‘Sorry, Mr Horden. We’ve bought an electronic keyboard instead.’
Every time the piano tuner heard these words, he wanted to howl abuse down the phone at the traitor.
Once he’d terminated their conversation, he would hammer out scales and arpeggios on his grand piano for a couple of hours, putting all eighty-eight notes through their paces. The session always ended with a funeral march to accompany a vision of his ex-customer’s coffin on the shoulders of pallbearers.
With murder too extreme an act of vengeance, the lesser crime of burglary would suffice.
But what to do with the stolen keyboards?
#
Photo prompt: copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Friday Fictioneers — 100 word stories
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Sarah Potter Writes 
I’ll take one! Piano tuners don’t like my little upright anyway. Something about a cracked soundboard puts them off.
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Our upright piano has a cracked soundboard too, but our tuner only scolds us mildly about it when he appears every six months to tune the thing.
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I think I might have a cracked soundboard too.
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Interesting, Mr Bunny. Obviously not enough pints of beer to keep you hydrated!
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Murder most foul, it would be indeed…. Hmmm… With enough artistic talent, those keyboards could be made into something marvellous, I’m sure!
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Yes, I can see it, Dale. He could construct a wonderful musical stairway to heaven!
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Aha! Crime solved. Good story, Sarah. 🙂
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Crime solved by us, but still under investigation by the local constabulary 😉
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Great ending!
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Thank you:-)
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Dear Sarah,
This is one of my favorites this week. Clever and funny. I can imagine how a piano tuner might feel about electronic keyboards. From A to G a fun read that ended on a sharply humorous note.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle,
Thank you, so much.
This story was inspired by my piano tuner. I think he’s getting very cheesed off with customers deserting him because of these “inferior” instruments!
All best wishes
Sarah
I liked to imagine that he could get his own back, in some small way.
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Creative the thoughts of a piano.
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You know how some pianists say that the notes speak beneath their finger tips!
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LOL!! Just don’t give them to a tone deaf 7 year old or you will soon smuggle it back to the owner.
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My mother, who is tone deaf when singing, explained to me that she hears the notes alright in her head but that isn’t what comes out of her mouth!
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PS – great story Sarah!
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Thank you, Cybele 🙂
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Very good Sarah – we never suspect ‘ordinary’ people of having dark secrets.
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I love crime novels where the murderer turns out to be someone seemingly normal, although I would prefer it if such a person remained as a fictional character and didn’t move into my street!
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Just love the title! Lures one in perfectly and keeps one there.
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Thank you, Jean. I’m so glad that title works. They are easier, I think, to come up with for short stories than for novels! It’s probably that the longer the word count, the greater the choice of possibles.
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Great ending Sarah, you turned what could actually be a poignant theme of progress taking away skilled work into a funny story – I love that it was inspired by your piano tuner.
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Thanks Andrea 🙂
He is very original, my piano tuner, so I’m sure he will come up with a most original solution to compensate for lost customers who’ve modernised their tastes in musical instruments, without his having to sink to criminal acts of revenge like Mr Horden did — well, I hope so, anyway!
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Dear Sarah, He can donate them to the Salvation Army! Very good story and so clever. I’m sure they have lost a lot of business to electronic keyboards. So great! Nan 🙂
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Thank you, Nan:-) I guess Mr Horden could donate them to the Salvation Army, but he might get caught out if anti-theft alpha-dot was discovered on one of the keyboards!
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