It took about twenty years for anyone to realize the connection between the tragic organ player and the disappearing townsfolk. Not many spoke of their desire to find the player, as it was such an odd thing to announce. But there were those over the years that did so: those in the last part of their youth, right before they were expected to take on a job and support a family; or businessmen who wished to fill their pockets with cash and art; or the bittered elderly who simply wanted the music to stop. They would announce their interest or disgust in the tragic organ player, and by the next Monday, they were gone.
"He's a murderer!" was the story told to children to keep them away. "He'll make keys from your bones and its strings from your tendons!"
Every adult repeated this story, terrified of losing their child to the tragic organ player. The irony and deeper mystery, however, was that the children didn't hear the music at all.
"Enough of your lies," their parents would say. "Of course you hear the music. Everyone does."
But the children were telling the truth. The melody never hit the ears of the children in town. It was only until they became adults that they suddenly heard it. And there was not a single theory about why this was, so it was decided that the only logical explanation was black magic. So the tragic organ player went from murderer to witch, which to the townsfolk were one and the same.
But now Timothy had begun to hear the music.
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The Tragic Organ Player (Short Story)
Misteri / Thriller"A man's soul can shift into all kinds of animals; into beings he never knew existed." A melancholy organ melody had echoed through Broadway Avenue every Sunday night for more than one hundred years... Short story by Deidrea DeWitt (C) 2023
