//------------------------------// // Showtime // Story: The Piano Man // by The Sentient Cloud //------------------------------// I doubt that many people alive today can say that they know what it is like to be held down while their hair is on fire. It’s like a less lethal version of being strangled. You can struggle and fight all you want, but in the end… it happens. The sensation was shocking. Surprising as it may be, one’s hair can actually be quite heavy. You may not notice your head feeling lighter after a trim, but when your scalp is burnt bald, it is definitely noticeable – and horrible. The sensation of your head becoming lighter… the rapidly growing heat… The worst moment physically was – of course – when the fire reached my scalp, (Hair doesn’t hurt when you cut it off, and neither does it hurt when it is burnt. Most of it is dead anyway) but mentally, the worst moment was half a second before that, when my head was feeling unbearably hot, and I could tell what was about to happen. It’s like being tortured. You know that it’s going to happen, and that you could stop it happening in any other situation, but right now, you’re helpless. Am I really rambling about the details of how my hair was burnt off? Is it that important to me? Yes. It is, because it was my hair – something that I’ve always had. I suppose you can never understand how traumatic such an experience is unless you live through it. That mare... holding me down... doing nothing but smiling while I scream. Trixie's nothing short of a monster. She’s a megalomaniacal psychopath. I swear to god, that if I get out of here, I’ll strap her to a wooden board and put a flaming torch to her chest – burn her alive like the monster she is. That was my first escape attempt, and it didn’t end well. There were only a few ways it could have ended. I could have escaped, I could have been killed, and I could have been recaptured. Out of all of them, it had to be the worst one. Aren’t I lucky? It took place the day before my first performance – which ended up working in my favour. Trixie couldn’t send my out on stage with my head the way it was. Who would want to see a show where the performer was not only bald, but their head had obviously been torched? So she fixed me. I couldn’t believe it, but within a few short hours, Trixie returned, woke me up from my strange hybrid of sobbing and sleeping, and then made my hair grow back. Just like that. I had hoped that she would snap my nose back into place, but she left it how it was. To say that Trixie properly fixed me is an overstatement, of course. She made my hair grow back to the way it was, and she healed the follicles, and in an odd act of ‘kindness’ fixed some of my actual scalp – but that wasn’t exactly gracious. It’s extremely confusing for the brain when some parts of an area are reporting ‘all clear’ while other parts a screaming ‘fucking kill me, I can’t take the pain any more.’ Fuck magic, seriously. Fuck it. And fuck Trixie. And this entire fucking show. *** Close to three weeks ago… I’m still sobbing. My hiccups and moans of sorrow bounce off the walls of this little room, returning to my ears within a quarter of a second in a confusing and eerie playback of my mental torture. I had never thought that I would cry like this in my adult life – by which I mean; cry like a child. My hand hasn’t left my head in the last two hours. All I can do is keep stroking my hair, and thinking about how I will never take it for granted again. If I ever get out of this, If I ever manage to return home, I’ll be carrying some heavy emotional baggage for the rest of my life. So much that no airline will be willing to touch me – not even with a ten-foot pole. I could live the rest of my life like this – just lying here, forever. It would still be better than having to see Trixie again. But of course, that’s nothing more than wishful thinking. As if that thought was a mental cue, the latch to the room gives a quiet click, followed by a slow set of hoofsteps. My head shoots up, spotting Trixie’s horn glowing in the darkness. Instantly, my hand is wrenched away from my head, and I am lifted from my thin mattress. “I think you’ve had long enough. It doesn’t look like you’ll be calming down any time soon, so we’re just going to move ahead.” Trixie’s face is set in a loathing scowl. “It’s time for your first performance.” “Fuck off!” I struggle against the aura surrounding me, even as the skin around my eyes is sucked dry by it. Trixie clearly wants me presentable for my first show. Rather than slam me against the cage wall, as I expected, Trixie simply deposits me on the floor. “I don’t have time for this. They’re waiting for you, and I’ve already taken their money. You’ll go on stage, you will play the song you played me yesterday, and then you will come back here.” “The fuck I will!” Trixie’s horn flares – although all she is doing is unlocking the cage. “You will. You don’t have a choice. Move.” The magical command shocks my brain, forcing me to take a breath as my legs start moving, taking me towards the door of the cage. “I fucking hate you.” I hiss at Trixie as her magic forces me to walk past her. “If I ever get out of here-” “You won’t.” Trixie cuts me off scornfully. “Trust me, you won’t. Now keep walking."