help?"

   "Not right now, no."

   "Do you want some pizza rolls, then? It's almost twelve—"

   James's blue eyes widened and he snapped out of his focus. "What time is it?"

   "Eleven thirty-one." Mark frowned. "Why?"

   "This is due in twenty-nine minutes," James breathed. He was in shock; the notes had left his brain and he still had ten measures to go. "Oh god, this is due in twenty-nine minutes." 

  "Twenty-eight minutes, actually—"

  James ignored this as he racked his brain for a last possible phrase that would finish his song in a way that sounded relatively finished, but even that seemed to elude him. His mind was clouded with dread.

   What if he couldn't finish in time? What if he did finish in time and he did his best, but it wasn't good enough? He would fail the class because his grade relied on this project. All of those long hours he spent practicing would be for nothing and his dream to be a music therapist would not happen. He was going to fail, and there was nothing he could do.

   He shook his head and took a deep breath.

   No. He would pass. Maybe not with flying colors, but he would pass and his dream would become a reality. But he couldn't do it alone; he didn't have enough time.

   "Hey, Mark?"

   "Yeah?"

   Swallowing his pride, James looked back at his roommate. "Are you still up for helping me?" 

   Mark blinked, surprised. But then his surprise morphed into a smile, and he said, "I thought you'd never ask." He sat down beside him, curling his legs under him. "Let's see what you got."

  James gently handed him the laptop, and he skimmed it, frowning slightly. His eyes scanned over it, once, then twice, and suddenly he got up from the bed and sat on the piano bench. A second later, the music began. 

   His fingers danced across the piano's keys with practiced ease that no one would have expected from him, playing the piece James had written. They brought it to life, and he could feel the emotion he had tried to convey in the sustained notes and dissonant chords. 

   It was pretty good, he thought, for something that he had made in such short notice. He had even gotten used to the sound and had really started enjoying it when it abruptly stopped; Mark turned back to him, smiling.

   "This is good. Really good. It just needs more resolution."

   He sighed. "Yeah, I know. But. . . . I don't know how to do that in ten measures. It will either be too short or too long, you know?" He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "How many minutes do we have left?" 

   "That doesn't matter right now, " Mark told him. ”How about going from a G flat to an F right here and sustaining that?" 

   James paused for a second, hearing the pitches in his head. It sounded right.

   "And then, continue your normal melody, but move up the scale in the octave above it." 

   The light of inspiration suddenly shone in James's brown eyes, and he practically pounced on his laptop, moving the music notes to their correct pitches. 

   Finally, he sent the file to his professor and flopped back on his bed with a satisfied sigh of relief. 

   "I did it." 

   The clock struck twelve.

   "Just in time, too," Mark replied, grinning. "You cut it a little close there, buddy." 

   Exhausted, James could only nod. 

   He had finished it, and he was proud. It might not have been his best work and not one that he had accomplished completely by himself, but it told a story without lyrics. It was beautiful. And that was enough.