WH Barnes Ltd Vinyl Records. 1955. UK.

I’m linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and everyone is invited to write a story or poem constructed of six sentences, and six sentences only, based on a cue word given. This week’s cue word is Safety.

The Duet at the End of the World 

It was said that each evening at seven, the sound of the boy’s piano would chime from the window where he sat and played, his notes flitting about the apartments and balconies like fluttering butterflies, damselfly chords and dragonfly harmonies beating wings above rooftops and chimneys to the inevitable dusk, and the saddening of yet another thieving night.

Lo, the residents, in fear of their number – they claimed safety in the boy’s music, wore his tempos and flourishes as suits of armour against the marauding dark; his soothing renditions of Rachmaninov, Satie, Chopin, Beethoven – they placed these compositions to their hearts like a sonic crucifix to ward off the night.

The residents, ever dwindling in number – would catch their breath at the boy’s bombastic offerings of Gershwin, Joplin, Horace Silver and Thelonious Monk – once, Queen: But I’m just a poor boy and nobody loves me (He’s just a poor boy from a poor family, spare him his life from this monstrosity).

Hark, the residents, huddled in their cubes of isolation – did listen to the night come rapping at their windows with slimy fingers and hacking lungs, while the boy played on: ‘twas Holst, Mars, Bringer of War.

And it was said, as the gathering night claimed its last souls, that the boy struck notes upon his piano sweeter than a whispering call to Heaven’s gate, and that he played until midnight, and only stopped when there was no more audience to hear his song.

And then, one evening, lo, when all was silent and the night had grown old and weary and relinquished its sting, the boy played a song by Elton John… which was magically claimed by a girl’s voice, lyrics poured loud from her balcony below the boy’s window, a magenta feather boa waving to the night as she sang, she sang, she sang, she sang: I’m still standing, yeah, yeah, yeah…

Corgi audio range. 1980.

Play this one fkn loud!! \m/