The Dying Pianist

Her long white dress flowed down to the legs of the cushioned bench. With her back ramrod straight, she poised her fingers above the black and white keys. She took a deep breath and with her head raised heavenward, she started playing the grand piano.

Out of the silence there leapt these perfectly formed and discrete notes, this multitude of cascading sounds that seemed to speak with crispness and directness, as if in beautiful defiance of the inundation of sound which I had so loved.

Oh, to think that ten fingers alone could draw these sounds from a wooden instrument in which the hammers, in a dodged rigid motion, would strike upon a bronze harp of tightly stretched strings.

Up and down the notes rang in gorgeous throbbing arpeggios, thundering downward to rumble in a staccato drumming, only to rise and race again. On and on went the sprightly melody, elegant, celebratory and demanding to be followed in every intricate twist and turn.

In the furious torrent of notes, I heard the resounding echo of the wood of the piano; I heard the vibrations of its giant taut bronze harp. I heard the sizzling throb of its multitudinous strings. Oh yes, on and on it went, ever pure and ever perfect. How can human hands make this enchantment, how can they pound out of this ivory keys this deluge, this thrashing, thundering beauty?

She stopped, the last notes hanging in the air, the violent rush of melody still pounding in my ears. And a still, eerie silence ensued, engulfing us in a great void of emptiness.

It seemed that she had used her remaining strength on this piece of music, pumping her own life and soul into the melody itself. Her trembling, white hands raised to her chest as she spewed forth a fountain of blood. The blood stained her white dress and spreadinto a large, red pattern. Blood dripped off the white, ivory keys in front of her.

Feebly, she bent forth and gave the unstained keys a light, parting kiss and finally slumped into a slumber she would never wake from. And all that was left was the bloody print of her lips on the creamy, white surface of the keys.