Inspired by the song “Piano Man” by Billy Joel

His fingers traced the keyboard.

He let his long, nimble fingers feel each crevice, counting each key as he moved. G, A, B, C, D, he counted. He breathed loudly, and as he did, he felt the air fuel his intestines and vocal cords; he felt it echo around the large hollow tavern, creating a joyfully melancholic release that seeped into the room walls. A room, after all these years, he couldn’t quite picture. He didn’t know where the windows lay, how large each wooden tile was, or where the chandeliers above him swayed. But this piano, his piano, he knew very well. He felt the piano’s dust catch his fingers, and he imagined that the dust would collect under his fingernails as they moved. He could feel the faint movement of the dust find safety under his cracked and yellowed fingernails. He brushed at it slightly, feeling the air rush in to fill the gap in his nails as the dust escaped and landed on the complexity of his fingerprint. The quiet, he thought, allowed him to feel this way and notice these things. The abandoned smell of the bar and the feeling of silence when he was expecting someone's arrival were some of his favorite feelings.

He noticed the dust that covered each key as if the piano had not been played before. He imagined that if he were to play a ballad, the dust would lift magically, majestically, from the keyboard and float into the path of light that seeped in from the windows. He watched it dance in his mind's eye. It swung in the light to melodies that struck sadness in the throat and stung tears in the ducts of the eyes. If he danced, too, this dust would rise and fall with the grace of his arms, and the ballad of sadness and tarnished tranquility would continue to go on behind him as he played. He imagined how it would feel: the muscles in his arms powerful with the strength of music, the way his small, skinny arms burned with a need to slam, pound, and defeat the following key to tackle each and every inconvenience he had ever experienced. But he knew, to some extent, he must resist to make it sound alright, melodic, even dull.

This thought disappointed him. It left a reminiscence of shame in his stomach, as if the acid in his stomach was made of that very feeling. Thus, he let the power he once had leave. The energetic rush left his vocal cords, and the passion drained from his lungs. A sense of dread, loneliness, and fear was left exposed, as if excitement were a blanket that inevitably hid the astounding feeling of weeping terror.

“Sing us a song, Piano Man,” said the waitress. “Are you going to sing us a song tonight?” The regular crowd shuffled in* in abundance, and he heard the hum that expectant heartbeats create when in masses. He didn’t turn; he didn’t bother. He imagined wrinkly black suits that were representative of a Thursday afternoon, the regret of five-inch heels, the unbuttoning of button-downs. The piano loomed in front of him. He knew he needed to play but, somehow, had forgotten how.

There's an old man sitting next to him, making love to his tonic and gin.* He says, "Son, can you play me a memory? I'm not really sure how it goes. But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete, when I wore a younger man's clothes." And then, there, it struck him. You could see it in his face. You could see the glow of passion, strength, intuition, familiarity, carnage, and need coursing through his body to slam the keys on his keyboard.

The crowd hushed as the melody played, fingers bred with pressure and feverish emotion. And he screamed:

"Bill, I believe this is killing me.
As the smile ran away from his face
Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place."

*These lines, and all lines in quotation marks, are lyrics from “Piano Man” by Billy Joel.