Erlkönig
"Faster." A word that haunted Viv for her whole life. Today, it came from her piano teacher. Ms. Briggs pressed her lips with apparent frustration. She was a fierce teacher but an exceptional one. "You picked this as your recital piece, and I'm going to make sure you do it justice. So again, but faster."
Viv drew in a breath and graced the white keys with her fingertips. Then, the first chord crashed from the piano.
***
"Faster!" He pleaded, but his voice didn't reach her. The smoke fell heavily, smothering her in a blanket of fear. She could only stare at him wide-eyed as the flames licked up the walls. "Oh god, please go faster, Viv..."
These were her father's last words before the ceiling fell.
***
"Faster," Viv dropped the word lazily, hoping her boredom wasn't too apparent. And Tom--or was it John--moved against her eagerly. Boys her age were obnoxiously predictable. But what did you expect when they had nose rings and something to prove?
She wrapped herself in their poor choices, using them like a salve. In turn, she was a rabbit for them to chase. Occasionally, she slowed enough to let them catch her.
***
After, Viv wasn't afraid of fire. She was afraid of stillness. Because it was her stillness that had stolen her father from her. So, she filled her life with activities: soccer, ballet, swimming. Then she found piano.
The world slowed the first time she laid her fingers on the keys. Sound reverberated around the room, drawing her from herself. She almost gasped when she saw him: her father, smiling across the room with a tear in his eye.
Every time she played, he would appear. Sitting next to her on the bench, listening from a chair. Viv grew obsessed, playing every chance she had just to see him again.
***
"Faster!" she shrieked over the sound of traffic and air. Her boyfriend smiled over at her in the passenger seat. The engine revved.
She could feel her father's disapproval like a weight over her. She reveled in it, clung to it. Music wasn't the only thing that made her father appear. He always came every time she danced too close to the edge.
So she danced just like she played.
***
She fidgeted in the near silence of creaking chairs and muffled coughs until she was announced. "And now, Vivian Herman playing Franz Liszt's arrangement of Erlkönig."
"Faster," she whispered as she sat, echoing Mrs. Briggs' constant instruction. This was a piece written for speed. And she played it furiously. The chords ran ahead of her; the melody pulled her through her desperate run.
Then he was there, standing on stage with her. Her father was a mere apparition, but it was all she had. She had to move faster...
Her fingers raced. She needed to be faster. Her father stood there whispering, shouting, screaming, begging,
"Faster. Go Faster, Viv."
But she could never go fast enough.
NYCMidnight 500-Word Fiction 2023
Round 1 Prompts: Ghost Story | Taking a Music Lesson | A Nose Ring
Result: 2nd Place
