MR. LARSON'S PIANO

TEN

Three nights later, I lay dreaming of being lost in a dark forest. The moon above was shooting an ethereal light through the branches of the trees and illuminating the low-lying fog in a ghostly luminescence. I was nearly stalking through the woods around me, panic setting in realizing that not only did I not know where I was, I had no clue how I had gotten here. My bare feet were cold against the forest floor and there was pain a few times as the underbrush poked green needles into the skin around my ankles and between my toes. A twig snapped underfoot and sent a bolt of electric chill up my spine.

"Hello!" I called out into the darkness, but there was no response.

I kept moving forward. I had always heard that if you ever found yourself lost in the woods, your best options were to either stay still until someone finds you, or if you must move, go in a straight line to keep from accidentally walking in circles and hopefully find yourself coming to a road or maybe even the end of the forest.

Since I didn't know where I was or how I had gotten there, I didn't think anyone else would know where I was either, so I walked straight ahead. Every few moments I would call out, but each time would garner the same result-silence. I glanced from left to right, hoping to see the lights of a house through the trees, but past the glow of the moonlight there was nothing but blackness. God only knew what kind of creatures lurked in that blackness.

Were they watching me?

Waiting for me with drool falling from starved mouths?

Each step forward seemed to take me onward and nowhere at the same time. I started convincing myself that maybe this forest never ended, that I could walk for a thousand miles in any direction and still not be any closer to an end than I was before. It was as if the forest floor were one big, monstrous treadmill, or even a mouse-wheel, and I was the mouse.

My feet were hurting, my legs were aching, and my breathing was labored not only from walking, but from fear. How exactly had I gotten here anyway? I couldn't remember. I didn't know. And where was I even going? Again, I couldn't remember, and I didn't know.

Suddenly, the sound of music from the sky. I stopped dead in my tracks and instinctively turned my face toward the heavens. My heart shot into my throat.

DA-da-da-DA-da-da,

DA-da-da-DA-da-da.

It was him.

Somehow, I knew it. I didn't know how I knew it; I just knew it. It came to me like intuition. Maybe it was more like premonition, as if he had telepathically shot his identity into my mind. That sound-the smooth caresses of soft, milky piano notes floating and coating my very existence...

DA-da-da-DA-da-da,

DA-da-da-DA-da-da.

"Harold!" I cried out. "Harold, what are you doing?"

The music stopped.

The seconds morphed into pieces of forever that can only truly be understood by those who can grasp the concept of an eternity where there is no time, just like this forest had no end. My consciousness froze in that moment. It could've been five seconds; it could've been five years. Truth be told, I don't remember how long I stood there dead still and dead silent.

A light to my left immediately caused me to turn my head in its direction. It pierced the darkness like a blade.

I saw him.

No more than a hundred yards away.

I broke my stance and began running toward him at full sprint, completely ignoring the pricks and scratching of the twigs and underbrush under my feet.

"Harold!" I called out to him again.

The light that I was chasing had now taken the form of a man standing unmoving, as if awaiting my arrival. My heart pounded in my chest. My breath was coming in and releasing in sharp gasps. Finally, I reached him and simply stopped.

The light that surrounded him seemed to be emanating from within. He didn't move, and I dared not come any closer. It was as if he was an awesome thing that's brilliance might set my flesh ablaze if I drew too close. I stood there with him, again feeling that sensation of being lost in a forever of eternities. Were I not convinced that I was somehow outside of time, I might have feared that I would stand there long enough for my hair to grow gray and my bones contract into the frame of old age.

"Why am I here, Harold?" I asked.

No response.

"Did you bring me here?"

Again, no response.

I then asked him a question I already knew the answer to but spoke anyway. "Are you the one that's been playing the piano?"

The light formation that I knew was Harold Larson only stood there.

"You've been scaring my family," I said. At that I noticed his light flickered. At least it was some sort of response. I reacted to it to see if it would happen again.

"My daughter is terrified of you."

Two flickers this time. And was the light losing some of its brilliance?

"Why are you here?" I nearly shouted. "What do you want from us?"

No flicker that time. Silence.

Two eternities passed, maybe three.

The sounds of the piano notes blasted through the air again so suddenly I nearly jumped out of my skin. They were blaring from the sky, through the trees, surrounding me and penetrating the very fibers of my being.

"Harold!" I screamed at him, though it was barely audible through the insane volume of the music around us. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!?"

I felt a hand grasp my left forearm so tightly there was pain. I shot a glance down at my arm expecting to see Harold somehow grabbing me, but it wasn't a man's hand that was there, but my wife's.

With a jump, my eyes shot open to the darkness of my bedroom. It took less than two seconds for me to realize the forest and the light-form of Harold Larson had only been a dream. But the hand around my forearm was still there, and it was very real. The sound of music had also crossed over with me and was the reason my wife now had my arm in such a deathgrip that it felt she might draw blood at any moment.

"Do you hear that?" she whispered shakily in my ear. "The piano...

"That fucking piano is playing by itself again."