The following story is a work of fiction. If you like bad B movies, this is the next best thing. I'll return with my customary non-fiction blog posts as soon as this beast has been slain. This is Part 1 and you'll have to suffer through 6 parts in total (or skip these posts if they aren't your thing).
It was a dark and stormy night, so I had forgotten there was no moon. When I arrived at the concert, I had been single for almost a year. Walking into the church alone, I had no warning that it would become the craziest night of my life. Ultimately, it was a night that would lead me to suspend my vows against pre-marital relations, setting me on a new course and changing the very trajectory of my life from horizontal to vertical.
Apart from that, everyone in the audience was attacked by fat, striped, flying bloodsucking elephant bees, and it was my duty to save humanity from their vampirish proclivities.
My life was busy and I had met few girls who could understand my deepening interest in classical music. Now there I was, walking into the atrium of a church, handing over my single ticket for a program from a lady usher who must be pushing 90. I scanned the crowd for Uncle Julius, a fellow classical music fan who had invited me. He was deep in conversation with some overdressed guests, but he gave me a wave, the pivoting kind that the Queen of England uses. Hoping the music would be worth spending an evening here, I strolled through the pews and took a seat far on one side of the third row.
Unpadded pews. If Christ suffered for our sins, then the least a church ought to be able to do was to place some cushions on those hard wood benches so the congregation needn’t suffer so mightily through all of its celebrations and lamentations. Little did I know that those same wooden pews would soon be ruined by bloodsucking elephant bees that poked holes in them with their long proboscises, sticking those hypodermic noses right into the wood like darts as they slept upside down.
Looking around, I noticed a lot of families with children at this show. I picked up the photocopied program and began to read about the piano trio that was to perform selections from Beethoven along with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A, Opus 50. The program finally finished with a couple of jazzy pieces I didn’t recognize.
Ah, and I saw that there was a piano solo instead of an intermission - interesting. Liszt and his Mephisto Waltz. This pianist wasn’t fooling around; that’s not an easy solo. But it’s one way to give the other players a break. And Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio was a wonderful piece for the piano, violin, and cello, a worthy anchor for this concert. Chamber music will never be my favorite, but perhaps it was worth coming this evening.
While I awaited the concert, I read the bios of the three performers. They had met in university and had been playing together for less than two years. The violinist had won several major awards as a soloist, including the Aloysius K. Throckmorton IX Young Performer’s Coif- that’s a big one. I blinked twice and had to re-read the pianist’s bio when it stated that she was last year’s runner-up for Miss Nicaragua. Somewhat unusual, but those beauty contestants always need a talent to showcase, and being a concert musician should score some points. The cellist’s picture showed that he was older. According to the program, he was a graduate student in music at the university, having burnt out in some another career to return to his first love of music. Passion above paycheck.
My uncle Julius was program director at the church. He rose first to welcome the audience and introduce the performers. They seemed an interesting mix, but showed easy chemistry during the first Beethoven warm-up piece. However, the violinist disappointed me slightly. She seemed increasingly detached and perhaps more accustomed to solo play where she could hear herself. I first gravitated towards watching the cellist, as he was closest to me, and having the most fun. This guy was dynamic and played with charisma; the audience really enjoyed his flair.
The strangest thing was the violinist’s back. She wore a dress with open shoulders and there was something wrong with her skin. (That means there was something wrong, because I'm not normally judgmental about anyone's appearance.) At first, I thought the large red-brown spots were part of her dress, but no.
My next thought was a series of plain tattoos, but no again. She had these weird spots on her skin. If I had to describe them, I’d say that it looked like she’d had suction cups pulling at her skin on those places. I could see at least five of them in two rows. The color made them look like birthmarks. Is it possible to have five slightly irregular dots on one’s back as a really unusual birthmark? I could not figure out what else they might be.
As for the pianist, of course I noticed her when the trio walked in. Every straight man in the audience was doing the same because she was simply gorgeous. From my seat, I could not watch her face while she played. She was turned away from me. But I could see her long black hair and watch her hands. Once the cellist’s opening part was done and they got further into the Tchaikovsky piece, I became transfixed at the way this Nicaraguan pianist moved her slim fingers from side to side: smooth and methodical with just the proper element of risk. By the end of the first movement, I felt there was something special in the tenderness she brought out in this piece, even through the gloomy pezzo elegiaco.
For the next 30 minutes, I only took my eyes off the piano playing to gaze upward at the tall pipe organ (and occasionally at the goofy cellist, who was a showman, even in a supporting role). Above the back of the stage area, the organ’s pipes were built into the wall as the vertical portion of a huge cross, the rest of which was formed of a similar metal.
It seemed somehow ironic that there was a marvelous instrument built into this church and yet we were here listening to a much smaller piano that had been wheeled in for the event along with these string instruments. Speaking of strings, they had dangled a microphone from the high ceiling, which hung by a wire right above the performers. I wondered, could a good piano player play the church organ, or is it a very different skill set?
But I had no time to ponder that notion, since the piece concluded and we clapped. The musicians bowed and then exited the stage, walking just in front of me to the stage/clergy door under the organ. As they went by, I saw the smiles on all three of their faces. The pianist’s nose was longer than I had realized, but as the trio members passed by me, I thought she was no less attractive than she had appeared from a distance. Looks aside, I sure had enjoyed the way she played that piece. All three of these musicians clearly enjoyed performing.
A few moments later, the pianist came out to do her solo. If anyone had doubted her skill, she proved quickly that she could play Liszt by embracing the wildness, not resisting it. Mephisto is a multi-faceted piece, serving up a whole Faustian set of dual elements in just 10 minutes, an interesting choice for an entr’acte. The audience was completely focused on the piano playing, as was I.
If I had been more attuned to what was going on in the room, I would have noticed something really strange. The two other trio players were not backstage; they had moved behind the audience and into the small audiovisual control room near the entrance doors. The technician who had been in there was gone and in his place sat the violinist and cellist. They made no move to get up. In fact, as the pianist moved into the latter part of her piece, the bass tones seemed heavier, like someone was messing with the AV controls.
And then the upper windows opened. Above and behind the audience, the warm, humid evening air drifted in. There was a smell of peanut butter & honey, followed closely by a hissing sound, and then someone screamed.
To the pianist’s credit, she tried to finish the Liszt piece without hurrying the ending. But as all hell broke loose in that room, she had to stop instead. The last time I saw her, she was dashing for safety like half of the audience. There were exits to the rear and the sides. The other half of the people in that room stood frozen like expendable extras in a bad movie, transfixed by the sight of the predatory Heffalump bees that were flying in through the two open windows above.
This was Part 1 of 6 of a fictional story. Please tune in again soon for the next riveting installment.
The rights to this work are held by the author, who created the montage image with public domain and/or properly licensed stock images. The Heffalump bee image was adapted from an old Winnie the Pooh video, the rights to which are held by Disney. If you're not familiar with the Dark and Stormy Night branch of fine literature (let me spread that sarcasm a little thicker), please consult this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night . This is, of course, my own take on it and not strictly Purple Prose.