Hand In Hand

by Bysen

Lyra La Vida Loca

“Fool!” Lyra yelled as she pointed a finger harshly towards Bon-bon across the cloth-covered table. “You’ve just activated my trap card!”

“No!” Bon-bon replied in shock as Lyra revealed her card: Skip!

“Your turn is over! Now, I play… Red Five! And I end my turn.”

“Uno… you forgot to call it, draw a card.” Bon-bon said cheerfully, taking extra delight in the mortified face Lyra made in response as her eye twitched and she stared blankly at her friend.

“I will not forget this declaration of war.” she replied, giving Bon-bon the stink-eye as she drew a card. Her hook-hand prosthetic wasn’t always the most useful but it certainly came in handy, a pun which Lyra extracted far too much entertainment from, in certain situations. Right now was one of those situations as she slid her newly drawn card into the gap between the hook’s clamp.

“Draw two.” Bon-bon said as she placed down her card.

“Y U do this to me!?” Lyra over exaggeratedly questioned with mock hurt.

Bon-bon’s answer was completely serious though. “Because you made me play mao with you and your brother last week.” and if you don’t know what mao is, we should totally play sometime!

It had been about two weeks since Lyra had moved back in with her family which had been just shy of a week after she’d first invited Bon-bon to her room there. Like she’d said, she had been staying at the institution voluntarily. There was a request that she speak with a shrink before she made the move but she declined… or flat out refused, either one. The move had gone quite smoothly. Mostly because she only had her arms, a few sets of clothes some junk in a box and her computer there.

Most of her stuff was was still with her parents and it wasn’t uncommon for her to sleep in her old room anyway. Despite how much the staff at the asylum disliked it, especially when she didn’t inform them until she got back, usually late the next day. There was one issue with the move however. Due to a crappy flash drive, the one that she just HAPPENED to have lent to Bon-bon not five days before, she’d lost most of her game saves from the last few months. And that, is why she introduced Bon-bon to mao. Luckily it wouldn’t be an issue now seems she was back home with her two beloved children: 360 and ONE. Instead of that adopted mutant child called PC #ConsoleMasterRace.

Once Bon-bon finished her physical therapy session she instead took that time after school most days to visit Lyra which became a lot easier once Lyra had moved back home. She still saw a physiotherapist once a week to help with her condition and one of the smaller more passive exercises they’d recommended was this. Playing cards. Passively holding thin objects lightly while individually selecting certain ones all the while thinking about the game rather than the holding.

Along with videos games and board games that until meeting Lyra she’d thought were only for kids and nerds and boys. Mostly because the only vidja gaemz she’d played up until then were what Lyra had called ‘Games for Filthy Casuals’ and the only board games she’d played were snakes and ladders, chess, and monopony. Also she was recommended legos but that was definitely only for kids… she’ll learn one day.

Once more, Lyra made it down to one card “Uno.” she stated defiantly. Bon-bon played her card. “Oh my god!” she reacted to the Draw Four Wild. “You’re not even trying to win are you? You’re just trying to keep me from winning!”

“You finally realised?” Bon-bon chuckled back. Lyra just slumped back into her chair and plopped her hands down onto the table. Rather than a ‘thoomp’ though, it strangely made a more of ‘doong...’ sound. “What was that? Bon-bon reacted to the unexpected noise. She placed her cards face down on the table, made a fist with her hand and knocked gently twice then a bit harder than she’d intended the third time.

Each hit made a similar echoy-reverberatey sound that continued for about a second after the strike. Lyra did the same, giving the table a single tap before she remembered. They weren’t sitting at a table. Not an actual table at least. She lifted up the cloth covering it and saw the deep black dulled sheen that looked like it hadn’t been clean in some time. “Oh yeah… I forgot about this.” she answered.

“Forgot what? What is it?” Bon-bon asked as she stood up and grabbed her cards, the discards and the main deck and shuffled them all back together. Lyra’s cards were still stuck in her claw.

“It’s a p… did you just , who said we were done? I was so close to winning!” Lyra exclaimed and pointing both her hands out jerry springer style.

“No you weren’t.” Bon-bon returned, in a factual tone that had just a hint of superiority to it. Bon-bon reached out and took the cards out of Lyra’s claw before adding them to the deck and placing them on her seat. “So what is it?” she asked as she daintily lift the cover to just see a black surface.

Without warning Lyra stood and flung the sheet off of the table. “It’s a piano.” she said flatly.

“Oh wow!” Bon-bon squealed. It seemed like an overreaction to Lyra but then again, she’d grown up with one. And she remembered her geek-out when she first saw a harp being played. “Can I play it?” she asked with a giant smile on her face.

“Uh… sure. I don’t see why not.” Lyra answered. As much as she wanted to say no and get away from this thing, just as much of her wanted to play it once more. Three years… it had been so long. She didn’t even know if she’d remember how. “Why are you so excited over a piano?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked as she circled around it looking for the keys. Eventually, halfway through the third lap she noticed the were underneath a little cover to protect them. Lifting it up, she found the black and whites to be absolutely covered in dust. “So much for that cover…” she said out loud to no one in particular. The cloth on top of it had kept that part of it clean but the sides and any untouched area had a film layer over it.

Running a finger along the side of the instrument and leaving a nice clean black line in its wake Lyra too said to no one in particular “Pfft, no wonder I haven’t played this junker in so long…” as she lifted her finger and looked at the collection of muck it had gather before wiping it off back into the piano.

“You can play?” Bon-bon asked. Immediately after her eyes drifted towards Lyra’s left arm, something she rarely did out of respect. She caught herself and looked back up at Lyra’s face but she’d been noticed before she noticed herself. “Oh…”

“Yeah…” Lyra replied, making a conscious effort not to fidget her stub. Lyra tried to keep cool and actually managed to do a good job at it. Surprisingly, this was easier than she’d thought it would be. “Hey, don’t let me stop you though. Have at it.” she told her friend with what she’d thought would be forced positivity, yet it seemed to come naturally.

For Bon-bon, half of her wanted to walk away from the piano. The other half however had never seen one in person before and dreadfully wanted to play it. She looked up to Lyra and recieved a look that only said ‘Well what are you waiting for?’. It pushed any and all conflict she had aside and with the skill of a baby elephant dancing she began to play. As Bon-bon hit a few keys Lyra’s ear picked up something odd about them. Then when Bon-bon hit one particular key she spoke up “Wow, that is WAY out of tune.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, it is.” Lyra answered as she walked around the side of it, looking for the latch. She found the small notch on the side and pulled it out and open. From there Lyra used the palm of her hand to lift the top of the piano open like a car hood and inspect the engine. A bed of fine strings stretched around a red velvet-lined bottom with what looked like kick drumstick on the end with the key as the string ran across it to the other end where they were each tied off to small blocks separated from each other to avoid cross veberation.

“How does the inside get this dusty with the lid closed and the sheet over the top of it?” Bon-bon asked as she reach in and slid her finger across the velvet. She’d been aiming for a string but the result was the same.

“It’s not dust, the strings are rusted…” Lyra muttered as she looked on horrified at what she had let happen to this wondrous instrument. “This needs a-” she was cut off as she tried to reach inside while still holding the lid open. Again, much like a car, there was a stick that could be pulled out that held up the lid but after a few half attempts to rest the lid on her shoulder as she reached for it, Lyra realised she wouldn’t be able too.

“Here.” Bon-bon said as she stepped in beside Lyra and put both hand under the lid to hold it up. She may not be very precise with her movement but her strength had stayed about the same. And this thing was pretty easy to hold up anyway. Lyra nodded in appreciation and reached down, putting the lid stand up to hold it open.

“Mmrrr….” Lyra groaned. “I don’t even know if we still have a some polita, and how much work it would be to clean, and if the base strings are rusted we’ll have to completely re-string those. You sure you wanna play? Might take a few hours to fix this girl up is all.” Lyra said as she continued to look inside at the strings, reaching in and running a finger along a few and flicking a few making tanging sound more akin to a guitar.

“Well, I guess we can go back to playing uno.”

“I’ll go get the polish.” Lyra said immediately. After a second she’d began to wonder if Bon-bon had just used reverse psychology on her… nah! Bon-bon was too sweet and nice to do that. She returned a few minutes later with a feather duster, a bronze metal file, a flat head screw driver and a spool of wire.

Lyra hadn’t lied, it was a long process. First, Bon-bon went over the whole of the piano with the feather duster while Lyra went about running the file along the wires. It wasn’t so much a file as a block of metal that she ran the corner of along all sides of the entire length of each string… at first. While she probably should’ve done that with all of the main body strings, Lyra just ended up getting lazy about an hour in and only stripping off the bits that had visible tarnishing on them. That and the polita had slid out of the grib once and that was not fun...

The lower register strings however couldn’t be treated this way and just had to be let to build up rust. If they were faulty they had to be entirely replaced. That’s where the screw driver came in. It was difficult with one hand, in fact all of this was, but this in particular. She needed to hold the string in tension while she undid the block holding it in place. If she didn’t the block would go flying once she unscrewed it.

Bon-bon held the blocks with two fingers over the top with Lyra undoing the screw between them. The imagery of that action spoke for itself and when Bon-bon finally figured out why Lyra was suppressing her laughter a block went flying out the front of the piano and hung by it’s string over the front. As it dangled there Lyra made a limp joke. And a joke about it making a deep sound. And how it was one of the thicker strings.

About four dick jokes later the piano was restrung. Luckily a good number of the base strings were fine and didn’t need replacing. Unfortunately about five of the normal main strings were too far gone and had to be changed as well. Tuning wasn’t exactly hard since it had more to do with the length of the string rather than the tightness. And as Lyra told that to Bon-bon she replied with “So… it’s the size that matters.” she said with a smirk.

“Did you just…?” Lyra said in mild shock to which she received a nervous nod in return from her friend. “I’m so proud of you!” she replied in an emotional squeak as she wiped a single tear from her eye. It had taken them just under two hours to fix the piano. Or at least repair it enough to play properly. If fully refurbished the piano would take at least three times as long as all this had, or longer. It had seemed so much easier back in the day.

At least Lyra remembered it being easier and there were three reasons for that. 1: She used to enjoy doing it. Making sure her most prized possession was in tip top shape was one of her favourite pastimes, right behind actually playing it. 2: she had never let it fall into such a state of disrepair and thus never had so much to do. 3: she had two arms back then. Probably the biggest difference. Still, it didn’t make a difference. It was hard yes, but she’d enjoyed herself. She hadn’t touched a piano in years and while that was more thought of the playing of aspect, she’d completely forgotten there was more to it than just that.

But on the other hand… “Oh Helix damn it!” Lyra blurted out suddenly.

“What is it?” Bon-bon asked, worried that Lyra had found something else wrong with the piano and it would be even longer before she’d be able to play it. Not that she minded too much. She too was having a good time working with Lyra to fix this thing up too.

“We have a keyboard in the cupboard… I could’ve just gotten that and saved us like two hours of work.” she answered, facepalming. She got a quizzical look from Bon-bon for moment before she realised that Lyra didn’t mean a typing keyboard but an electric piano. “And to think I was gonna continue fixing that junker up…” she muttered.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad. I had fun doing it. And besides, we’re done now so we might as well use the thing.” Bon-bon said reaffirming as she sat down in front of the keys.

Lyra put her shoulder under the piano’s open lid and detached the holding arm before jostling around somewhat to put the palm of her hand under the lid and lower it closed. “Yeah you right. Well, have at it!” she finished, walking over to stand beside Bon-bon. “Know any songs?”

Author's Note:

I had to google piano maintenance to make this accurate.
Also we should all lay mao together one day!