"Music in My Apartment" by Matthew T. Summers

Music in My Apartment

The day ended as they usually do; rain dumping down the back of my raincoat, the neighborhood dog pack chasing me for a few blocks before finding easier prey, and Jenny left a message saying that she was dumping me again.  I sighed as I sat down in my chair, not caring to remove my soaked outer coat or my boots.

Trisha came up to me and whined, and I sighed as I scratched her behind her spotted ears.  She was a little dog, perfect for keeping her hidden away from my stupid landlord.  If he knew this little angel was in here, my rent would double immediately.  And my meager salary at the country club could barely keep the roof on our heads and food at the table; any further increase would force me to look elsewhere for an apartment.

Which just wasn’t an option in New York.  Ever.  Not unless you had a few months to search for something that wouldn’t get you mugged, raped, or used as bait in a drug bust.

“Did I forget to feed you again, Trish?”  She whined as an answer, and I reluctantly got out of my chair and moved over to the kitchen.  The pathway wasn’t the easiest, as clothing and doggie toys were strewn about in random locations.  A diehard bachelor pad, you might call it.

A pigsty, you could also call it.  It’s a wonder I don’t have roaches yet.

Once in the kitchen, I cranked the can opener around a can that said, simply, “Dog food, flavored.”  Cheap, yes, but she ate enough of my food as well; this little bit of actual quote-dog food-unquote wouldn’t hurt her.  Besides, it was still another two days before I got paid, and food was becoming a rather unique privilege around here.

As I watched her eat, I suddenly started to realize that something wasn’t quite right.  The hairs on the back of my neck started to rise as I glanced around the spacious studio apartment.  It didn’t look like anyone had broken in…

Toward the back of the studio, a flash of movement caught my eye, and I froze, trying to catch sight of whatever that had been again.

I didn’t move for the better part of five minutes, long enough for Trisha to finish eating.  She looked up at me with her muzzle coated in brownish dog food and “urped!” at me without concern.  So the dog wasn’t worried at all about movement in the house… so it wasn’t something to worry about.  I hoped.

Relaxing a bit, I moved away from the kitchen area and started to pick my way through the mounds of clothes.  I stopped halfway through the apartment as a sudden thought occurred to me.

I was hearing music.  This wasn’t unusual; the walls to this palace were paper-thin, so I could usually hear anyone’s radio for about two floors up and down.  But this was music coming from INSIDE my studio… and I haven’t owned a radio in years.

Frowning, I went to take another step, when the movement caught my eye again.  It was down toward the very edge of the studio… and if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn it was a small person with tiny wings.

But I hadn’t taken any of those drugs in a while.  Honestly.  No, really!

It took me nearly another full minute to get out of my astonished stupor.  Shaking now, I bent down onto my knees and started to approach the source of the music on my hands and knees.

The music was getting louder.  I could now hear it clearly, a really nice mixture of some form of stringed instrument and a few very high-pitched things that sounded vaguely like flutes.  There was also some light laughter, and the sounds of clapping hands.

Finally, I got to the last pile of clothes, and I peeked over the edge of it down into the corner of the studio apartment… and sat there, dumbfounded, for the better part of five minutes at what I saw.

In my apartment, my little studio apartment that costs too much money and is covered with dirty clothes and little furniture…  in the middle of downtown New York, surrounded by crime and scenes better left to bad movies and television documentaries… in a world that did its business with computers and via phone, where personal interaction was considered as archaic as using a pencil…

In the corner of my little universe, a happy little group of fairies were singing and dancing over the flame of a lit match, merrily ignoring everything else around them.

There were three fairies sitting closest to me, blowing into a strange sort of curved pipe.  These were the source of the flute sounds, though they were no flutes I’d ever seen.  Each fairy was no larger than an inch in height, and though perfectly humanoid in appearance (very obviously humanoid, since none of the fairies wore a stitch of clothing), they each had a pair of brilliant, mildly transparent set of wings that fluttered in tune with their song.  The three on the flutes were all male, with lightly bronzed blonde hair, and freckles spotted their body in a beautiful pattern I didn’t recognize.

Three more fairies, females this time, were plucking a beautiful melody on some form of miniature harp.  These fairies each had a double pair of almost completely transparent wings, so delicate they looked as if they’d fall off if I dared to touch them.  They had long and curly black hair, and their hands flew across the harps at a speed no human could ever hope to match.

Dancing around the flame, another six fairies flittered and fluttered in and out of a wide circle in time with the music, clapping their hands merrily.  These fairies were a mix of the instrument players, three females to match the males on the flutes and three males to match the females on the harps. 

They danced to a tune I’d not heard before, but I found myself nodding along with the tune, and my heart began to release the pent up frustration this life had been leading me into.  Before I knew it, I had sat up on the clothing and had begun to clap along with the tune.

The fairies noticed me then, but they did not appear afraid of me.  Instead, they laughed and flew up to me, and the six dancing fairies danced around me as the other played.  I danced as well, I’m ashamed to admit… my dancing skills are only marginal at best, but somehow I found my dancing soul within me.

I was a dancing fool.  Before I knew it, I was kicking and clapping right along with the fairies long into the night… and come morning, I fell asleep on the clothing from sheer exhaustion.

Trisha woke me up with a lick of her gigantic tongue, the moisture and force of her tongue rudely pulling me from my slumber.  I chastised her as I flew up to her level…

And stared in shock at her.  Trisha, my little four-pound mutt I’d rescued from the pound that was never bigger than my foot really… was now the size of a small whale.  The room had enlarged as well, I was astonished to see…

It was then that I realized that three things were very, very wrong. 

The first was that I was completely and wholly naked.  This didn’t in and of itself bother me, I’d woken up naked in my home before.  Just usually, before, I’d had too much to drink beforehand.  This was the first time I’d done so without the aid of alcohol.

The second was that the proportions of everything were way, way off. 

The third was, of course, the fact that I was flying with the aid of two brilliant, mildly transparent set of fairy wings.

I honestly had to admit, this day had ended up quite a bit differently than any other day before it.