The Pianist

He played the piano. All day in his home near the town square, people could hear the faint melody of the keys. But at night, when the town was blanketed by the navy velvet sky, the notes carried through the air effortlessly, calming even the angriest of men and lulling the minds of the ferocious dogs that barked for hours on end. Babes needed not the soft tunes of their mothers' lips to carry them into the land of sleep, for he who played the piano had taken that shift upon himself.

And tonight, the babes were hushed into peaceful slumber, mothers silently grateful for the sweet reprieve. Men wallowing in the taverns had come to stand beneath the full moon, regardless of the heavy downpour. Many ears were deaf of all save for the slow and graceful melody that seemed to come from everywhere at once, almost a second blanket to the town underneath the midnight quilt pierced with tiny diamonds.

High above the town, atop his home, he played. Face upturned and eyes squeezed shut, he let his fingers wander about the black and white keys, lips slightly parted to taste the salty nectar of the skies. His shoulders shook, face pinched not by the discomfort of the hard rain on him, but by the overwhelming urge to do more than just play. He let the notes wind through the raindrops, the tears of the angels slowing bit by bit.

Tight eyelids parted, blue pools glistening with unshed tears that comouflaged with the raindrops on his face made pale by the milky moonlight. He gasped, breath hitching as sound tried to force it's way through his disabled throat, snake-bitten by the casualties of life, yet it yielded only to his ears the sick sound of speechlessness. And beyond the twinkling stars, one fell from the sky; a loss of a soul and the gain of something greater. And as the star took its fall, a tear fled from his right eye.

He sang.