A window in a small house, in a small town open just slightly with a part in the curtain, a man sat in an old rocking chair listening intently seemingly relaxed but aware waiting for its approach as it silently began to fill the room, craving it yet fearing its presence. The sound so sweet fascinating him from the beginning and no doubt would until the end of the piece, yet it frightened the old man. The old man pursed his lips, his glasses slipped further onto the bridge of his nose; he cautiously turned his head towards the window. His eyes widened and he gasped trying to cover his ears, but he was too late. The old man dropped to the floor letting out an anguished cry still unable to cover his ears, the pull of the sound making him want to hear more, he began to claw his face instead trying to get it out of his head.
Mike walked briskly to the third house down from his own towards Francis Bishop’s, the old man. He had, as they all said, began seeing things and it had gotten worse as he had tried to kill himself more than once and the constant yells during the night had most people scared of what he would be doing to himself. But Mike had known him a long time and he knew that it would take more than old age to make Francis crazy or even try to end his own life, but then mike began thinking of the rumours again and doubts began forming in his mind, he still owed it to Francis to be there for him before he left. It was inevitable that they would take him away.
Mike walked to the door and grabbed the handle but the door began to open at his touch. He carefully stepped into the house wary of the door being open, the place was full of dust motes and with all the curtains closed the place looked as though it hadn’t been occupied in so long. Mike called Francis’s name but got no reply, so he warily walked up the stairs and saw that only one room door was closed so walked towards it. He didn’t know what he expected to see when he opened the door but he had a sick feeling as he did. He looked into the room and saw the old man huddled in the corner of the room sobbing as he held his arms around his knees.
Mike walked towards the old man noisily so that he would know that Mike was there with him as he sat beside Francis and he then put his arm round the old man’s frail shoulders, Francis lifted his head and held his sob but gently put his head back into his arms and began to cry softly. Mike hid his shock by rubbing Francis’s arm attempting to comfort a shivering Francis but the image of the old man’s scratched face would not leave him, it looked as though someone had tried to claw his face right off. Mike stared down at the old man who had always been like a father to him, like a grandfather to his only daughter and saw how much he had changed and thought someone had done this to him, but maybe he didn’t know Francis as well as he thought he did.
“Francis” Mike said gently as he nudged him softly. “What happened? Who did this to you?” Francis lifted his head from his arms and replied “They did.” Then began to hum and kept humming and it formed a sequence one Mike thought he’d heard before but he couldn’t quite place it, but there was something wrong about it and he felt as though he was missing something. Mike shook his head and tried to help the old man from the corner and as the old man began to get up he picked up his walking stick which lay beside him and suddenly just whacked at Mike’s head. Mike looked up at Francis as he said “Get out! You can’t kill me, none of you can, and I won’t let you.”
As Mike walked through his own front door he heard his nineteen year old daughter begin to play her cello and such beauty came from it but it brought a sad smile to his face as he thought of how much she had also cared for Francis. As he leaned against the closed door and thought of what had just happened, the song that Francis had kept humming began to sound so much more familiar and he felt as though he could hear it now but as though it wasn’t in his mind but that he could actually hear it with his own ears.
It got dark as Mike sat on the sofa thinking about how he had not been there for Francis when he had needed Mike, these thoughts stayed with him for so long that mike almost felt as though he didn’t try hard enough and he was the one at fault. He felt as though he needed some rest to clear his mind and thought that when he’d wake up he would see things differently. Mike went to his room and lay in his bed beside his wife as she slept soundly, he held her hand stroking it and then it sank in, why the humming was so familiar to him, when he thought he’d heard it before. Mike thought it was a little different to Francis’s humming but it was almost identical to the one he had heard before when he had thought the tune sounded so much more real when he’d gotten home, because he was really hearing it.
Mike got out of bed and walked towards his daughter’s room and opened it, when he heard the sound it was because of his daughter playing it from her cello and she hadn’t just been playing it when he had gotten home, but she had been playing it every night for the past 2 weeks. As he looked around the room he saw that she wasn’t in there and neither was her cello again he looked around her room but this time carefully and saw a sheet of music. Mike walked towards it and what was written on it was the name of the song; the devil’s trill, he wasn’t a superstitious man neither did he suspect his daughter of doing anything wrong. Worried Mike began to walk out the room to find her but then he heard it again and turned towards the direction of the sound and saw that it was coming from the open window in her room and on the balcony there she was.
As she sat there with the shadows of the night covering her she cradled her cello and began playing it. Mike felt as though something was trying to split his head open, he fell to his knees unable to stand or even form the words to call out to his daughter but even so she wouldn’t hear him from the sound of the cello as she looked out of the balcony she was blind to the pain that it was causing him. Then he heard it, three doors down, above the sound of the cello he heard the old man bellowing louder and louder then so suddenly he stopped in sync with the ending of the cello’s song.
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