The Piano

[Abishai100]

This instrument-haunting tale was inspired by the possession-films The Red Violin and The Changeling.


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Sally wanted to buy a nice authentic run-down home from the Old West and refurbish it to make it her retirement home and a place she could throw fun cowboy-themed masquerade parties for Halloween. You see, Sally had just won the lottery and was now interested in using her prize-money to change her life for the better --- spice it up! She was still single at the age of 30 and was tired of her job at a law firm (working as a clerk and a consultant).

Sally found an unusual house which was a semi-saloon during the days of the Old West in Arizona. The house was a nice colored wooden structure with some stones. What stood out to Sally was an impressive aged piano of a great wood finish in the main room of the house she purchased. She had the local piano-tuner come visit to repair the keys and strings, so it would function like a regular working-piano again, and soon, it did! Sally was ready to settle into her new life, and she named her Arizona abode 'Sally's Woodhouse.'

It was Halloween time, so Sally invited people she'd met in the neighborhood as well as some visiting friends from college for her spicy Halloween Eve cowboy-masquerade party. All guests had to wear some kind of a cowboy hat, and Sally found a really nice one (pink-colored) at a novelty store in Phoenix. Sally served all kinds of creative drinks, hired a band and some professional cowboy square-dancers to perform at the party. There were almost 300 guests, sprawled out in and around the house and in the huge backyard which had a tent with pumpkin-lights set up.

At the party, one guest wandered over to Sally's refurbished piano and started playing with the keys. The guest (Adam Roker) started playing Beethoven's Fur Elise on Sally's piano, and Sally heard the piano from the next room where she was chatting with the town priest, so she walked into the piano room and approached Adam and complimented him on his playful but eloquent rendition of Fur Elise. Adam looked up at her and was sweating. He told her he got a terrible sick feeling in his stomach while playing and that he swore he was hearing the piano echo Fur Elise in his mind, repeating notes he'd just played!

Well, Sally's Halloween party was a big success, and the townspeople and local gazette made her an 'overnight-celebrity.' Sally was still uncomfortable about Adam's experience with her neat piano and wondered what scared him so much. The next month, Sally started taking piano lessons and in a year, she had gotten quite good (she practiced almost everyday!). Sally finally learned Fur Elise and was anxious to try to play it herself (and recount what Adam had told her about his experience). Sally sat down on the piano bench and began playing Fur Elise with a cool confidence and was enjoying herself and wondered what frightened Adam Roker.

After Sally completed playing Fur Elise that day, she started walking around her house, lighting incense to 'exorcise' any unfriendly spirits haunting her home --- perhaps malevolent memories from the rough-and-tough days of the Old West (when gold-diggers painted the American landscape!). Sally was walking back towards her piano when she suddenly realized she was hearing Fur Elise coming from the piano (as if some kind of 'haunted memory' of the tune!). The keys on the piano weren't moving, and she swore she only heard a faint 'haunted holographic' rendition of Fur Elise --- but it was coming from her piano.

Sally slowly walked towards the piano and started talking to it, in the hopes that she could 'confront' the possible spirit haunting the instrument. She told it to leave her new house where she planned to throw fun and memorable annual Halloween parties for her friends and community. She told the piano she was ready to begin her new and happy life with her lottery prize-money and wished it would not bother her or darken her home. She then asked the piano, straightforwardly, why it sent her a haunted 'memory-sound' of Fur Elise and if the piano-spirit had some kind of message for her, and oddly enough, she swore she heard a whispering voice respond, "Pain, Sally."

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[E.F. Benson]

I enjoyed this one.