Thursday 30 January 2014

The Music Room Ghost

That night, I could not fall asleep. I went to bed at the usual time but somehow sleep would not come, I kept fidgeting, trying to fall asleep but all it did was make me thirsty. So, I went to the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. I was suddenly jolted fully awake from my fatigued and drowsy state of mind. There was someone playing the piano in the music room! The lights were off, there was no one else in the house, and even if there were anyone, no one plays the piano at 3 am with the lights out! I was nearly frozen with fear, or maybe it was a particularly cold night but I decided I had to investigate, since any intruder who decides to play the piano after breaking into a house aroused more curiosity in me than fear. Armed with a particularly sharp knife I took from the kitchen, reassuring myself that I could take on the intruder myself as long as I had the knife or maybe just scream loudly enough to wake up at least the family that lives next door, I walked slowly and as quietly as possible into the music room and switched on the light.

There on the piano stool sat a girl, or whatever it was kind of resembled a girl. Most of her was only made of shadows that formed and disappeared spontaneously, rest of her was made of light. She almost looked translucent. She stopped playing the piano and turned to look at me, or maybe the shadows just shifted in a way to make it seem that she turned to look at me.

I stood there, unable to speak or move. Somehow I was not afraid, I was only too confused.
We stayed that way for a while, me frozen in place, her looking at me (or looking through me, although she really did not have any eyes, only those shadows that made the rest of her). Then she turned back and started playing the piano again. A sweet melody, sounded like a nocturne, I did not know the tune, but it was beautiful and haunting. After a while, I turned the light off and went to my bedroom and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost instantly.

She came every night for several nights afterwards. At first I would keep myself awake in order to encounter her again. I would sit on the couch in the living room and let the music lull me to sleep. But slowly the late nights started taking their toll on me and I would fall asleep on the couch as I waited for her, waking late after daybreak, so I did not even know when and why she stopped coming. One night I waited up but the music did not play. She did not come, she never came back after that.
The piano now lies gathering dust in the music room. For a while it was loved, it made beautiful music that bound together a being made of flesh and blood and one made of shadows. Now it is just a ghost waiting for another spectre to bring it back to life.