The Musicality of Madness

 


No longer straight standing, the not-quite-upright piano slants forward. It’s old, out of tune; it no longer shows evidence of its pedigree brand; its wood is dull and split. 

     “It’s sad,” Emily says in a melancholy tone upon striking a chord—so unintentionally dissonant—the sound floats low to the ground, its sharps and flats like black talons scraping the floor boards. 

     Emily doesn’t quite know what draws her to the instrument. She verifies the price with the antique-store owner. 

     “I’ll take it,” she affirms. 

     Still, Emily remains unaware of the faint, chalked pentagram on its back.  

Keith Hoerner (BS, MFA) lives, teaches, and pushes words around in Southern Illinois. He is no stranger to literary publications, and his memoir, The Day The Sky Broke Open, just published with Adelaide Books, NY/ Lisbon. Look for it on Amazon. 





Comments

  1. Bill6 June 2021 at 15:54

    Nice little compact piece. Good ending, which is so lacking in most stories today...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

40 Units

  “ You take forever to order just like with everything else, you haven’t changed at all have you?” A familiar voice with an unfamiliar face calls from behind. A long-lost friend welcomes unfamiliar emotions. We stare at each other in silence because I don't want to have small talk. I know her life ain’t easy, and at the same time, I still fall into the same small talk I desperately want to avoid. Cause just looking at her I know it’s not easy. Taking care of four kids by herself while working at Church's chicken ain’t nothing to even smile about. But I still ask her “How's everything” because I have no clue what else I should say to you. I want to make a joke, cause you know me as a class clown but life is no joke, and I know that better than anyone. Life's not fair in the slightest and I’ve always known that from being in foster care. Yet even I didn’t think life could be so cruel to just steal Rufina’s life from her. You tell me about how tough things ha...
Read more

Childcare

Image
Originally published in https://fiftywordstories.com/2023/12/27/derek-mcmillan-childcare/ Tom was a very badly behaved lad. Dick was frankly a demon. Their parents were careful to keep quiet when they were in the cradle. Harry’s parents were forever playing their Rod Stewart records. He was a very well-balanced child. Perhaps if you spare the Rod you spoil the child. Derek McMillan is a writer in Durringon in the UK. His editor is his wife, Angela. He has written for print and online publications in the UK, USA and Canada. His latest work is the cheerfully- entitled audio-book "Murder from Beyond the Grave" which is available on eBay. Check it out. Click Here
Read more

Demons

Image
Demons cannot do harm in real life. In dreams and reveries? Untold damage. People in the village were saying that the girl I met on the common was a demon. They seemed pretty certain about it too. This was ridiculous. Erica had long blonde hair and blue eyes. In those days all demons were foreigners and she did not look like a foreigner. Even so, I got her to swear blind that she was not a demon. "Do I look like a demon?" "No." "Well then." "So you're not?" "No, Tony, I am not a demon. I could swear on a Bible." She did and the Bible did not burst into flames either. The village was Sodbury but Erica actually came from Nether Sodbury which was a twenty minute walk away. Nobody in Sodbury ever went there. To say that Erica haunted my dreams would make her sound sinister. Let's just say that I haunted my own dreams with images of Erica. My family would not countenance a marria...
Read more