Short Stories

(Short) Creative Writing - The Soldier and the Piano

Private Averin had walked the forest floor so long he could feel his toes curl around the branches as the moisture from the floor flooded his boots. The ground looked like an overtrodden football pitch, whatever had resembled healthy green grass before had been replaced by various splotchy patches of mud, from the wet brown on the surface to the blackish soil that had been brought up from below.

His mustard coloured uniform had been sprayed so continuously by earth that it had retained little of its colour, the yellowish grey showed simply just how much wear and tear it had received. The Private was just relieved that whatever downpour that had eradicated the soil, had already fell upon the dead wood around him.

Reaching a clearing, Private Averin stood to gaze at the murky sky, that too had been made off-white by the dirt in the air. The wind was bitter on his damp apparel and he shivered as it nibbled and clung to his skin. The forest was lonely, devoid of sound except the cracking of withering branches, fighting to remain whole in the blusters of wind that swept through the leafless canopy.

Stepping further into the swampy ground—his boots simultaneously swimming and drowning—the Private found an abandoned piano, standing in the middle of the forest like it had come to greet him on his journey. He approached the weakened piano cautiously; its wood being welcoming and a shade of brown that he had yet to see stain himself.

Putting his rifle over his shoulder, his trembling red fingers carefully gripped the cover to reveal a clean set of keys, complete and finished in every way. As he tainted the white with mud, the piano sung back to him as he pressed gently down on the keys. The sweet hum of the instrument sucked the sounds of war from his memory and remined him of home, the song of his wife's voice and the high pitched squeal of his daughter's laughter when his hands encouraged his own piano back home.

Averin lost himself in the familiar sound as it rang out through the stillness in the air. It was another bliss to feel accompanied again in the earthen labyrinth of bark and marsh and he found himself finally smiling for the first time in weeks.

Pressing the final note of his favourite tune, the air became silent again. The wind howling was his applause, the distant tweeting of birds the commentary in between. Nobody asked him for an encore, for his quick hands to play so expertly along the traditional instrument. The isolation of an absent audience filled the space around him, entirely freezing his expression as a cold frown appeared from his chewed lips.

He loitered shortly before forcing himself to carry on forwards, hoping that if he saw the end of the war he would play to his family, sing to the piano as it had to him, and feel surrounded by their warmth once more.