a random story

[ada]

The piano appeared from out of nowhere.

One day it wasn't there, the next day it was. Black and shiny and elegantly curved, in the middle of my bare appartment.

It was your classic type of piano. Not an upright one, but a grand piano with a lift-up top like they used to have in concert halls before The Take Over, when music was still allowed.

Some of the edges looked slightly worn, which suggested that it wasn't brand new.

I don't know how it got there or why. It's not as if I had ever played the piano, or wanted one.

And I had no idea how anyone could have lugged it up the 20 stories of the Tower to my apartment, or why they would have wanted to.

The piano took up a lot of space in my tiny apartment. Not that I had much there. Just a single bed and a desk with my computer where I worked every day, writing pornographic stories for an online magazine.

It wasn't the best of jobs but work was scarce since The Take Over and it could be dangerous venturing out beyond the Outskirts where the Feral People lived, so you had to make do with what you could find.

The piano was there when I woke up, as I always do, at 6.30am.  I lay in bed and stared at it as the hands of the clock moved around to 8 o'clock and then 9. Then I got up.

I boiled a battered saucepan of water, made an Administration-issue instant coffee and swallowed an Administration-issue Calma-pill.

I sat down at my computer and tried to start working on my latest story, about the adventures of a vegetable delivery man.

I was puzzled by the piano although I didn't really know what I could do about it.

But I knew that if the Administration found out I was harbouring a musical instrument, I'd be in deep sh*t.

By midday the piano was beginning to get to me. I was angry at its uninvited arrival and how it was crowding me out of my space with its unexplained presence.

And I was hungry. There was no food and the last time I'd eaten was yesterday. I was going to have to venture out and buy something to eat.

I left, locking the door behind me, and began the long walk down the graffiti-covered stairwell. The lifts had broken long ago.

The stairs were littered with needles, broken glass and soiled underwear. Someone had scrawled Down with the Administration! on the wall.

Outside it was cold and the sky was grey and bleak. Two raggedy children were rummaging through a rubbish heap and clutch of Feral People crouched around a fire.

I entered the Tunnel leading through to Old China Town, where you could get dried noodles, green tea and crystal meth if you bartered.

There weren't as many buskers in the Tunnel since the Administration had banned music, but the one-legged man was there as usual, his cap in his hand and his eyes downcast, and a young Feral Person was beatboxing.

I did my shopping quickly and returned through the Tunnel to the Tower, one of many others like it that housed Administration employees and people like me who had been lucky enough to find other sources of income.

As I climbed the stairs I heard a sound I hadn't heard for a long, long time.

It was the sound of piano music, and it was coming from my apartment.


TO BE CONTINUED...

[pianistimo]

that is random!  i think YOU should finish it.  my piano teacher says he has a twin.  do you, too?

[ada]

my piano teacher says he has a twin.  do you, too?

Not sure what you're getting at, but not that I am aware of 

And yes, I will provide the next installment of this little yarn when I get a free minute...

[ada]

CONTINUED....

I stopped outside my apartment and listened to the music. I didn't care much for piano but the tune was sweet and lilting and plaintive and vaguely familiar, like something I once heard before the Take Over and the Purge.

It was strange but not so strange. Unexplained things happened all the time in the Tower.

People appeared and disappeared, like the little girl who used to live with the mask-faced woman in the apartment next to mine. The little girl had flame red hair and freckles. She was about five years old.

The mask-faced woman never seemed to acknowledge the little girl's presence, except for once when I passed them on the stairwell. The girl was struggling to keep up with the woman.

The mask-faced woman had turned around glared furiously at the little girl.

"Well, are you coming?" she screamed. "ARE YOU COMING?"

Then one day the little girl wasn't there anymore. It was just the mask-faced woman on her own.

There were whispers that the Administration had stolen her.

I unlocked my door.

A man was sitting at the piano playing, with his back to me. He stopped playing and turned around to look at me when I locked the door.

He was young, maybe twenty, with soft skin and a beard. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He wore clothes from another time, black pants, a white shirt, a coat with tails.

There were dark rings under his eyes.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

He didn't answer. He just turned back and resumed his playing. I stood for a while, uncertain what to do.

Outside it was getting dark. From my window the view swept out across Tower Town to the emptyness of the Outskirts and the Wasteland and the distant lights of the Administration's Control Centre.

The young man was playing something disonant and furious now. His fingers were blurs on the keyboard.

"You know, you can get us both into trouble," I ventured, "with this ... music."

He ignored me and kept playing. He was making a crashing noise.

"What is your name?"

No response.

I walked around him to my desk, opened the draw and took out the small plastic jar of Calma-Pills.

I took three and waited for them to kick in. They did almost immediately with a rush that seemed to lift me off my feet and set me gently down on my bed.

"Please stop," I eventually said to the man who wouldn't tell me his name. "I don't want this music."

This time he did stop. He put his hands in his lap and looked at me. His eyes were a little mad. He was sweating. His slight shoulders were heaving almost imperceptibly.

"It is about a woman," he said, "being raped by a horse."

"Well," I said.  "Well what do you know."

I floated over to him. The room was buzzing in the aftermath of his playing and from the effect of the drugs I had taken.

I touched him gently on the shoulder. I suppose I wanted to see if he was real.

We slept together that night as the curfew sirens wailed and spotlights swept through Tower Town. We didn't talk, and when we were finished he got up and sat at the piano, staring at the keys.

I lay on my back looking at the ceiling and letting the waves of the Calma-Pills wash over me, until finally I fell asleep.

TO BE CONTINUED....

[pianistimo]

this is a very random story, ada.  is it a secret fantasy of yours?  i mean the twenty year old part? 

ok.  continuation...(cleaner version of story continued) the 'orphan annie' look alike suddenly reappeared with her mother in the morning - calming fears that she had been abducted by the authorities.  but, fearing to ask her what happened - a smile was the appropriate, but yet very inappropriate expression of happiness for her reappearance.  and yet, happiness was not supposed to be shown.  it was part of the 'purge.'  along with classical music - of which - i was sufferring greatly because of fear of the authorities hearing the continuing 'horse raping' music (quoting ada) of scriabin.  who knows what the authorities would do if they found a piano in the room - let alone a twenty year old with a ponytail and clear soft skin.  except for the slight unshaven look he had in the morning.  good thing the calma pills had worn off. 

i gave him a good swift kick out the door because i didn't want to risk anyone (especially that serious mom down the way) suspecting what was going on.  i told him i'd call him if there was an unwanted preganancy.  unfortunately, if there was - he could simply call the authorities and they would give me a pill called 'get rid of it.'  but, knowing my own nature - i'd probably just pretend to eat it and spit it out at the next available check point.  women generally were given check points if they were thought to be carrying a child.  at some point or other - if the pregnancy was unterminated - they would try to terminate it again.  but, i was determined to name the baby after the piano ('steinway jr.') and see if it was as talented as the man who produced it.  but, unbeknownst to me, he was infertile.  of course, being that we barely touched hands - it is unlikely that i was inseminated in the first place.  i mean, if we had shaken hands longer in the bed - it might have happened.

[ada]

this is a very random story, ada.  is it a secret fantasy of yours?  i mean the twenty year old part? 

hahaha this just a story pianistimo

Thank you for your interest and your input. "Orphan Annie lookalike" was not quite the image I was hoping to acheive, a minor edit may be in order.

watch this space for the next installment...

[pianistimo]

five years old, red hair, freckles?  sounds like orphan annie to me. 

anyway, the mother, unbeknownst to me, had allowed her daughter to spy on me over night- hearing the intense pleasures of the slight hand shake at 1 am.  i should have read the bible about not spending the night with a stranger and listening to music about sex with horses.  i immediately threw the scriabin music out the window and tried to tell the girl she heard nothing.  but, she saw.  she saw the trail of ... peanuts.  yes.  there were peanut shells all around the piano.  they led into the kitchen and back out of the kitchen and to the bedroom (where the slight handshake had taken place) and back again out the door. 

at this point, i realized that the bible was in open view as well.  so, i thought, i may as well confess.  yes...orphan annie...i did listen to a man play the piano - he stayed all night (not because i wanted him to - but because i had to protect the piano fromt he authorities) and nothing inappropirate happened because if it had - then i would not be able to tell you so freely about it.  but, still - you must keep all this a secret.  she agreed on condition that she be allowed to play the piano a little bit.

next, i decided that it was in my best interest to put the lid down on the piano (being that the 20 something had left the lid up).  something i never did.  or, never began to do.

[ada]

CONTINUED...

The man who wouldn't tell me his name stayed with me for some time afterwards. He spent his days at the piano and I grew accustomed to the sound of his playing.

At night, and sometimes when the late afternoon sun slanted through the window, he came to my bed.

The weeks passed in a haze of music and sex and Calma-Pills. He never spoke and I gave up trying to press him for information about who he was, where he came from and why he was here with me.

I had heard rumours of a clandestine underground movement that plotted against the administration and was responsible for sporadic bomb attacks in buildings in the Administration Control Centre.

But he never went out. He just sat at the piano. When I ventured out to Old China Town for food or household items he was always there when I returned. He ate the food I prepared and we drank cups of instant coffee together.

When he played, I shifted restlessly around the apartment, marvelling at his beauty, listening to the music he made.

But as the weeks passed, his presence began to irritate me. I hadn't worked for weeks. I could no longer concentrate on the tawdry little stories I wrote for the pornographers. The money ran out, and I couldn't pay my rent.

I wondered how long before the Administration came to collect it.

I didn't know what I would do with the man, or the piano, if this happened.

I stopped letting him come to my bed. "You have to go," I said one day.

But he ignored me. He turned his back to me and played a piece that filled me with homesickness for something I didn't know.

"You have to go, I don't want you here anymore," I said again and again, day after day, but still he took no notice.

I began to grow angry. I began to hate him and I began to hate the piano.

I told him, "You must go. I hate you. You have taken over my life. I will destroy the piano if you don't go. I will burn it. I will chop it up and I will throw it out of the window for the Feral Children to take home as firewood."

And then the man who wouldn't tell me his name went.

One moment he was there, the next he wasn't.

I'd fallen asleep with him still at the piano. I woke up the next morning and the piano was there but he was gone.

I got up, swallowed five Calma-Pills, and looked out the window, as if I might see a trace of him down amongst the detrius on the street.

He wasn't there. Just the raggedy children and the drug dealers and the pimps.

When  the knock came at the door I though it was him, because it couldn't have been anyone else. No one ever came calling in the Tower.

I opened the door but it wasn't the man who wouldn't tell me his name, and who I was already beginning to miss.

It was a young woman. She wore a natty blue suit and had glasses and shiny dark hair. She had a flat, childless stomach and small neat waist. She carried a pen and a blue clipboard.

She smiled, looking slightly anxious and eager to please.

"Hello," she said with an ever-so-slight lisp. "I am Dr Walker. I am a psychiatrist. You have come to the attention of the administration and I have been sent to assess you.

"Can I come in?"

TO BE CONTINUED.....

[quasimodo]

I'm totally fond of that dark sci-fi genre.
Ada, you're onto something, maybe your real mission on earth is to write best-sellers.

[letters]

this is a mini 1984 with a piano....

[ada]

this is a mini 1984 with a piano....

You are right  . I suppose as well as Orwell I should also acknowledge Aldous Huxley, Franz Kafka, Peter Carey and Grant Caldwell.

This story has been kicking over in my head for the last few days but I haven't had a chance to sit down and write anything. Very frustrating.

Will get back to it soon, if anyone cares 

[ada]

I shrugged and gestured for Dr Walker to come in. She entered and sat primly down on the chair near my desk. She put the blue clipboard on her lap.

She glanced quickly at the piano and then away, as if it embarrassed her.

"Well," she said.

She pulled an envelope out from the clipboard and handed it to me, with what looked like an attempt at a friendly smile.

"Your notification," she said.

I opened it and pulled out a letter. It said I was to be assessed pending my appearance before the Tribunal on charges of sedition, consorting with the enemy, possession of a banned instrument and crimes against the Administration.

I let the letter fall to the floor. I felt too weary to give a sh*t.

"Well then," Dr Walker said. "I'm going to ask you a few questions.

"Do you suffer from anxiety, depression, panic attacks, substance abuse disorders? 

"Do you take medication? Do you feel alienated? Do you engage in suicidal ideation?

"Do you feel," she leaned forwards and looked at me closely, "under seige?"

I rattled off yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes.

The Calma-Pills had made everything foggy and slow motion. Colours were too bright and edges were too sharp, they threatened to cut me like paper.

I noticed Dr Walker had stopped questioning me. She was looking out the window over the piano, which she had not mentioned once, as if it would have been impolite.

"You know, you can do an experiment on rats where you subject them to random electric shocks," she was saying.

"They don't know when to expect a shock, so they're not able to do anything to avoid it.

"We know from these rat models that the best way to induce neurosis is to put them in a constant state of fear and anxiety without giving them the means of taking evasive action.

"You can tell people they're at the highest level of alert but not give them anything to do about it. Some have questioned the value of this as a social policy."

She pulled out a pile of ink blots. She showed me the first one.

"What does this look like?" she said.

"A piano."

"And this?"

"A horse *** a woman."

"This?"

"A plane. Flying into a building."

"This?"

"A person. On a box. With their arms stretched out and wires on them. Looks like Jesus. Looks like someone from the Ku Klux Klan."

"And this?"

The man who wouldn't tell me his name. As if I was going to tell her that.

I looked away.

Dr Walker leaned back. "Now," she said,  "I need to give you an injection. Please roll up your sleeve."

The needle slid under my skin and I was standing on an endless stretch of beach.

I couldn't see the end up or down. It just disappeared into a haze of salt air. It was banked by huge white sand dunes.

The sky was huge and impossibly blue. The water was glassy and green and extended unbroken by islands or boats to the horizon.

The horizon was so vast that it curved around in the shape of a sphere. I had never been anywhere so empty, so silent, so vast.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[pianistimo]

all of a sudden, i started speed reading piano chords (got this inspiration from the ads below).  they came at me from right and left and as soon as i saw them, i played them onthe imaginary keyboard in my mind.  as soon as i caught the pace of the first speed, it was upped until i was reading practically at the speed of light.  what was amazing is that i wasn't making any mistakes.  i was reading an entire rach concerto.  what made it partly so easy is that the chords came to me one at a time and i wasn't seeing the entire page.  just that chord.  it was like it was a computer screen that was transitioning from chord to chord fast enough that i could read each one - and yet slow enough for my brain to engage.  it was wonderful.  i was sightreading an entire rach concerto with no mistakes and at a good tempo, i might add.  it was like the computer was a conductor of sorts.  when the tempo was supposed to be slower - the chords appeared just that much slower.

finally, after becoming fairly exhausted - and my final encore to an entire dune of sand - slumped over and began begging for water.  'water, water' was the last thing i remember saying before i came to - and the lady with the clipboard was leaning over me - asking if i needed a drink before she left.  unfortunately, i did not trust her.  though she handed me the water - i declined to even taste a sip.  i threw it out as soon as she left.  had she stolen part of my brain?  i wanted to know what happened after the shot.  did she do something to my piano?  i went over to it.  sure enough - she had stripped all the hammers of their felt and put them back in feltless.  i felt the raw pain of a piano that had been stripped of it's beauty and now reduced to bony sounds of wood on string.

[pianistimo]

i vaguely remembered the euphoria of playing my imaginary keyboard without a shred of piano lessons - and playing the rach concerto.  i immediately wanted another shot.  i had to have one.  i ran out the door - looking frantically for the lady - but she had disappeared into the next room.  apparrently searching for a place to stick some felt.  she randomly did things she wasn't allowed to do because it was her way of getting even at teh establishment.  she made it look like it was her job to do x and x an x ....but when it got down to it - she was pretty m uch just doing her own thing.

[pianistimo]

in fact, now, i wasn't even sure if she really WAS part of the establishment or just a poser.  i think the latter.  especially considering the content of the ink blots.  i mean, what professional psychiatrist would do that?

i felt sad.  for the first time in more than 24 hours, i started missing the piano.  the way it was. the way it used to be when the strange man played it.  except that i now had no way to refelt the piano.  or did i?  my little friend 'orphan annie' suddenly appeared in the doorway with a highlighted markered pelt of felt.  it had not been cut (only markered) - just that i would have to figure the sizing by the lengths of felt.  i grabbed her pelt and got my staple gun.  i told her i was very sorry - but the gift from the strange lady had been the felt off my piano hammers.  she did not understand felted piano hammers - so i explained by lifting a bare boned hammer and showing her that it was just not the way a piano was supposed to look or sound.

she agreed and started helping me refelt my piano - six staples to each hammer.  toward the end, we ran out of felt so we used unspun cotton.  it seemed to muffle the sound a bit.  but, the last four notes were not as important to me as double wrapping middle C.  when the job was completed, i rewarded her with some bubble gum that i kept hidden in case the establishment would take away the last remaining pleasure of society and start parceling it out in half sticks.  perhaps even quarter sticks.   the way my mother chewed.  she never thought it appropriate to chew an entire piece.  but, with each small morsel - she chewed just same.

[pianistimo]

i thought the allure of a rebuilt piano would cause a great flutter of joy in my heart - but orphan annie thought the sound was now too 'dim' and that there were tinny metal sounds from some of the staples coming through.  i reminded her that not all pianos are meant to be played.  some can be simply admired as though they have lid stopping action without actually playing them.  in fact, if i had just ruined my piano out of good intentions - at least it had some color to it now.  orphan annie had used a pink highlighter to get the best color for the felt.  it was like my own original creation, now.  i was beginning to think of it as a piece of art when mildly played. 

i began to walk by and bang on it occasionally.  venting years of anger and rage at the establishment - and also sort of daring them to send the lady with the clipboard back.  for her to see that it was basically impossible to get the best of me.  and, also, to hopefully get another one of those shots.  the kind that made me able to sightread rach concertos.

[pianistimo]

after orphan annie left (finally) - i looked at my dwindling supply of chewing gum and decided to go shopping again.  i didn't want to run out in case i had to ask her more favors - which inevitably would happen if the mysterious piano man came back.  i decided to up the antics, so to speak, and actually planned for his return by also buying double bolts for the windows and doors.  if he was to be the magician at the piano that he might be in real life - this time he would have to walk throught the walls (so to speak).  of course, knowing the impossibility of that in my building was due to complete concrete construction.  unless he was a martial artist of the highest order - he would not be bothering me anytime soon.

[pianistimo]

as most women do, i forgot about the possibility that he might try to dress up as someone else.  in fact, he did.  he dressed up as orphan annie's mother and knocked at the door that very night.  thinking it was 'her' through the peephole - i heaved a sigh of resignation and yelled 'what do you want at this hour?'  she yelled back 'a cup of sugar.'  i thought her voice was strange, but i unbolted the door and looked first at her legs.  they also looked quite strange.  kindof unshaven.  it didn't bother me that much because i'd seen her that way before.  but, this time, i was apalled at her first step into the apartment.  i had not invited her in - but merely said 'yes' to the sugar.  i decided to keep her in line - and slapped her.  'you can go no further,' i said, until i see if i even have any sugar.'  i didn't want her snooping around the place. 

as i left to...

[pianistimo]

retrieve the sugar from my piano bench (where i kept it hidden in case the establishment took all my chewing gum and i needed a little bit of sugar to keep the energy up) - i quickly scooped all i had into a paper bag.  it had to be hidden like this, in case orphan annie got all excited and started yelling about making cookies.  happiness in children was a direct disadvantage to parents in the community who wanted to maintiain a longstanding position of horrible child abuse.  the idea of happy children was merely a thing of the past.  relegated to dolls and toys and things like that which were purged many years back.

[pianistimo]

i should have known by the hobbled walk - that this was no ordinary visit by a neighbor.  this was a man in disguise.  i could tell by the way he applied his makeup.  pretending to go along with the sugar thing - and plotting half aloud - i yelled over, 'is one cup enough for you?'  waiting for his reply - and watching him take inching steps over my threshold - almost daring me for another slap - he responded quietly 'how about two or three.'  i knew he was biding his time - trying to make it over to the piano.

[pianistimo]

quickly, i slammed down the lid of the bench and blew his skirt backwards towards the door.  i said, 'i hope you brought a change of clothes - you look ridiculous like that.'  he breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't have to fake his voice anymore and it suddenly lowered 10 notches.  he was over reacting with his vocal chords because he was a musician and he knew that if you strain your voice in the upper register, you have to even it out by straining it in the lower register too.  finally, he spoke to me in his normal smooth tenor voice and explained that he knew i wouldn't let him in any other way.

it was then, that i asked him to sit down at the table and got out my bible.  he started crying, which made me feel very uncomfortable.  in fact, it reminded me of the cry i used to hear from my son when his homework was too hard (in fifth grade).  it was a fake sort of cry - but very heartfelt.  he said that he wasn't meaning to disturb my peace and that the slight handshake that we had shared had left him feeling guilty enough.  he knew the immense pressure that i was under (now - as well) because of having the appearance of a 'roomie' and especially if he looked exactly like my neighbor.  i mean, what would my neighbor think if she saw him.  (perhaps for the first time in her life she would go and shave her legs).  anwyay, i pointed out to him that it is just not proper for a man to try to get into a woman's apartment by lying.  i made him promise never to lie to me again - even if the establishment taught people indirectly to lie.

also, i asked him to take a look at my double locks.  i told him that if he didn't mind getting married (basically a civil ceremony at midnight) asap - i'd allow him a longer handshake.  unbeknownst to him, i had the master of ceremonies cut his hair when we kissed.  he didn't feel a thing.  but, said that my kiss had given him a light headed feeling.  being that it was 2080 - people kissed only hands and feet - so i held up my foot and he put the ring on my toe as he kissed my hand.  it looked beautiful.  i decided to go barefoot the rest of the night.  it really turned him on. 

i was so pleased that my manner of pursuasion had turned into an opportunity for true love.  unbeknowst to me, he was only after my piano.  but, he had not played it yet.  thus, did not realize it's condition. 

[pianistimo]

walking home to cole porter tunes whistling in my head - i suddenly realized that the judge had not given us a marriage certificate.  as soon as we made it in the door - i drew up what i thought it should look like on the back of the notification that Dr. walker had given me when she came in for the 'assessment.'  thankfully, it had a seal of sorts that peeled off.  i simply put it on the reverse side and it looked pretty good.  in fact, so good, that i framed it with glue and sugar.  reminding me of the sugary appeal that a man has when he's been missing for some time.

i asked him where he'd been all this time - and he politely told me that he was watching me from the roof where he'd attempted suicide three times.  i said, 'how can you watch me from the roof?'  he said, that whilst attempting suicide the first and second times - he'd had a vision of sorts -where he'd sightread a rach concerto entirely through without mistakes.  it was at that point that i figured that dr. walker had gotten him with a shot in the butt - before he jumped.  but, how HOW did she make that shot work the same in everyone?  and, did she know what effect that shot had, herself.  i decided that if she came around again - i would grab the needle and shoot her first, myself second, and throw the needle to mr. husband - third.  but, then agian - we weren't sure that she was really human either.  what if she didn't even have blood?  what if she had plasma?  what if she was what you call an 'invisible' person.  one that gets up tot he door before anyone knows she arrived. 

i decided instead of taking the calma-pills this time - to let the music soothe my soul.  as hubby played - i took out my foot file and got rid of the callous under my fourth toe.  i meditated deeply as he pulled out some really bangish music from his memory.  it was bartok and stravinsky put together in a medley of sorts.  yes, bartok, to stravinsky, to prokofiev.  he ended with a bit of philip glass - using the lower ntoes (which as you may remember - had no felt).  i immediately realized he truly was the genius that noone understood and took pity for the first time since our initial meeting.  i decided to tell him the entire story about the piano.  he didn't give me the time of day - and declared our wedding annulled because of the piano (i thought).

it was then that i cried for the first time since the purge of my surplus calma-pills. 

[pianistimo]

also, seeking solace in my meager cd collection (turned to miniature hand held portable cd's that were the size of a dime)  - i put on my earphones and began to tune him out.   it was hard work at first, but i finally succeeded when the piano broke in half.  i didn't realize the terrible pressure had been building up in it for days.  due to another thing that dr. walker had done to the piano that i wasn't aware of.  she had literally twisted the tuning pins to the right on all the bass notes below middle C three times.  no wonder my lost musical husband was so angry.  the piano was only out of tune.  he hadn't noticed the change of quality in sound.  after all - he was a jazz pianist and not a classical pianist.

[pianistimo]

not to mention the fact that he hadn't even heard a word i said about the piano and mrs. walker, and only focusing in on the fact of the shot and how i had had a similar experience to his in sightreading a rach concerto.  he, apparrently, had ego issues as well as tuning dislikes.  after reading his reaction a second time - i offerred to tune the piano.  i told him that just because i didn't play the piano didn't mean that i couldn't tune it.  in fact, i said, the best tuners don't play.  it would be a sort of unbroken broken rule.  if they concertized,  people would think they didn't spend enough time tuning. 

[pianistimo]

i tuned the piano to his satisfaction and he played it the rest of the night (half over here and half over there).  i thought that if he was going to avoid shaking my hand for awhile - i may as well get to the computer and finish my story on the adventures of the vegetable delivery man.  i made it a sort of self- revelatory story and included characters of all kinds of vegetables that reminded me of concert pianists.  busoni was broccoli and so forth.  the delivery man was actually the astral artist coordinator - but in a sort of 'super veggie' costume that was red and blue with astral stars on it and signatures of past steinway rosters that were so small that noone could really tell if the signature was real or not.  it made a good impression just to see the stars with keyboards around the outlines.

when hubby was finally exhausted - sensed a sort of unverbalized make-up for his outburst of anger - and allowed him to join me for an hours worth of tired handshaking.  we barely had the energy to let it come to fruition - but the pleasure was immense after all the shaking.  in fact, the neighbors said the next morning that they felt a sort of earthquake at 4 am.  they said it was puzzling, because nothing fell off the shelves - but  shaking, nonetheless.

we didn't admit to anything - lest the neighbors put two and two together and figure that we were already married.  usually, in communities of ours - only people of the same sex lived together.  it was stricktly forbidden to have children of your own.  they were usually given to you.  orphans of one sort or another.  but, i was tired of the biological clock ruining my figure.  i wanted to be fat like everyone else.  i couldn't get fat without getting pregnant- and i certainly couldn't get pregnant without a man - despite the .9999 percent chance that he was infertile.  but, it was unbenowst to me still.  i really thought that a man was fertile until he was unable to shake hands.  the fact that his fingers still had a manly grasp was proof enough for me.

[pianistimo]

not being used to activity at night and pure laziness during the day - i  put on my cup of administration issued coffee at 6 am and began to ponder what i would do with the following day alone.  perhaps i should tune pianos in my spare time.  what with all the spare time it looks like i'll be having.  i mean, if he's going to spend all night practicing - have 4 am handshakes - then i'll go to bed a ta reasonable hour (say 9pm) and listen for mistakes until 10 pm (occaisonally shouting out 'you missed a note.')  i'd be completely asleep by 11 pm and get a full 6 hours of random dreams about someone asking me to tune their bosendorfer. 

that was my dream.  because...because there were no pianos - in actuality to tune around here.  they were all figments of my imagination.  i went back to the computer to finish my astral arts adventure - with the vegetable artists.  i took several more calma pills because of my increased frustration over not getting enough handshakes during the day.  i even thought about my chanced for divorce.  but, i decided to make it work.  i'd stay busy and surprise my husband by gluing the piano back together with this glue i'd learned how to make from flour and water.  it was rationed out  - but i usually never used it due to intolerance to wheat products.  (this was from years of gene mutations that my parents caused from eating organic food - and then the sudden shift in my generation to coke and sugary cereals). 

[pianistimo]

but, randomly that was a guess, since i neither knew my parents or had any recollection of eating anything organic. 

the thought had crossed my mind about again looking for the lady with the clipboard.  wouldn't she be surprised that i had foiled her two attempts to ruin my piano.  perhaps she was jealous.  maybe she wanted a piano of her own and tried to ruin the prospect of instrument ownership for others because of it.  i think it likely. 

for some reason, i wanted to take one more look at the bags under my hsubands eyes before i went off to scour the city for thrify items such as paper clips (which would make my new husband ever so happy) to hold music pages and possibly barter my shoes (which seemed quite unnecessary at this point - if i was to get enough handshakes) for some more jazz arrangments of my husbands favorite composers.  they all had really strange names - and had to be purchased in an underground warehouse - where old pianos could sometimes, but rarely be looked at.  i happened to know the best places to buy things from a few years of watching from binoculars inside closed tin foil covered apartment windows.  the tin foil was for reflecting sunlight.  it was the administrations way of making sure that people were too cold to play an instrument.  they didn't know about my husband being so hot blooded.

i shivered to think about how happy it would make him to see the piano back together and some jazz arrangements clipped to the pages that he wanted to stay open - so that he wouldn't have to keep using one hand to hold the page as he played.  of course, he didn't really need to look at the music - because once he 'scanned' the page - it was permanently in his memory.  a sort of memory bank of all the jazz tunes composed since tin pan alley started the whole thing.  actually, he also played ragtime quite well.  the maple leaf rag was becoming more and more intravenous.  i almost needed it as a sort of go to sleep - call.  i would allow him to miss notes in the bass if they sounded tinny enough. 

[pianistimo]

when i returned (clips in the pockets) i was pleasantly disturbed to find the young woman with the natty blue suit and glasses waiting by my door.  she matter of factly asked where i had been.  not wanting to be forced into a lie - i just maintained that i had been inspecting garbage and came back will a little feral treasure.  this seemed to please her as she always wanted to be a step or two ahead of me in class.  i allowed her to adjust her glasses with a feathery touch to her rim and forehead at the same time.  it was almost a pressure point touch.  she seemed to relieve her own headaches without calma pills this way (another indication she was 'better' than me).

i allowed her to come in again - on the one condition that she find me in need of another shot like the one she gave me last time.  but, she was so immediately stifled by surprise at seeing a piano rebuilt in less time than it normally took for her to make her rounds that she simply sat there immobile.  i had to blink my eyes a bunch of times - for her to notice that she was not even blinking herself.  she recomposed herself and suddenly admitted that she was a classical pianist.  i felt like i was suddenly becoming the psychiatrist and that if she really wanted help.  i needed to hold the clipboard.  it gave me a sense of knowing what to say.  i looked down and saw three words: 'don't allow music.'  realizing that this meant that i would be fined a huge amount of money - i misread it and said 'you are allowed to play whatever you want'  - in return for one of those shots when you leave.

thankfully, the shot put me out of my misery after listening to her picky phrasing of mozart.  it was like she was teasing mozart to pick nats out of his hair and eat them.  finally, after the shot - i was in a state of pleasant 'sight-reading' again.  it was in this state that i actually met the conductor (the computer) afterwards and realized that his name was italian - and that he quite possibly could have been related to ricardomuti in a previous googlized world.  that his teacher's teacher's teacher (hope that was the proper way to refer to more than one teacher) was a student of clara schumann's father  - who gave out conducting tempi for rach's concertos vicariously through the observed tempos that brahms used when sightreading beethoven symphonies at the piano.

i was so pleased again to be sightreading quickly and making no mistakes - that i made the mistake of waking my artist husband up and mentioning again that i had had a wonderful experience.  he yelled at me for not getting him an extra shot, too, and that now that he was up - it was pure torture to know that he would be needing some tendon regeneration pills from overpracticing the day before - and would have much preferred to do a sort of 'imaginary' practice on a roll up keyboard than on a real piano today.  i told him that i understood his feelings - but being the temperamental artist that he was - he accused me of causing the bags under his eyes to need surgery.  i told him that was ridiculous and that if he didn't start flossing his teeth - i'd never let him kiss my feet again.  after fighting for awhile - we made up with a 9 am handshake.  that left me feeling that possibly, just possibly there was a chance after all that i'd finally beat the biological clock.

but, my husband and i had no orphan to fill the void for the temporary time elapsing.  it made me sad to think that there would be noone to carry on the fine cocktail music at night - and silence during the day - if no pregnancy resulted.  also, i wished that i could see what characteristics that the child might have if it were truly the result of a handshake between a concert pianist and a piano tuner/journalist.  would the child begin to write music critiques at a young age without previously knowing his parents careers (since they were always kept secret?) ?

[pianistimo]

orphan annie began taking lessons with me on the days that her mother let her out of the house to spy on me.  in fact, on those days - i'd pretend to be disgruntled that she was knocking on the door - and slam the door on purpose after she entered the room.  this always seemed to satisfy the mother that her daughter might be bothering me.

then, we would open our 'bastien' pink books (i had kept from my great grandmother's collection) with all it's stars and fingering included.  in fact, on one piece - there was written 'good job , so and so' which is the only way i figured out what the first name of my grandmother was.  she had used this book so many years before...when people lived in a world of two parents and two incomes.  now, people had no parents and no incomes.  piano annie (as i now called her) was truly talented.  we were learning together, actually.  my only source of real income came from the beans that she deposited in my jar on the piano.  her .9999 - % not being noticed by the mother out of the tupperware holder.  tupperware was the only thing that people did not ration in 2080.  in fact, it seemed to have multiplied as people diminished.  tupperware was taking over.

[pianistimo]

for some reason, during the purge - tupperware parties were forgotten (seemingly).  it could have been that because only women were allowed places in government - they actually didn't 'forget' - but were simply trying to make inadequacies in the ratio of 'male' activities go up.  this left more time for handshakes.  they eliminated ball games, chess, monopoly, and martial arts.  people were allowed to go to the gym, but under the condition that they take a 'no sweat' pill.  if taken one hour before working out - all the sweat would bead in one large tear on a person's forehead.  it was wiped witha  towel and that was that.  no anti-perspirant seemed necessary after that invention.  they could have patented it as a shot of some kind - but considering the battery of shots that were necessary to go to school (a week's worth) - it seemed cruel to add another.

just to provide a little insight into the deterioration of the opportunities for males - thus the reason my friend had been wandering the streets unable to find a piano - i will mention the dismal situation of the public schools in passing.  it had gotten to the point that all the male teachers had been fired for accusations of basically anything that came to the young 5-16 year old girl's heads.  if they thought that something was inappropriately hard (in terms of homework) - they would tell the superintendant and then they would call the parents.  most parents, by the time they arrived at the school - were furious and brought shot guns (government issued ones - if they worked at a prison).  most of the male teachers had ended their careers running out the back door.

once on the streets (which were incomparably similar to london's) they looked for opportunities for career advancement but were lacking the necessary backing of the tax paying public (all women) and never got what they wanted in terms of jobs.  garbage truck driving and sewage management were about the only two fields that were wide open in terms of career advancement.  of course, certain males did not want to be narrowed down into such horrible choices and simply decided to apply for passports (which took up to five years to get).  they all wanted to move to london - which seems odd now that i think about it.  it was because 80 years earlier - london was a place where men were more in command int he government.  the 'common's' only allowed women to speak, back then, if they interjected something unexpectedly.  otherwise, they were outshouted and pushed sideways in their seats when about to speak.  in fact, many women in the government simply quit saying anything 80 years ago and controlled what happened simply through offerring sex at inopportune times.  this was not biblically sound - and caused the government to fall apart at the knees.  thus, the rise of women.

[pianistimo]

the real appeal of london was the slight chance that they could be frisked in heathrow.  men were tired of the controls that women had put upon what could and couldn't be done.  all the magazines and books that men normally liked to read had been put under a ban and they were forced to find something better to do with their time.  it was about the only thing that was morally backed by biblical principles.  of course, because religion was no longer a freedom but a foundation for starting wars - women used it to their advantage.  if they wanted to fight with the men - they'd bring out the bible and show them the verse and scripture about not looking ata woman with lust.  this proved detrimental in the end to unbridled passion - but all the spanish channels were already eliminated from tv by this point and so their knowledge was going back to the dark ages on how to even find a woman's passion points.  women tried to re-teach them by writing laws about kissing a woman only on the hand or feet gently.  most men dismissed this as a sort of heresy and refused to kiss entirely.  preferring instead to shave their heads or grow their hair - whichever worked out.

[pianistimo]

women sort of retaliated by gravitating to play the organ (the only instrument allowed because it was a church related instrument) in large numbers.  they learned how to do the 'family' and 'mixture' combination of stops and often just learned to let the instrument blow itself loudly.  the sounds that used to come out of the church windows caused even bats to fly straight for quick exits.  it wasn't really much of a problem, though, because in the evening there were organ classes.  women flocked to learn about the 'heel, toe' pedalling as it ended up being a substitution for ballroom dancing.  the men, by this time, had given up on anything women wanted and were sort of sulking and skulking all the time.  the only real pleasure men had in this society was to live on the east side (where all the poor housing was) and thus use the train tracks as a sort of noise factor to keep women from bothering them with church organ music. 

[ahinton]

I shrugged and gestured for Dr Walker to come in. She entered and sat primly down on the chair near my desk. She put the blue clipboard on her lap...TO BE CONTINUED...

Now look what you've started!...

Best,

Alistair

[pianistimo]

no...alistair...it was the vast horizon after the shot - that was the last brief moment.  now, why does this lady with the clipboard intrigue you so much? 

[ahinton]

no...alistair...it was the vast horizon after the shot - that was the last brief moment.  now, why does this lady with the clipboard intrigue you so much? 

Er - pass. I don't understand the question...

Best,

Alistair

[ada]

CONTINUED....

The vastness collapsed in on itself, leaving me in a black hole that branched out to days and nights of corridors and tunnels and Escher-like staircases leading to nowhere.

I was in a place of metal and concrete. I has sense of passing through endless rooms, of pain and interrogations.

I forgot I had ever lived in an apartment in Tower Town. I forgot about the Takeover and what had been there before.

Dr Walker passed in and out of my consciousness, with her eager smile, her clipboard, her Rorshach tests.

There were other faces too, but they didn't make sense. The woman who once had a little girl with red hair, the man with one leg.

There was only one face I searched for, but couldn't find him, although sometimes I thought I heard soft piano music, but I could have been dreaming.

In the place where I was, it was hard to tell.


TO BE CONTINUED

[ada]

And then I was back in my apartment, looking across the piano and out of the window.

Nothing had changed, except that the bastards had taken my face.

I wouldn't have noticed if hadn't caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the wall. There was nothing there, just a blank, smooth expanse of skin where my face used to be.

I didn't know how that could be, because I could see and I could breathe. I could even talk.

I scrutinised myself from various angles, but there was nothing. I had a face like a showroom dummy, or one of those wooden artists' figurines that you can manipulate into different positions.

I touched it and felt nothing but skin.

I didn't quite know what to do.

Then the sound of someone playing the piano. My piano, as I had come to accept it.

In the mirror, over my shoulder, I saw him again. The man who wouldn't tell me his name. His body moved up and down the keyboards with his hands.

He made furious, dissonant sounds.

"Hey,"I said. "Hey, stop".

He stopped and waited for an instant before turning around to show me his smooth, blank face.

I felt that he was looking at me but how can you look at someone when you haven't got eyes?

He turned back to the piano and continued playing.

I moved over to him and sat on the ground by the piano, listening, wondering what happened now.

THE END