Author's Note: As an avid player of the piano, I know that music is a way for somebody to convey their emotions through the tones and notes of the song. However, I have never heard (and doubt that everybody else, except the great Rob Sterling) about a piano that can release somebody's trapped emotions inside.
Of course, such inventions have to be played on or we will have no entertainment!
Read on!
XX
A Key's True Intentions
A Hetalia Axis Powers / Twilight Zone story
Based on the episode A Piano in the House
Starring…
Roderich – Austria
Elizabeta – Hungary
Berwald – Sweden
Gilbert – Prussia
Maria – Nyo Prussia
XX
Mr. Roderich Edelstein, top-class musician and proud at large, was preparing for a birthday party. If he knew what is in store for him he probably wouldn't go, because before this evening is over that cranky old piano is going to play 'Those Piano Roll Blues' - with some effects that could happen only in the Twilight Zone."
XX
Roderich went to Berwald's piano shop with the intention to buy a new player piano for his wife because it was her birthday.
As he walked into the store, he noticed that the shopkeeper was anything but hospitable.
"What an ass," he thought as he talked with Berwald about purchasing such an object.
"I can offer you this," he gruffly said as he sat down at one of the pianos. "It's not much, however…"
As he played, Berwald suddenly started to talk in a way that shocked Roderich.
"It's such an expressive thing," he said with a smile as he played a classy Scott Joplin piece. "It could almost anything perfectly."
"This player piano is a complete work of art."
"What a sudden change in personality," Roderich thought to himself as he continued to watch a happy Berwald continue to play on the piano. "Maybe there's more to this piano than meets the eye."
After the man stopped playing the piano, Roderich asked if he could purchase that certain instrument.
"I guess you can take it," [Sweden] replied in his usual gruff tone as he signed the paperwork and pocketed the check Roderich wrote out to him. "Play it well."
Roderich smiled as he received the order slip to gain ownership of the player piano.
"I'm no plebian for music," he told the owner as he walked out of the shop. "I'll do fine."
"Just fine…"
XX
A couple of hours later, Roderich watched as the moving company put the piano in the parlor, just like he ordered.
"Thank you good sir," he told the lead mover as he handed him the usual payment. "Have a good day."
"You too," he replied with a smile as he left with his men.
XX
Now Roderich was alone with the piano.
"What a strange device," he thought as he looked it over. "I've heard the previous owner was a man named Mr. Fortune."
"He must've been fortunate to receive such a unique instrument."
As he played a couple of notes of the piano, he suddenly felt his inner feelings, ones of jealousy and malice, course into himself.
"No," he thought furiously to himself as he heard Elizabeta's car pull into the driveway. "I need to stop."
"I can't let her see this."
Then, Roderich yanked his hands off the keys, adjusted his now-insane looking hair into something proper, and greeted his wife happily as she entered into the door.
"Happy birthday, honey," he welcomed, kissing his wife on the cheek. "I bought you a new player piano as a gift."
She sweetly smiled and puckered her husband on the lips.
"You're sweet as always," she replied as she went to look at her new present. "I'll invite some people over so we can all listen to it."
Roderich chuckled to himself at such a suggestion.
"What would this piano reveal about everybody else?" he thought as he praised Elizabeta for such a great idea. "This…is truly auspicious in many ways."
XX
Early the next morning, while it was still dark outside, Elizabeta wanted to try playing the piano for her own personal enjoyment.
As she put her fingers down and started to play a soft lullaby, she started to feel very depressed.
Elizabeta started to whisper to herself about her looks and her attitude as a woman.
"Maybe I'm too manly and not that feminine," she said as she continued to play. "Maybe I'm just too fat or too skinny."
As she continued to question herself, Elizabeta suddenly fell back from the piano because she leaned back too far.
As she recovered herself and told her recently-woken-up husband that she was okay, Elizabeta looked suspiciously at the player piano.
"There is more to this piano than meets the eye," she thought as she adjusted the chair and went back upstairs, eyeing the instrument as she did so.
XX
Later that day, two guests, Gilbert and Maria, arrived with big grins and lots of presents.
"Happy birthday, Elizabeta," Gilbert joked as he playfully nudged the girl's head, much to her mild annoyance.
"You are one lucky husband," Maria commented as she hugged Roderich, causing him to blush a lot.
After everybody calmed down, they all gathered around Elizabeta's player piano for somebody to play it.
When nobody volunteered, Gilbert finally stood up and went to the instrument.
"I might not be that good, but I think I can play something substantial," he said as he put his fingers on the keys and began to play a lamenting prelude by Chopin.
As he played, Gilbert, for some reason or another, suddenly started to cry, which started to shock the onlookers.
"I wish I could go back to the times where I was a true country," he sobbed as he continued to play. "I hate being a freeloader to my younger brother."
"I just wish I was self-sufficient again…"
As he continued to play and weep over his past, Maria, feeling deep sympathy for what her love was going through, pulled his fingers away from the keys.
When he stopped playing, Gilbert suddenly reverted out of his melancholy attitude and became surprised at what he said previously.
"What the hell is going on?" he roared as he pointed an accusing finger at the instrument. "That piano is damn possessed."
At that moment, everybody in the room shot a suspicious look at Roderich, who started to sweat.
"Let's break for dinner," he suggested. "I think we all need just to calm down."
XX
The night of the rest went without incident because they avoided the player piano like the plague. After the two Prussias left happily and Elizabeta, exhausted from all the festivities, went to go to sleep, Roderich went to the piano and sat at the bench.
"I have to know," he thought to himself as he put his fingers to its keys. "I just have to know what's causing this strange phenomenon."
He started to play a sorrowful sonata and felt the jealousy or malice he felt before.
"No," he thought as his fingers continued to play the piano with increasing force. "I have to stop."
However, as he continued to pound, Roderich lost his control.
He started to demolish the instrument with his fingers and finally turned it into a piece of wood.
Panting hard, Roderich turned to the stairwell and, to his shock, saw Elizabeta gasping on the top.
"Please don't laugh at me," he begged to his wife. "Please…"
She scowled.
"I'm not laughing," Elizabeta answered seriously. "That wasn't funny."
XX
Mr. Roderich Edelstein, a man who went searching for concealed persons and found himself - in the Twilight Zone.
