Conversations with a Phantom Piano
Spring 2023Anya sits on the piano bench. There was no piano, but she runs her fingers along imaginary keys anyways. There are broken skylight windows above her, and from them, light shoots down white and harsh, making a splintery mess. Her fingers dance and she sways a little with them, her knuckles coming in and out of the skylight’s illumination. She isn’t pressing the keys — she is swimming through them, as if ripping the instrument apart to make a new kind of music.
It is a warm day. Small birds peck at the grass growing where the walls meet the earth. The space had lost its interior timbre, all of the ghosts having escaped through the cracks of the concrete walls. It used to be a high school cafeteria, back before schools integrated. This was the colored school that got shut down. Now, forest sounds permeate the air. Things have settled for the last time. Anya settles too, her piece over. She can hear the Huntingdon kids creeping in, wearing their dress pants and plaid skirts, white button downs ironed by their grandmas and nannies. She moves to a corner obscured by tall rusty carts that would make a lot of sound if knocked over.
“This is our kingdom,” the girl with the short hair says. Anya knows that her name is Heather Smith. She can see her shuffling around the rubble along with the other two kids, a bunch of dandelions limp in her coat pocket.
“Are you the king? Are we your subjects?” asks the tall boy — Rory. He was probably the one who picked the dandelions.
Heather reaches out her hand. Her slender arm makes the perfect line from her shoulder to her fingertips. Rory bends down, smelling her skin; he kisses her hand. Anya cannot imagine being touched in such an open way.
Dash, the short boy, his name short for Richard Dashner, shakes his head to himself. “Rory be careful, I swear if she tells you to jump off a bridge all you’ll do is ask how high.”
Heather snorts. Rory is unfazed. “That’s so silly Dash, I wouldn’t ask questions. I’d just jump.”
Dash shakes his head in disbelief. They sit on the ground, Heather and Rory back to back, reading two copies of the same book. Anya likes the sliver of space between their lower part of their backs, light streaming through them and around them. She thinks they look like a pair of wings. Dash lays out flat beside Rory with his own book lying face down between pages on his chest. He lights a cigarette and starts sucking it. Anya watches the puffs of grey escape his mouth, irregular shapes that expand until they disappear. She knows, that even watching him from a distance, she could watch his mouth moving forever, lopsided, like he was hiding something in its asymmetry.
“What are you reading?” asked Heather suddenly. Rory looks inquisitively at his book which was the same as hers, but then realizes the question was directed at Dash. Dash takes a second to realize this too. He turns his head up to the side.
“Crime and Punishment,” he says.
“Thinking about murdering anybody recently and then embarking a quest of moral quandary?” says Heather
“Ha! Why would I kill anyone? There’s no need,” replies Dash.
“Well that’s only if you get caught. Doesn’t the guy in the book never get caught?” asks Rory.
“To be simply put, I don’t think I’d pull it off,” says Dash. “Also, he totally gets caught. I’m at that part now.”
“I think someone pulled it off quite recently,” says Rory.
His words hit Dash’s brows. Anya sees every tendon in his body tighten.
“That girl with the glasses. Some unique trailer trash,” continues Rory. “Can’t even drive.”
“I don’t know what Dr. Palmer saw in her, letting her come to Huntingdon. I’ll admit, she can play the piano … but nobody knew what was going on in that big head of hers,” says Heather.
Dash stays quiet but exaggeratedly opens his book, obscuring his face from Anya — the world. He begins reading and and the three are submerged up to their shoulders in silence.
The ground Anya sits on is damp. She can feel the water going through her jeans, her underwear. But she likes the coolness in the dark corner, seeming to have been there for ages. It felt safe. Anya scoots against the wall, feels the dampness spread across her shoulder blades. She closes her eyes.
What piece were you playing?
Nothing in particular.
What was the song?
There wasn’t a song. It was just me pretending to play the piano.
But I could really feel it, you know? Like there were vibrations you were putting out.
Thanks.
You should teach someone.
I did. Why are you asking me this?
Because I think it would help me understand what you were playing, the reason why I exist.
You don’t exist. I was just waving my hands around.
You said you were pretending to play the piano. I am the piano. Albeit a pretend piano. Did they quit?
What?
The person you taught.
Not by choice.
Does it have something to do with the kids over there?
Yes… obliquely. Not really. Only Dash.
You were what they were talking about.
Maybe…
What happened?
Sometimes you don’t even know you’ve memorized a piece and then you go somewhere without the sheet music and you stumble upon a piano and you just start playing and it’s, it’s, it’s…
Muscle memory?
Yeah, but it scares me.
What?
How the body remembers. I haven’t touched an actual piano since.
Ha! An actual piano! That hurts!
You’re not even real.
Hmph…
…What does your body remember?
My eyes, they remember how they were pierced as I exited the dimly lit store and out into the parking lot. I could feel the heat from the pavement through my sandals as I padded to my car. My lips still wet from kissing. I remember the metal of my car door stinging my skin. My nose remembers the smell of piss. I can feel him between my arms, his skin lifeless in dead air.
And he was the one you taught to play?
Yes.
Was he good?
He was ok, he always asked me for skittles after our lesson. He had a raspy little voice. He liked scales, hated chords. His hands were too small.
So he died.
Yes, but that was not the worst part.
How could it get any worse that that?
Things always get worse. Especially when you think you hit rock bottom.
But how do you get to ‘rock bottom’? Do you fall, do you lower yourself gently?
Maybe. It’s interesting that you say “lower yourself”. I thought it wasn’t something you can get to yourself, but a combination of external factors. But I think it is very possible to self-inflict. So you know the concept of up and down?
Yes. Up is silence, down is the opposite of that. Down is melodic. Down is pressure — presence, solid.
Then imagine rock bottom as infinite sound, like that siren that rang after the worst finally happened, the siren that would stay in my ears the days after. It’s so solid it’s like a giant finger pressing on your chest.
Anya. We must start at the beginning, the bottom is where the answers are. But I do not know the questions.
Yes, we must start at the beginning.
The answers are infinite, but they converge at the question, at the beginning. Yes, let’s go there, to the beginning.
I no longer think about the beginning, because it makes me feel the passing seconds so much more. I am hurting every second. I am being dug into. I will not be forgiven.
what is it to be forgiven?
It’s when you tell someone that wronged you that you have processed it and that you accept them as a person.
So they can’t accept you. You feel like you’ve been exiled.
I think they don’t want to process it either. It’s beyond the realm of things they want to deal with. They have other things to worry about.
Like what?
Cruises. Business deals. Their pet tigers. The kids are now thinking about prom. What dress to wear. The girls with curly hair want their hair straightened, the girls with straight hair want their hair curled.
I still don’t understand.
What?
Why do you need to be forgiven?
Because I can’t go on feeling like I owe those people, who I already owed so much to, I am knee deep in indebtedness. I can’t believe the moral superiority that boiled underneath my skin, when I have done an irrevocable act. And they don’t even know the truth.
This must have something to do with the song you’ve been playing.
Maybe.
I need to know the song.
Ok. The beginning?
Yes, Anya. Let’s start there.
I guess it would have to start with Dr. Palmer. He approached me after my first recital when we got to Georgia, he said I should apply to Huntingdon. That I was too good for public school. His hair was oiled and he smelled like pine trees. He told me and my mom that he thought I was an angel and that he actually liked my hair.
“It’s so black and shiny?!” he had noted.
My mom was so relieved someone wanted to talk to us, she may have nodded too vigorously. I noticed that he was annoyed with her, her eagerness. I secretly laughed at her in my head too because I hated how she wanted to be a part of something so badly. Like our family wasn’t enough for her, she had to be in a continuous state of expansion. She consumed so much, she kept up with everything — the latest fashion, beauty products, omega-3 supplements, after school programs for gifted kids. My mom is the kind of mom that spent a whole day cleaning when she heard guests were coming over. I thought it was stupid. No matter how much you clean a trailer you’re still in a trailer. She would sit on the sofa across from the keyboard when I played and take notes. And then she would make me play in front of her friends. She felt entitled to it, my talent. A flick of her wrist pulled me out of whatever I was doing and onto the piano bench.
But you like playing piano, no?
Yes.
So it’s thanks to her.
Well, not for a while. For a while I hated it. But I guess if we’re talking about beginnings she is the start of everything. My life. My pain. My love.
So that is what I am made of, your pain and love. Tell me about Dash.
Nobody talked to me at Huntingdon about anything other than me performing at their aunt’s wedding or how good I was at playing piano. But the first time I met Dash he told me my glasses were crooked.
Were they?
Yes. He’s very honest.
Do you find honesty important?
I don’t know. I don’t think my mom strived for me to have an honest personality. I’ve been building something inside me.
What have you been building?
This wall, I can’t be myself no matter how hard I try. I am either on the wall looking down at people, or I’m down below with this insurmountable thing before me. No matter how hard I try I am falling from the top but simultaneously stuck at the bottom. Condescending yet immobile.
What does Dash have to do with this?
I was answering your question about honesty.
But this isn’t about that either, is it?
Yeah isn’t that what life is? Extrapolating meaning from meaninglessness. If you do it too much it hurts.
Extrapolate it.
What?
What does Dash have to do with the wall?
He was like a gate. I could go through the wall if I was with him. He lent me books. He would kiss me on the cheek. In a soft kind of way.
But?
But…but he only kissed me in the one corner of the library that no one could see. He didn’t let me talk to Rory or Heather. I was like his…
His pet?
Well, that’s an exaggeration. The problem was probably just that I thought about him too much.
Anya, you’re not making sense. How do we get to the car and the piss?
Dash let me borrow his camera, for an art project. I decided that I would go around the rich suburban homes and take pictures of them. I was a fan of bird baths and garden gnomes.
I had been staying up pretty late. I was memorizing so many pieces at that time. I was a walking gramophone. I knew all the cheesy wedding pieces, like Canon in D. I could play that one in my sleep. There was also the kid I was teaching piano to at that time. Louis. He had fat cheeks, cherub-like. His pale face was always slightly flushed, either from running outside or from napping way too long. His mom treated him like a teddy bear, her tight embrace following him wherever he went. She was the President of the Garden Bookclub, and my mom delegated me with the task of teaching Louis piano with the hope that she would eventually be invited to join the ensemble of rich housewives.
Was she?
No. I don’t think they even talk to her anymore, not after what happened.
It was the Sunday before the week the project was due, and I headed out early to take the pictures.
The trailer was quiet. It was a long box with linoleum surfaces and uneven floors. But the floors were always clean. I like walking barefoot on them, feeling the protrusions and divots beneath me. Dawn crept in through the plastic blinders and spilled onto the surfaces, drawing yellow hemispheres over the countertops. I grabbed the camera and took the car. I thought I would be back by noon so my mother wouldn’t notice.
The first house I went to was modern and painted black. It had blue shutters and abstract statues that looked like ginormous columns of seaweed. I could see a young family through the crystal clear window, toys spilled over a carpeted floor, a woman dressed her Sunday best. I snapped a picture and moved on.
I kept walking down the street, some houses were more traditional looking, stone walls and castle-like. I come across this green house shrouded by trees. I notice the outline of what seemed to be a giant bird between the crossing branches. I wanted to get a closer look so I walked along the white fence on the edge of the yard. I knew I was trespassing, but I thought that whoever lived there might be already at church, so there was no harm. I would just get the picture and go.
But then I saw. It was the Huntingdon kids. Rory and Heather and some other people I didn’t know but would snicker at me in the hallways. They were surrounded by beasts. That huge bird, rainbow and magnificent. Tigers, zebras, peacocks. The animals seemed subdued, completely tame, while the kids pulled at their fur and ears, little gods in a garden of eden. Some music was playing in the background, faint but pulsing; and the flora matched the fauna with its vigor and exoticism. Fans of green, blossoms of pink, primordial vines, all draped on the big chestnut trees over a perfectly kept lawn. It didn’t smell like animals, instead, an intoxicating fragrance permeated the air.
I looked at their tea cups. And I swear—
What?
There were bones in them. Small bones.
I stood there, feeling like the dumbest person in the world, and then I snapped a picture. Right then, Anya must have noticed me because I remember her raising her perfect hand, admonishing me. I felt a crackling in my temples and I turned and ran. I ran faster than I have ever run in my life. I knew something bad was about to happen.
I got into my car and hit the gas. I drove straight to Louis’ house. I knew that sometimes his mom would let him sleep in while she went to church. I knocked on the door, he opened it after peeping through the window.
“Hi Anya!” he squealed, clearly awake.
“I’m gonna take you somewhere fun!” I said, scooping him up in my arms.
We got to the store, the one that offered to print pictures. I wanted to print the picture immediately. I did not know what I would do with it, but I knew it would give me something those kids already had. But when I entered the store, Dash was already there.
“Anya, give me the camera.”
“No, the project’s due in two days, let me print the pictures.”
Dash gave me a long look. “They told me you trespassed.”
“Just let me print the pictures.”
“I can’t let you do that Anya.”
“I love you.”
He grabbed my arm and took the camera from me. I thought about Louis in my car, the skittles I gave him probably smeared and melting over his cute little face. I kissed Dash right then. I moved my hand under his shirt, felt his chest. I thought about my mother, what she wanted, and then I knew I had to destroy it. We stayed there for a small eternity, making sketches of each other with our hands, tracing the edges of our backs.
Finally, I looked up at him.
“I like how your eyes look,” he said, no. He whispered it. “Bewitching.”
That’s when I shoved him. I shoved him so hard I heard him cry out in pain. I grabbed the camera.
And then that’s when you stepped outside and the hotness hit, and Louis was gone?
Yes. I just got in the car anyways. I just drove. I refused to look at the backseat, where Louis was slumped over. I didn’t know where to go. I just kept driving. I couldn’t stop. I broke out of my trance when I saw Dash driving behind me. Then I started noticing two other cars I had seen in the school parking lot before.
And then?
And then…
There was the crash, wasn’t there? And then… Louis
gone.
The car
gone.
The camera
gone.
So I went to the beginning, and I’ve reached the crash
Is that it? Is that the end of the story?
Maybe, maybe not. I guess that is why I am here. I have to decide, is this the end for me?
What was the song I was playing?
A song for your mother, for Dash. The things you can’t say. A song that isn’t finished.
I thought you were here to find out why you exist.
Anya — I’m the part of you that makes up a sad talking piano because you are all alone. The part of you that keeps on making melodies even though you haven’t seen sheet music in a month. The part of you that wonders why you had to pick up Louis. The part of you that understands why you did anyways. He was your backup plan. But you go on, you pick up your things and you run. From the perfect lawns and neat hedges, with a camera in your hand. With pictures of things you can’t explain but know too well. What will I do now?
Anya stands. Her shirt is drenched. She knocks down the cart of trays, they make a sound that thunders against the walls and rattles the earth.
“What the fuck?” Rory says peering up from his book. Dash looks straight at Anya, eyes wide.
“Wait is that?” Heather turns too. Her pale eyes adjust to the dark corner. “It’s that cunt.”
Anya walks over, she raises two fingers to her eyes, she turns them and draws a line from herself to them. An invisible line, as fantastical and solid as her phantom piano.