Pianist

I reside in a house with an adjoining lighthouse on the dreadful cliffs on the coast. What makes it unique and even haunting is the only thing up in the tower are the lights, a piano and a corpse. It’s been years since I found her up there. Never called the authorities for reasons I still don’t understand. Yet whenever there is curling mist in the yard and heavy fog over the blue waves, the lights beam and the keys of the piano play. The door to the tower I have kept locked for five years now. No one else nor even myself have ascended the steps.

What happened five years ago? A young woman knocked on my door answering an ad I put out looking for a lighthouse keeper. It would be modest pay, however, she was young and could do her homework up in the tower as she looked after the lights. After meeting her, I knew she was right for the job.
She came across as depressed and anxiety-stricken. However, good employment history and now a music major where she was a freshman in college. She wore a sweet smile, and radiant blue eyes which drew me in. Her speech and choice of words told me she was very intelligent. So, I gave her the job.

On any typical evening, when twilight was upon me in my house by the rocky precipice, I will become anxious and excited. By the time the blue of the twilight is inked over by nightfall, I mean every night the past five years, the beams of light fire up out into the blackness of the sea at night. And only a moment or two more, the piano keys play, their melody radiates down the air vents into my study. The same tune fore five years. The same tune she mentioned she was learning in college. The name, I don’t know. And as fir her name… nameless, save one I find fitting: Pianist.

She will play on for hours into the night. When the boon of sleep falls upon me, I sink into my sofa before my fireplace and pass out. Then some hours later, when I awaken to the sound of scratching at the door leading from my study up the tower, and the door handle being tried on the other side, sometimes gently. Other times, the scratching is intense and the pulling on the door handle aggressive. I could never bring myself to unlock the door. That is, until last night… when curiosity got the best of me and I had to confront this ghost of five years past…

Last night, typically, when I had dinner at sunset and by the late part of dusk I sat at my desk in the study to work, I’m an author. By twilight, I’m writing on and when those feelings of anxiousness and excitement come, I put down the pen, lean back in my chair and wait. This time, I had to know this ghost of five years, the Pianist in the lighthouse above…

I ran to the door and unlocked it. Creaking open, cobwebs welcomed me and so did an awful musty odor. The stairwell was dark and when I flipped the switch all the lights blew into sparks. I went and grab Ed a flashlight and as ended those stairs for the first time in five years. Signs of life indeed, small animals and jwat they leave behind. I ascended further until I got to the top, to the door which beyond would lead to a short stair ase up into the lighthouse. Now, this door does not have a lock. I was not looking to push it open. I was looking for marks on the wooden floorboards that would have been made from the bottom of the door having opened and closed every night for five years… and there were, appearing like freshly dug grooves into the wooden floor boards. Last night, I was ready to meet her again…

I made my way back down to the study and kept the bottom door ajar. Instead of sitting at my desk, would write in my journal on my sofa and wait…

And wait…

A moonless night made my windowpanes black and I could notice nothing outside. Just the reflection of the flames from the fireplace in the panes. And I waited… tense feelings came about and then very quickly, I became sedated, as if by some drug or spell. And I sunk into my sofa, gazing into the flames, my pen rolling off my closed journal onto the floor.

Then I recall very strange dreams that night on the sofa… the log fire before me roared, with flames sputtering out over the hearth. My eyelids creaked when they opened to the fireplace, as if they were creaking open from death. Hearing no piano and noticing out the dark windows no beam of light from the tower, and then noticing the door! It was wide open! Exactly as I had not left it! My eyes fleeted about, especially behind me… no one… not person nor ghost.

Then a heaviness on my chest, as if an invisible hand was pressing on my chest to lay back. My eyelids felt like the weight of anchors. And my breathing became very labored. But my limbs felt useless, I lacked the strength to turn my head as well…

As I fell into this dreamy slumber, I became conscious of a presence… beside me on that sofa. With all my might and all my courage, I snapped open my eyes… and I saw, as I am a living man, as my eyes turned in trepidation just to my right, what was once a beautiful, young woman, now wearing what appeared to be a mummified mask of decomposed flesh, eyeless black sockets, and hair once well kept and curly, now disheveled and barely hanging onto her scalp…

Then I shot up from the sofa onto my feet awake! The smoldering coals before me, and then I became conscious to the harmonic tune of the piano! Not from far above… but in the next room, the living room, where another piano stands, the piano keys collecting dust for many years… and from this room candlelight glowed…

Tiptoeing to the threshold of the room, by God, heaven and the angels, what I saw… was the same young beauty, who’s fingers now danced over the dust of the keys. As this Pianist was focused on her dancing hands, I was focused on announcing my presence for the first time in five years…

She beat me to it… “the living look older after five years,” she giggled.

Playfully I retorted, “but you haven’t turned to see me!” I chuckled.

Another giggle followed with her eyes turning to me as she said, “I already have in your nightmare.”

At that moment, the grandfather clock in the room struck midnight and a haunting tolling commenced. She turned her radiant blue eyes from me back down to her hands. “Thank you for opening the door! After years of running my nails over the door, sensing you on the other side, I was beginning to think you’d be old by the time you’d unlock that damn door.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be! Better to play in Hell than to serve in heaven!” She kept that sweet smile while then shutting her eyelids, still her fingers danced upon the keys effortlessly.

“So, this is Hell… in this life? Is heaven really so bad?”

“After my suicide, I was given a choice by some entity I did not recognize. Play on with my passion, in a Hellish world, as i could never ascend to the heavens… the only other option… whither in pure non-existentance! Or, darkness without passions that is.”

“Are you a ghost?”

It was here, where the melody became choppy. This Pianist then abruptly stopped playing and confided in me, “I honestly don’t know. I could be… all I understand is that when I’m a dessicated corpse up in the tower, hunched over that piano, I’m asleep. Asleep without dreaming. And when I’ve awaken over the past five years, I feel full of life! And I play! And the music keeps me alive until it’s time to die again at sunrise!”

“Cursed not to ever see day again,” I uttered without thinking.

She looked at me puzzled, and asked, “cursed? Why you say cursed?”

It took quick thinking on my part not to offend as I responded, “I’m sorry, I’m a writer if you remember from all those years ago…”

“Um, ok…?”

Now I really embarrassed myself and I tried to cover it, “I analyze things and people… I write what I see, hear, smell, taste and touch… and make poetry and stories from it all.”

Scratching my scalp hard, my eyes dipped down and rose again when I sensed she sat up from the piano and pussyfooted towards me. Her steps made no sound on the aging wooden floorboards, I noticed. I kept mental note of this as there was something else I was curious about.

With a smile coupled with her wide, oval green eyes, again melted my heart and left it thundering inside my chest.

She said, “so, Mr. Poet and storyteller… Mr. Analyzer of things other’s neglect to see, smell, touch, taste, hear and smell…”

She didn’t stop stepping towards me, until she was right up to me.

“Perhaps… this entity within your home can exhibit these senses for… your inspiration? You next poem… your next novel?”

Then the living blood of my body surged through narrow veins it felt like. As if the thunder of my heart could produce lightning, then I’d write a bestseller off this! Finally, I said, “well, what do you have in mind? What is there to show me in any of the senses that can get me to write something incredible?”

Her eyes rolled down my body and remained at my feet for a moment before she answered, “we can start by what we hear…”

“Feet!” I interrupted in an exclamatory tone.

“Oh? And what about my cute little feet?”

They made no noise when you walked over to me, and the wooden floorboards are original, they creak under the weight of the living.”

Playfully, she began jumping where she stood… no creaking. Then she playfully sashayed off behind the curtains of the window overlooking the cliffs and the sea.
No creaking, no sound of the curtains being pulled…

“Tell me, is touching the piano keys, the only thing you can touch that will make a sound?”

For her answer, was my own heartbeat. She stood unseen, silent behind the curtain. I thought it was very strange and no longer cute, so I briskly walked over to the curtain and expected to see something I couldn’t possibly think to expect… a few feet away from the curtain, her slender arm shot out and tossed her tank top at me, which landed right onto my face. Then her head poked out…

I just have to admit, she was arousing me. But the gentleman in me, twenty years her senior when she was alive, bade me to behave with her… so I responded with the only thing I knew to say at that moment, “so, what is this?”

“Hmm… a tank top… my tank top that was tightly fitted on body.”

I held the tank top for a few moments, just looking back at her before she continued, “Ah, we’re onto the next sense… smell!”

I grinned as I brought it to my nose and my nostrils flared in anticipation. I swear my eyes dilated next, when I smelled aromas of not only the fabric, but some perfume that was wonderful, and a hint of body odor that did not offend me at all coming from her…

“So?”

“So, your perfume, lovely. The aroma of your body, even better.”

“Let’s stay on this sense and examine it further, shall we?”

For answer, I nodded.

Her head drew back behind the curtain again. More movement behind I could see. Peeking out again behind the curtain, this time a very playful smile, her arm eased out and in her hand dangled her bra. She tossed it to me and I caught it…

“Let’s see if that heightens a writer’s senses!”

After admiring it, I raised it to my nose and her aromas were even more lovely. “Are you gonna want your bra and tank top back now?”

She scoffed, answering, “just toss them onto the sofa.”

I did just that. All the while she gazed at me from behind the curtain.

My arousal then bade me to ask, “what’s next from you?”

“Oh, why? Does a ghost really make you this horny?”

My eyelids dropped in embarrassment and I could feel my face flushed. But I couldn’t fight a losing battle anymore, I thought. So, I said, “the more of the senses we examine…” I stuttered until I was silent.

Then she emerged fully from behind the curtain, only her jean short shorts and sandals were on her body. From her pierced tummy up to her breasts she was absolutely stunning. She pussyfooted to me until her ice-cold breath was on my face. “What sense is next?” She asked.

“Touch,” I answered, as I was curious, to feel if the whole rest of her was as cold as ice…

“Regardless of my lovely tits bulging out into you…” Here she leaned in closer towards me until her erect nipples pressed into my chest and in her playful nature, she she pivoted her body from side to side so her hard nipples rubbed across.

“Can I?”

“Can you… take off your shirt so you’re bare-chested like me? Fuck yeah, Danny boy, you know you’re part of this examination of the senses, too!”

Without pause, my shirt was off and onto the sofa. Again, she leaned into me and her soft breasts pressed into my bare chest. But something was different, from any other female I had been intimate with… the skin on her breasts, her tummy also pressed up against mine, was all cold as ice. And it made me shiver and she noticed…

“Are you cold in the presence of me before even a fireplace, Danny?”

“You feel like you just walked in from outside, as if it were wintertime.”

“It’s always wintertime in death,” she winked.

“Let’s feel the rest of us then…” I whispered.

“Oh, this sense of touch is better than hearing… I’m looking forward to advancing on in our little exploration of touching, then onto tasting…” Then she delicately placed her hands on both sides of my neck to pull me to her, however, I instantly shuddered from the frigidness of her hands. Regardless, our scarlet lips pressed into the other… it was like pressing my lips into ice! However, like her breasts, her lips were well cushioned, soft but dry. In lust by now, I wrapped my arms around her frigid body. And as I had done so, something… whether instinct, or that I just noticed it out of the corner of my eye in the mirror above the fireplace… as we kissed, my eye turned to the mirror to my left… and what I saw filled my living soul with horror… there was I, but embracing and kissing a decomposed corpse of a woman! As I looked on, the more detail I noticed… her flesh was blackened and bleached-bones were jutting out, and she had no eyes… just black sockets. Her hair disheveled and appeared to be barely attached to her scalp! Then there was a pause in the kissing, I turned my eyes back to her’s and those beautiful emerald-green eyes were gazing back at me expressionlessly…

“What do you see?” she asked softly.

“Is any of this real? I mean, am I asleep on that sofa… and you’re just a ghost entering my nightmares?”

She drew back and slowly turned to look at us in the mirror… and to be certain what I saw was real, I looked again… there could be no mistake!

For moments, all I could hear was the crackle of the fireplace. I noticed my breathing, but realizing it then, no sound of breathing from her… not a breath! Her chest did not expand… ever!

She turned back to me and said gravely, “ya know, your instincts are dead on… cuz’ I think you’re starting to suspect something…” Here she paused and leaned towards me, adding, “I’m dead…”

Instantly reacting to instinct, I shoved her away from me and I myself withdrew several steps. I wiped my mouth of whatever trace of her was left with the palm of my hand. A hand I realized that had just been caressing a frigid corpse! And out of instinct I made a handwashing motion with my hands… I suddenly felt revolted at all the contact, I yelled, “get the hell out of my home and go find a grave!”

She then stretched out her hands appealing to me, “but Danny, I can’t go anywhere… your home is my grave!”

“No! This home is not your grave… your place of rest… this home is not one big casket… nothing but death is for eternity! You killed yourself all those years ago… that was your choice in life!”

Then something I did not expect, tears falling down her face! “What do you mean you can’t leave, anyway?”

She choked as she spoke, “as a suicide, I am condemned to purgatory…” Here she became emotional, “let me tell you about life after death, Danny boy! There are ghosts everywhere around here! I hear them, see them – I sense them! Purgatory is the miserable existence we all face! Unless you were truly exceptional in life do you go to heaven! Everyone else, even the purely evil walk without shadows… invisible to the living…” Here her knees buckled and she wailed. The wailing was so intense that the flames of the fireplace flared.

-End of freewrite draft-

This short story is being revised and rewritten into a novel. Presently working on chapters one and two and possibly a preface added.
Gothic Forest, and Pianist, are being written side by side.
This freewrite turns into a first draft, from there the second, then a third draft for fine-tuning. Then pitch it to a literary agent!
I’m giving myself a year to finish both books!

Daniel Long,
Gothic-Surrealist