Once there was a pianist. Through afternoons, evenings, holidays, and birthdays he sat at his piano and composed to his heart’s content. His work was absolutely unknown and fell only upon the ears of passing hotel, mall, and ballroom guests. But he was fulfilled and spent his days working steadily. One day, while performing at a wedding reception, a tall woman with long black hair approached his piano.
The following evening (far past the man’s bedtime) he found himself descending a carpeted staircase into a black-lit room. It was small and the drywall had leg-sized holes. It was like any other suburban basement, but the furniture had been removed and the carpet floor was matted with dirt. In the corner, a mixing table and stage lights remained from the night before. Once a week, behind the veil of a mask with hollow eyes and running tears of black, the woman performed for crowds who chanted her name and celebrated her music. Among the bobbing mans, the man watched in awe and tapped his foot to the rhythm.
Following weeks were a blur of performances, celebrating with her crew, and winter nights together. They enjoyed their time and saw each other as often as they could, but their work separated them and the man grew more anxious and impatient every moment apart. She earned money and her recognition grew. He spent all the time he could with her and the worn piano he had once played beside her, aged quietly and fell out of tune. The woman welcomed her success, and as the circle of people around her grew in size and enthusiasm, so did the woman's joy.
Early one morning, after returning home from a performance, she noticed something terrible about the man. Thin and exhausted, he sat on the floor waiting for her. His eyes were sunken and his hands were bony and weak. Standing to greet her, he was overcome with dizziness and stumbled to the couch to sit down. She helped him up the stairs into bed with a hand on his back. A small piece of fabric poked out of his nightstand drawer. Pulling it open, she discovered blackened and bloody bandages, makeup, and razors he had used to slice and conceal his wrists. A bandage she had absently dismissed was wrapped tightly around his wrist. Black fluid bled through to the surface. Removing the bandage, she found an image of her mask crudely carved into his body. Nausea and disdain overtook her. Confused and disturbed, she left. The man waited for her to return but she did not.
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Withdrawing into the house and himself, the pianist disappeared compulsively into his music. Each time he played, memories of their time together tortured him and visions of the mask that sat on her face plagued his memory.
A dark bearded figure, hardly recognizable as the man, sits naked at the worn piano. Keys, once white, are stained copper from the dried blood that has become caked onto them. A knife sits in a thick black pool beside loose sheets of stained music. The mixture of blood and ink along the blade’s edge coagulates and crusts over. Beginning at his fingertips, every inch of the man’s skin is covered in musical notation. Notes and clefs carve deep into his flesh. Grooves of crimson black run through his nipples, into his tendons, and separate the flesh on his lips. Where two bright and longing eyes had been, now sockets of black sit empty. In a decrepit house, at the end of a street long forgotten, the man sits at his piano. Bony fingers play half a duet. Tears of black fall across his cheeks.
He will sit at his piano forever. A specter in a forgotten realm.
