Author's Note: This "story" is actually a series of unrelated short skits. Almost all were spawned from an informal writing contest where the only criterion is to write 200 words or less about a given topic. The versions posted here are sometimes longer forms of the skits I submitted for the contest, but they are still quite short and quite random. As always, feel free to let me know what you think of the selections.

Enjoy!
Ruatha

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The Best Hallelujah

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I’ve got a song you need to hear.

So I had this gig lined up with St. Gregory’s. I’ve done gigs for them before, mostly weddings and funerals. This time I was asked to play for some hoity-toity Advent concert and I agreed to it without even asking what I’d be playing. It ends up being Handel’s freaking “Hallelujah Chorus”.

I hate the “Hallelujah Chorus”. I think in the seventeen years I’ve been playing piano, I’ve played it ten thousand times. Now, I’m committed to this gig, but I seriously don’t want to play it and the obnoxious director’s ticking me off. So I think to myself: why not blow it off?

I drink a couple of beers before the concert and then play my heart out. That’s the tape you’ve got in your hand now, with the glorious, organ-blasting ending. Sort of like “Hallelujah Chorus” meets “Phantom of the Opera”, except for that last note where Mr. Obnoxious pushed me off the bench and hit the final chord himself.

He didn’t pay me, but that’s alright. Seeing the old ladies in the front pews gasp with shock made it better. Best “Hallelujah Chorus” I’ve ever heard, don’t you think?

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Author's Note: This was written for a contest where the topic was a truly horrible version of Handel's Halleluiah Chorus. The entire ending was destroyed because the organist was (whether intensionally or not) completely in the wrong key. It was dreadful...