Great Lustrous Songs

This time, the Watcher has sent you theatre tickets. You can’t help but laugh. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s a megalomaniacal trickster watching your every move, he’d be a more attentive partner than half the people who you’ve dated. “Valentine’s Day isn’t for another couple of weeks, man,” you mutter as you pull the tickets from the red envelope slipped under your door this morning.

They read:

U of W Drama Department presents
Gas Light
By Patrick Hamilton
Directed by William Chadwick

Theatre of the Arts
7:00 p.m.
October 11, 1975

You frown. Why would he send you tickets to a show from almost fifty years ago?

Nevertheless, you make your way to the theatre department as soon as you can, and ask the woman at the desk if she can tell you anything about the performance. When you show her the tickets, she looked shocked. “Oh!” she gasps. “Where did you get those?”

“Um,” you defer, not sure how much to reveal. “A friend of mine found them in some old stuff.”

“All of the theatre’s records prior to 1980 have mysteriously been lost,” she explains. “Do you mind if I take a picture for our records?” You shrug, and wait patiently as she snaps a photo and types some notes into her computer. “What’s your name?” she asks, fingers hovering over the keyboard, and you tell her. “Oh!” she says again. “Someone left something for you in ‘Will Call.’ How peculiar.”

You sigh. What is strange to her has become almost ordinary this time. What will it be this time? Another laptop? A typewriter? A fragment of the frikkin’ Rosetta Stone?

In fact, it’s a single piece of unlabelled sheet music. You thank her, then rack your brain for the closest place you can play it. This campus is crawling with pianos, but isn’t there one nearby?

Within minutes, you’re standing in front of the wildly painted piano, wondering whether it’s even capable of making music anymore. Looking both ways to make sure no one is around, you sit down carefully then start to sight-read, wincing at discordant notes. As you play, you get a weird feeling in your stomach. Yes, despite the piano being wildly off-key, the tune is unmistakeable – it’s “Every Breath You Take,” by the Police.

Nevertheless, you play on, and when you reach the end of the sheet, you hear a whir, a click, and a thud as the top of the piano slides open. Despite yourself, you grin. That’s pretty cool.

Inside, you find a vinyl record.