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Billy doesn’t want to do all these dishes in the sink, but he will because somebody has to. He can’t remember eating off any of these plates. And he never uses these cups, or any of these bowls. He’s always hated this spoon. The piano is on his mind. It weighs a lot. It’s hard to move. Billy has had some big arguments about it with his friends. They don’t properly appreciate the piano as an instrument. They think he should play something else, something he could fold into a briefcase and carry around with him in cars. He wants a piano made entirely of glass, with glass shards vibrating on the strings. He can imagine a shimmering rainbow of sound. He wants a piano made of bronze, with the sonority of a bell. He wants to slacken the tension on the strings and use glass rods to find his notes. He wants a piano with water in it, so that each note struck will cause a splash. He wants a big piano with a circular keyboard: he’d sit in the center like a pilot in his coockpit, spinning around. He wants more pedals. His feet can do more. He wants a harpsichord.

The sky is raining like an actress weeping big white tears from a big face full of emotion. Yes, it’s so sad. Big white tears in the flashing brown day. The face just gets bigger and bigger.

She sees a girl down on all fours, looking for something on the pavement. Crawling around. She shows up at Billy’s with hot violet tights and high heels. The buzzer doesn’t work. She knocks, but he doesn’t answer. This is important. He’s busy. The door opens, mysteriously, and she walks inside. There’s the piano. Where’s Billy? She looks in the refrigerator.

In the bathroom, he’s turning to jelly. She eats a piece of cold meat. The piano starts to vibrate, and she looks at it, mouth full, and wonders how to turn it off. She goes into the bathroom, with a knife. The shower curtain scares her. She’s seen enough.