Note from Steph: I saw this image come up in my Midjourney prompting and I was reminded of Station Eleven. Have you seen that show on HBO? I kept seeing a post-apocalyptic time and couldn't get it out of my head. Hence, this brief story.
The thing is mostly teeth and decay, half-swallowed by vines. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if the setting sun hadn’t caught something shiny — strips of yellowed white between black shapes, like a giant mouth grinning up through the weeds.
I should keep walking. The trading post closes at dark, and I’ve got seeds to barter. But there’s something about this… whatever it is.
Something that makes my fingers twitch.
Have I seen this before? Hard to say when I remember nothing prior to a year ago.
I drop my pack and crouch beside it. The teeth aren’t teeth at all, but flat pieces that give slightly when I press them. At first, nothing happens. But I press harder, jabbing, insistent until I hear something. Each one makes a unique sound, though most are dull thuds. A few ring clear, like raindrops in the collecting bins.
“What were you?” I whisper, brushing away leaves. The shape becomes clearer — a box with a lid. I lift it, and inside, tiny hammers and wires, some broken, some still taut with possibility.
My hands hover over the white strips. They’re familiar in a way that frustrates me, like trying to remember a dream. Looking down, I arrange my fingers in a pattern that feels right, though I don’t know why.
Press down. Sound blooms.
I stop and look around. Did anyone hear that? Unlikely. I haven’t run across another human in three days.
More patterns. More sounds. They string together into something that makes my eyes water.
What’s it called?
A melody, that’s the word. Though I don’t know how I know it.
My fingers know where to go, dancing across white and black, playing something that feels like remembering.
Playing something that feels like before.
I jerk my hands back like the keys burned me. The last notes fade into the sunset, leaving only the usual sounds — the hush of dead corn stalks, distant birds warning of night.
My heart pounds too fast. Those movements, those sounds… they came from somewhere inside me. Somewhere before the morning I woke up in that abandoned med-station with nothing but a name I’m not even sure is mine.
The trading post bell rings in the distance. Last call.
“I have to go,” I tell the thing — piano, the word surfaces like a bubble — but I’m already shrugging off my pack. The seeds can wait. There’s something here, something important.
I dig through my bag until I find the piece of chalk I use to mark safe paths. On the piano’s weathered wood, I draw my symbol: a spiral with a dot. Here. Come back here.
The sun’s almost gone now, painting the keys in shades of amber and shadow. As I stand to leave, my fingers brush them one last time, and a fragment flashes through my mind: bright lights, applause, a concert hall full of —
The memory vanishes like smoke.
But now I know. I wasn’t just someone who played this thing.
I was someone who played for others.
I shoulder my pack and start walking, humming the melody I just played.
Tomorrow. I’ll come back tomorrow.
And maybe this time, I’ll remember more than just the music.
Image made with Midjourney.
Flash Fiction written by S. J. Pajonas with assistance from Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Listen to this story on YouTube at https://youtu.be/270DKtgtFRc
