He was born on a ship and grew up there; he has a long and strange name; he loves sea and piano, knowing nearly nothing about the outside world; in his world, mama is a horse’s name and people without children have to go to the orphanage; he likes dancing with the sea and playing the song of it; he wouldn’t get off the ship for his whole life, even for his beloved girl and even when facing death… He was Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900.

Someone says that the power of love is great. Indeed, he was once determined to get off to find the girl. But he came back from the gangway finally. Someone says that death is horrible. But he was too willful to leave, till his body smashed into pieces with the ship. Someone said that it was a pity that he hadn’t gotten off. Someone laughed at him, because he had even no courage to woo his beloved girl. At the time when hundreds of thousands of people burst into America, he, however, had never set foot on the land.

Why? For his piano? Maybe not. For the sea? Maybe part of. Someone said that he was afraid. He was born on the ship and grew up on the ship. When he leaves the familiar circumstance for a new one, he will be dreading, so he wouldn’t like leaving. But we were born somewhere and grew up there. We may leave our hometowns some day for a better life. Strange places, strange accents, strange people… Feel uneasy? Yes. But finally we will get familiar to these all. Nobody will refuse to go elsewhere just because of his/ her hometown.

Actually, he had answered already. He said “The reason why I came back from the gangway that day was not what I saw, but what I didn’t see. Pianos there have so many keys, which seem to be endless. I just need my 88 keys. The keys are not infinite. You are infinite. The music on the 88 keys you can make is infinite.”

As far as I’m concerned, his chose to die because his values conflict with the main values of society. In his eyes, music is pure, free and beautiful, but society on land can just judge his works by money and fame. In his heart, there are only the sea, the ship and his piano, but society on land is material. When people just aspire for material but not admire the talent, society will become, what in his eyes, an abysm.

I think he was happy when choosing to die, for he yearned towards playing piano in the paradise and making infinite music with the finite keys. When the land can become such a paradise, where people will not aspire for the infinite keys any more, but really enjoy his infinite music?