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THE PIANIST AND ME

The school should have been empty at two in the morning --- I had been counting on it. However, as my unfortunate luck would have it, I was not the only one there that night.

I won’t waste time in telling how I found him; what matters is that I decided to seek him out in place of my original plans.

I found him in the auditorium playing our grand piano.

He was tall, or rather, long and wiry, seeing as he had not been standing at the time. His legs stretched lazily beneath the bulk of the instrument, his right foot tapping a slow beat to the sad tune crying forth from the piano. The sound was heartbreaking to hear.

At first I did not think he had noticed me, but the moment I approached him, a deep voice issued from his suddenly parted lips.

“What is your name?”

I peered at his features, trying to discern some expression form his shadowed face.

“Ally.” I replied with some reluctance. “And you?”

He nodded towards me. “A beautiful name.”

“Not really,” I said quietly. “It’s just a word that fails to clearly define who I am.”

His racing fingers slowed to play a soft sort of trilling song on a higher scale.

“Then what would you have me call you?”

I shrugged. “I have no real name to give.”

The man beside me sighed heavily. “Nor I.”

He stopped playing.

I looked at his now clenched hands, a ghost of a frown worming its way across my tense features. “I wish I knew my name.”

“But what if there was a reason we were made to forget…?” The man asked softly, his shadowed face turning to regard mine.

His eyes were pitch black.
“Like a secret?”

“Or a traumatic experience.”

I frowned. “There should still be a choice.”

“You would rather remember than forget.”

I shook my head. “I would prefer to have a choice in the matter. Not all terrible things are worth forgetting.”

He sat quietly for time, before turning away to stare down at the keys of the piano.

“I feel as though I may have forgotten something important.”

Not sure of what to say, I kept silent, and watching the shadows of the night dance across the stranger’s face. Though the hall was unlit, the wide-paneled windows allowed bright beams of moonlight to filter through the hollow tomb.

I did not have to wait long for him to next speak.

“Shall we find them, our true names?”

I stared quietly at a glint of white where his eyes might be.

“Together?”

“Yes.”

I shuffled my feet. “Why me…?”

A small smirk pulled across his pale features.

“Why indeed...”

His voice was cold, but the look in his gaze was warm.

And when it came time that I took his hand in mine, one thought echoed faintly in the back of my mind.

Together, this just might work.

~fin heart

WOAH