Solace: A Haunting Story - a photo on Flickriver

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr2n2PnaC2Y

I paused at the end of the alley, careful to stay in the shadows, and looked nervously up and down the trash- and rubble-strewn street. The decaying, burned-out buildings cast long, ominous shadows across the remnants of a few demolished, rusted-out cars. I didn't see anyone, but that didn't mean there was no one there. Waiting. Watching. Someone who would shoot you down the moment you came in view. You never could be completely sure.

I tightly gripped the wooden stock of the old hunting rifle I stole a few months ago and moved out of the alley. Looking furtively about as I made my way down the street, I stayed close to the buildings. Broken glass and bits of crumbled brick crunched under my feet, and my nervousness magnified the sound in my mind. I was certain it would give me away.

Looking through the hole of what once was a large storefront window, I saw debris-covered washers, dryers, and refrigerators all pushed over on their sides and battered into uselessness. They were too big for looters in whichever riot-of-the-week hit this place to carry off, so the people just took out their rage by bludgeoning the appliances to death. The walls of the store were scarred with holes, and what was left of light fixtures dangled from the ceilings. No one bothered to steal the wiring because attacks on electrical substations had left this area without power and it was never restored. I had never been in this town before, but I knew that was what happened. It was the same in a lot of other towns since the shooting started.

The paramilitary groups of paunchy, bearded, middle-aged men who liked to play soldier flattered themselves by calling it a civil war so they could pretend to be patriotic warriors. What it really was was an endless cycle of mass murders. At first, self-righteous and intolerant people banded against others who didn't fit what they wanted the country to look like. It was us against them. Eventually, who was us and who was them didn't matter anymore. Everyone just became them. People fled their homes, trying to find places where they could feel safe. Sections of towns and cities were barricaded against everyone who wasn't already in them, turning whole city blocks into fortresses.

They didn't really think that one through. In their haste to be safe from rampaging guerilla bands, they forgot a few minor matters -- like where the food and water would come from. This created a thriving black market, and the paramilitary groups quickly realized providing protection for pay was a lucrative endeavor. The fortresses became ghetto prisons for the people who took refuge behind the barricades. Conditions became unhealthy and disease began to spread.

So one night, I stole some black-market military rations and two boxes of ammunition for the old rifle I took, and I escaped from one of the sanctuaries.

As I continued down the street, I checked each building for a reasonably safe place to spend the night, finally coming to a doorless narrow stairway between two more trashed stores. I went in and each wooden step creaked as I crept slowly up, with my rifle in position to defend myself. The entire place smelled of urine, so I knew others had been here. At the top of the stairs, I found two small apartments. The door of the apartment on the right, lay flat on the floor. One of the hinges was still attached to the splintered door frame, evidence that someone at some time had forced their way in. I stepped inside and took a quick look around to make sure no one was there, then I went to check the other apartment.

The door was standing wide open, but at least it still was completely attached to the frame. That meant I could close the door and maybe find some way to barricade it. Once inside, I looked the door over to determine how sturdy it was and found it still had a functional slide-bolt lock. That was a bit of good luck. I closed the door and slid the bolt, then looked around at the filthy, stinking hole where I would be spending the night. Home, sweet home.

At the front of the apartment, a window stubbornly holding a few shards of broken glass overlooked the street. That would be a useful vantage point. In the corner was a disgusting-looking cushion that probably once was part of a sofa. Its size hardly made it a mattress for anything bigger than a dog, but at least parts of my body could rest in some small degree of comfort. My hips and back ached from too many nights of sleeping on hard surfaces. A few feet away were half a dozen empty cans. Someone had stayed here long enough to have a few meals, and that made me uneasy. Still, I could put the cans to good use. I went back to the stairs and stacked the cans across the top step. If anyone came up during the night, they would knock over the cans (I hoped) and wake me.

Back in the apartment, I went to check the next room. To one side was an ancient upright piano with a spindly chair overturned in front of it, and at the far wall, the late afternoon sunlight came through a partially boarded-up window. I went directly to the window and looked through one of the open spaces. About fifteen feet below was the first-floor roof of an added-on room. Good. The window gave me an escape route if I needed one and could pull away a board quickly enough.

Satisfied this was about as safe a place as I was going to find, I started to relax a bit and turned back to the massive piano. It was an unexpected find, although I wasn't surprised it still was there. Who in their right mind would want to haul such a monster down that narrow stairway even in normal times? For that matter, why was anyone crazy enough to lug it up here in the first place? I ran my fingers over the top and down the side, pausing when I felt some rough gouges. A slogan of one of the paramilitary groups had been carved shallowly in the wood with a knife. They had been here. For a moment I felt a surge of anxiety, but then I realized the carving was old. Whoever made it was long gone.

I leaned my rifle against the keyboard, picked up the wobbly chair, and sat down at the piano. The keys were stained by time and filth and many of them were stuck. I tentatively pushed middle C and the piano made a tinny, out-of-tune sound, as if the poor old thing were trying to remember how to make music. I brushed my fingertips along the keyboard and then, with my hands high (as my dad taught me), I began to play. Chopsticks.

I giggled when I finished, and then tried to remember the last time I laughed before that. This beat-up piano made me feel nostalgic, and it put me in mind of Dad's antique, intricately carved piano. It was something of a family heirloom, passed down to him from his father, and his father before him. As a small girl, I would stand beside that piano and watch in wonder as Dad produced beautiful music from all those keys I couldn't comprehend. He played classical music and ragtime and something called boogie woogie. When he finished, he would kiss me on the forehead, take a puff from the cigarette that had been burning, ignored, in the ashtray, and then close the lid over the keyboard until the next time.

I had two favorites among his repertoire -- Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and Scott Joplin's "Solace." I rarely let him finish without playing at least one of them for me.

I closed my eyes, hesitating for a moment as I searched my memory, and I began to play again. Making some mistakes, I started over after a few bars of "Solace." The music worked on me like a bottle of cabernet, relaxing me and taking my mind to beautiful places. There were gaps in the music because of the stuck keys, but I barely noticed. In my mind, I could see myself standing beside Dad's piano watching him play, and I felt tears running down my face.

When I got to the end of the piece, I sat with my eyes closed, not turning off the memory stream the music had started. I could picture Dad finishing playing "Solace" (with "Moonlight Sonata" as an encore) for me, then closing the lid over the keyboard, and going upstairs to get ready for work. When he came down, he was wearing his police uniform and his gunbelt.

Dad was a bit of a paradox. A gentle man, but with a temper that people knew enough not to provoke. A musician who made his living carrying a gun. A cop who never used it except to qualify at the shooting range once a year.

The memories kept coming and I knew where they were taking me. They took me to that day many times over the years. They were about to stop being beautiful, but there was no stopping them. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in October. I was in my room doing homework when I suddenly heard my mom crying downstairs. I went down to find out what was wrong and was shocked to see Dad standing in the living room with his shirt covered in blood. Some of his teeth had been kicked out. He put his arms around Mom while two other cops I recognized stood back discreetly.

Dad had been sent on a call about a man who was being unruly in a bar. Dad talked with the man, who agreed just to go home quietly, but once outside he had a change of heart and he started to fight. He made the mistake of provoking Dad's temper, but during the struggle he got Dad on the ground and began kicking him in the head. Still Dad kept the man from getting away until a second cop arrived to help subdue him.

Dad never drew his gun during the fight. Neither did the second cop. Everyone lived. Sometimes cops handle things that way.

Later, a few of the cops wanted to beat the man in his cell for what he did, but Dad wouldn't let them. That wasn't a paradox. That was Dad being Dad.

When Dad died a few years after he retired, there was a cop standing at attention at every intersection his funeral procession passed through.

He never drew his gun. There's no point trying to tell people about that these days when we've turned the world into an insane asylum. They wouldn't understand.

The memory loop ended there. It always did. I sat breathing heavily for a few moments, then I wiped away the tears, grabbed the rifle and started off to try that sofa cushion. I got only a few steps away when the sound of the piano stopped me in my tracks. In my mind I could hear "Moonlight Sonata." Maybe it was because it was getting dark. Maybe it was because my eyes still were blurry from the tears, but when I turned, I seemed to see Dad sitting at the piano, faintly as in an old, faded photograph, playing his encore for me. He played for several bars, then turned and smiled, and I felt a sensation as if something touched my forehead. Then, like the last wisp of smoke from a crushed-out cigarette, he drifted away.

Taken on: May 15, 2023

Sets appears in: • Erotic Stories

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