"The Haunted Piano"

"THE HAUNTED PIANO"

"A few years ago, my son and a friend tried to open a salvage/hauling service. Unfortunately, their business was short-lived. One of the contracts they did manage to get, however, was that of a storage facility hauling the unclaimed contents of several storage units to the dump.

 

Now, for a long time I had wanted an old piano. My son was quite pleased with himself when he presented me with an old upright piano that was in one of the units that he was cleaning out. I cleaned and shined the piano and had my son and husband place it on the enclosed front porch of my old farm house. It was one of my prized possessions.

Fast-forward several years. My daughter and granddaughter have moved back home for financial reasons. They had moved in to my daughter's old room which is adjacent to the front porch. My daughter is a nurse and I babysat my granddaughter until my daughter would get home from work around 11:30-midnight. 

One cool October night, I had fallen asleep in my daughter's room with my granddaughter. We were alone in the house as my husband is a long-haul trucker. I awoke to the sound of the piano. It was random notes with no particular tune. Groggy, I listened to the piano for at least 15 minutes. Deciding that it must be mice, I got up and opened the door. The piano was silent. 

Several weeks went by and I soon forgot about the mice in the piano. It was very late, about 2 a.m., when I was woken by random notes on the piano. Disgusted, I lay in bed trying to figure out how to rid myself of the mice who had obviously taken up residence in the piano.

Suddenly, a tune floated through the house. It stopped and started several times, but it was definitely a tune – like someone practicing a song. Now, I'm terrified! I listened for what seemed like hours before the piano finally went silent.

Months went by and the piano continued to play itself. Not every night, but randomly. I was becoming paranoid and not getting much sleep. I was afraid to mention it for fear I would be laughed at. 

One night in December, not too long after Christmas, my daughter approached me at breakfast. She hoped that I didn't think she was crazy, but she swore she had heard the piano playing a broken tune late last night. Did I have a ghost in the house? I almost cried from relief and told her that I had been hearing the same thing for months.

To make a long story short, we learned to live with the piano, which only seemed to be active in the winter months. As an added note, long after my daughter and granddaughter moved out, my son and his wife moved in for a short while. 

Late one night I was woken up by someone urgently tapping at my bedroom door. My daughter-in-law was outside the door in tears. She was up late watching TV and she heard the piano playing random notes – did I have a ghost?

I sat the piano outside one day with a "free" sign on it. I was no longer afraid of it – the weight of the piano was causing my porch to sag, and my husband insisted that we find it a new home. 

An elderly gentleman and his wife stopped by and my husband helped them load it in the back of their pick-up truck. I often wonder if they have experienced any late night concerts courtesy of the old piano."