Snowmelt part 3

Atsushi awoke to painfully brilliant light streaming in through the windows, reflecting off the insulating plastic wrap and splitting into a thousand sharp needles. Groaning, he threw his arm over his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. It was freezing. His breath made a faint mist in the air before disappearing. Two weeks in an icebox.

Even with his eyes closed tightly and the thick quilts pulled up to his nose, there was still a faint irritation at the corner of his mind. As the fog of sleep cleared from his mind, he recognized it as some sort of song. The soft piano notes had a metallic quality to them, something unreal and mechanical. The melody, however, seemed to go nowhere. It was some endlessly repeating cycle of meaningless notes that wormed its way into Atsushi's mind until he couldn't bear to lie down. Instead he got out of bed and threw on a reasonably unwrinkled shirt and pants, and the heaviest sweater he could find. It had been a gift from Mrs. Kasahara, something belonging to her son. He had been significantly rounder than Atsushi, judging by the way the knit fabric hung well past his hips and the sleeves had to be continually pushed up.

He walked over to one frost-covered window, holding his hand against it until a bit of the ice melted away. Outside was still the same - white. He began to hear the subtle changes in the music, the way that the seemingly cyclic melody changed each time until it was no longer the same. And then, it stopped. Atsushi pursed his lips, and then turned towards his door.

The corridor of closed doors leading from his room seemed a little brighter, probably a sign that Mrs. Kasahara had taken to more diligent cleaning with a guest in the house. He walked quietly down the hall, listening for the music to begin again. One door was ajar, and he hesitated outside it. He couldn't be expected to live silently in one room, could he? Atsushi slowly pushed the door open, reveling a large room. When Atsushi had first entered the house, it seemed sparse and almost shabby... but it had to have been because everything was shoved into this one room. A grand piano dominated the scene, surrounded by chairs and small tables with seemingly random objects arranged carefully on them; a doll in an ill-fitting kimono, a small box holding tangled strings of glass beads. A jumble of furniture blocked any easy route through the room, but Atsushi had no desire to go inside. It felt deeply like trespassing into a place he shouldn't be, into the very core of secrets.

"People who stand in thresholds don't know what they want," came a dry, precise voice.

"What?"

"You. I can still see shadows." Atsushi's eyes focused on that startlingly white figure, now seated at the piano. He was so still that he might have been part of the eclectic decor. "And you breathe too loud." Atsushi was suddenly conscious of the rise and fall of his chest, and the thick, dusty air of the room.

"I'm sorry to bother you..." Atsushi backed away from that unfocused stare. The snow demon - Eishi - cocked his head.

"You're the new boarder, right? I don't believe we've met. I've been very busy, you see." Eishi showed now sign of remembering their previous encounter, which was probably for the best. "Come closer." He waved a thin hand wrapped loosely in bandages and Atsushi was inexplicably drawn through the maze of disorder to the piano bench.

"I'm Hanajima Atsushi, a writer from Tokyo. Thank you for your hospitality." Ritualized words tumbled from his lips and he extended a hand dumbly. Idiot, he thought, how can a blind man shake hands? Eishi, however, seemed to have no difficulty. His cool fingers brushed Atsushi's lightly.

"My name is Tsukioka. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hanajima. Do you like Mozart?" A smile almost touched Eishi's blank face. He wrapped the loose bandages a little tighter, securing them in the sleeve of a faded girl's nightgown.

"Ahhh...." Atsushi had no idea what the man was talking about. The foreign word was only vaguely familiar. Eishi didn't seem to care, though, as he launched into a quick-paced piece. The spidery fingers danced gracefully over keys worn shiny from years of use. Atsushi didn't understand the music, or what significance the trilling passages had. He only saw the black and white of the keys and the icy bluish shade to Eishi's veins. His eyes then wandered to the piles of sheet music that littered the nearest chairs; disordered, crumpled and stained with water spots. He picked up a few of them but had never learned to read music. After a few moments, Eishi let the line of notes die out.

"How do you play if you can't see the keys or the music?" A blunt question, but Atsushi was in no mood to play nursemaid to an invalid. Eishi motioned with one thin hand for Atsushi to come closer.

"I don't feel like shouting." Eishi's voice had never risen above a gentle volume, but now that Atsushi was beside him, he spoke in almost a whisper. "The music is memorized, of course." Atsushi, whose music experience consisted of playing recorder in elementary school, touched one key experimentally. Instantly, spidery fingers curled around his wrist, roughly bitten fingernails biting into his skin. "Close your eyes. Can you tell me what it looks like?"

"How can I if I..." He trailed off as Eishi dragged his splayed hand slowly across the keyboard. His fingers touched random keys, making a discordant melody. "Ahh... I can feel where the black keys are. I guess they're spaced differently." A group of three, then two... he supposed that it might somehow be possible to tell one from another.

"Yes. But knowing the notes and where they are is only half of music."

"What's the other half?"

"I don't know anymore." Atsushi picked up a few discarded sheets of music from the piano and leafed through them.

"It sounds like writing, then. Half of it can't be explained." The sheets in his hand weren't all music - some of them were concert programs filled with long katakana words that he assumed were the names of composers. And 'Tsukioka Eishi, featured guest pianist.' "Did you play all these concerts, Mr. Tsukioka? Sapporo, Tokyo, London...?" Eishi was silent for a moment, gazing into space.

"You don't have to call me Tsukioka. You should call me... Eriko." Eriko...? But Mrs. Kasahara had said.... Atsushi shook his head slightly to clear it. What was this man playing at?

"Eriko was your sister's name, right?" Eishi looked at him, totally uncomprehending.

"Sister...?" His lower lip trembled. Atsushi suddenly just wanted to leave. Eishi's hand still rested on his like a dead thing. The pale body seemed to waver in the dusty air, almost as if his strings had been cut. "Eriko..." he whispered.

In an instant, Eishi was on his feet. Dust whirled around him as he threw out his arms, grabbing the first thing within reach to hurl at Atsushi. A broken alarm clock missed him, clattering instead across the keyboard. The discordant noise seemed to send Eishi into greater fury. Tears rolled from sightless eyes, his mouth opened in silent screams. Sheet music fell slowly to the floor in broad scissoring strokes. Splaying his bony fingers until they resembled tiny insect's wings, Eishi swept the contents of a nearby table to the floor. Finally his voice found him, high and reedy.

"NO! Why does everyone leave me! Come back!" Atsushi backed away, his eyes wide. Suddenly the door to the music room flew open, revealing Mrs. Kasahara in her dressing gown. Her greying hair was falling out of small bun.

"Mr. Eishi!" she cried in a stricken voice! "You have to calm down... breathe slowly!" At that moment she seemed to notice Atsushi and her eyes grew frightened. "Sir... please forgive me... I... I didn't know he would...." Atsushi couldn't think of anything to say. Looking into Eishi's empty golden eyes, he felt a torrent of feelings pass through him. Fear, pity, frustration; but mostly guilt. Guilt for the people he had hurt, guilt for only being able to stand by and do nothing.

Mrs. Kasahara embraced Eishi in her ample arms, muffling his sobs in her clothing. He now looked like a child, alone and frightened by dreams that haunted him even while awake. Sleepwalking though a world that had nothing for him. Atsushi couldn't breathe. The air was too thick and stale; he threaded his way through the mass of furniture until he was back in the stark simplicity of the hall. His hands against the wall kept him upright as he ran back to his room.

"Don't leave me! You can't go... I still need you!" Eishi's voice rose with a scraping sound like meal on metal, escalating into a scream. Then there was silence.

Back in Atsushi's room, the spot he had melted in the window's frost had begun to blur, refreezing. The snow was piling against the house in drifts almost a meter high - there would be no train, barely any cars, until it melted. Atsushi pressed his cheek to the cold glass, surprised to find tears there. It was too much. There was no way out.