I wrote a new story, numbering roughly 5.500 words. It is (on the surface) the narration of a piano concert player, as he is nervously waiting backstage for his first important concert to start (in front of a few hundred people, in a music hall).
Although the story swiftly becomes focused on the narrator/pianist reflecting on why he kept studying and practicing music, which apparently was something causing him great misery. A figure he saw on a painting in his old music school, a great patron of the art of music, was what made him stick with the study. Now the patron appears to be in the music hall, by one of the walls.


Later on it becomes apparent that this elusive figure of a patron isn't well-known to others, including the pianist's old teachers at the music school. Maybe he is even the only one who sees him in that painting.


What do you think of the general idea? There are some darker parts (of course ), but this may serve as a not entirely misleading overview of the story.