She stabbed it once. Twice. Three times. 

 

And when she was sure she’d confidently pierced the film lid of the lasagne, she opened the microwave and put it inside.

 

The lasagne would taste plastic and burn the roof her mouth which she’d then incessantly tongue for the rest of the evening. At least she’d bought that wine. 

 

Still, it was quiet in this flat. Empty. Full of shadows and blank spaces. Maybe she should get a cat. But then she remembered she was allergic. And that she also hated cats. 

 

 

​

Ping. The volcanic lasagne is done and she hurries it to the sofa, forking chunks into her mouth as she attempts again to engage with the report on her laptop. 

 

The finance report is very important. The client attached to the account is very important. So much so that she doesn’t even know who they are, but she imagines they live in a house of chrome and steel ran by computers and that there name is double-barrelled. 

 

Double-barelled in a posh kinda way. Not in a my-parents-despise-each-others-guts-and-have-long-divorced kinda way. Like hers. 

 

More lasagne. A big slug of vino. 

 

 

 

Had her parents ever been happy together? Had they ever shared a smile in unison, basked in a collective glow - ? Well, hardly, no. But, actually, yes, there was that once. As she performed at the revue that won her the scholarship to the academy. As the audience applauded, witnessing communally the birth of a new musical protege before their very eyes. 

 

And Mum had turned to hug Dad and they had and they were both beaming and the world was love. And -  

 

 

 

Ding. An email startles her back to the Now. Alex, her boss. It’s meant to read cheery, informal but the subtext is plain. We need that report by tomorrow. This is a big account. Very very important. Get it done, pasta-head. 

 

Ok. Concentrate. Back in the game. Numbers, numbers, finance, finance. Very, very. Important. Important. 

 

Peace. Quiet. Focus. And - - 

 

 

 

That’s when she heard it first. From nowhere. Trill, high-pitched, and desperately tuneless though the melody was unmistakable. 

 

twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder where you are 

 

She shivered. Only one instrument could make a noise like that. A recorder. Like the one she’d had as a little girl. The kid next door must’ve brought one home from school. But - 

 

Christ, she’d forgot how annoying - how downright repellant - that sound was. It cut straight to the bone. 

 

And it kept going on and on. Through the walls it came - twinkle twinkle little star - and then again and again after that. Three times now, straight through. 

 

It was 10 o’clock at night. This was very late to be practising, and not even well. Gah, every missed note - and they were many - set her teeth on edge. She tried putting headphones in, turned Spotify up LOUD, but the recorder still penetrated, almost louder than before. 

 

 

 

Nope. Fuck this. Even if it’s a kid. She bangs on the wall. But it doesn’t stop. She’s not surprised. This kid has got lungs. She couldn’t play that long and that loud when she was at the top of her game never mind - - 

 

Could she even play well anymore..? How many years had it been since she picked up a - - 

 

twinkle twinkle little star

 

The report lies woefully unfinished on her laptop. The idea of ploughing back in with this overture is galling. She couldn’t - she won’t - 

 

BANG BANG BANG 

 

‘Excuse me, could you be a little quieter, please?’ 

 

twinkle twinkle

 

‘Could you maybe call it a night - ’

 

little star how I wonder 

​

‘Oh my god will you shut the fuck up!!’ 

​

up above the world so high like a diamond 

 

She screamed, and she was so angry in this moment that if she’d had a cat she’d probably have kicked it. Fuck this kid and their recorder. They’re doing it on purpose. It’s a trick. And their parents - neglectful, apathetic, tone-deaf parents - are just letting them do it.

 

She raced downstairs, pulled on a jacket and barged out the front door. Tore open the neighbours’ gate, stormed up the path, and rapped on the door. No reply. 

 

She could still hear the recorder. 

 

She knocked again - all knuckles - and decided to keep going. Keep going till someone answered. Keep going till - 

 

Knock knock knock, bang bang bang. Still no reply. Not even the flicker of a light. 

 

 

 

Maybe the parents were out. At a fancy restaurant - the classy menu and expensive entrees disguising the base, almost business-like discussions about how to effectively end their hollow and loveless marriage and who’d be lumped with the daughter, the damp squib, the disappointment who touched stardom but couldn’t hack it. Who ran out of her first day at the academy in tears and swore never to go back. Who in that one decision removed the final ember of fire from a union that had chilled years ago. 

 

Or maybe these parents were playing a trick on her too. Or maybe they were drug addicts. The world was on fire. This truly was Broken Britain. 

 

And still the recorder played. How was no one else hearing this?? 

 

Maybe she’d call the council - no, too late - the police! Her phone was out and dialling before she’d even time to think - - 

 

‘999, what’s your emergency?’ 

 

‘Oh yes hello, my next door neighbours’ kid is playing twinkle twinkle little star on the recorder and it’s been about 2 hours now and they won’t stop and I’ve got a VERY important deadline for tomorrow morning and - ’

 

‘Prank calls are a very serious offence, ma’am.’ 

 

‘No no this isn’t a prank call, it’s a very serious - ’

 

‘Here we’re trying to sleep shut up!’ A voice from across the street cried out from an open window which then slammed. 999 had hung up. 

 

She was alone in the dark and the streetlight. But all she could still hear - like it was burrowing into the very heart of her - was the whine and squeal of the relentless recorder. 

 

 

 

 

Then she noticed that a window to the right of the door was slightly ajar. Her hands were fixed on it and pulling upwards before any rationale could question why, but breaking and entering was worth it to grab that fucking instrument and shove down this kid’s scrawny little throat. 

 

She tumbles into a pitch-black room. The music is louder now than ever before, and it leads her - Pied-Piper-like - out of the living room and into a darkened hallway, to the foot of some twisting stairs. She begins to ascend. 

 

As she does, she sees the framed pictures on the wall. They’re a young family - the parents look happy and they hug their daughter tight in the first photo. She’s a pretty little thing in a smart green school uniform. Her mother and father glow with pride.   

 

In the next she stands in the kitchen, songbook open on the table - she must be only 6 or 7 - and her lips are pressed to - ah yes, the offending article - the recorder. It’s sleek, painted red, and cast in cheap plastic. The kid’s stubby fingers work the holes and she doesn’t have to imagine the din because it is only intensifying as she climbs further. 

 

how I wonder where you are up above

 

Photos of the girl on the beach, an unfinished sandcastle. Other kids play far away, she doesn’t see them. She is gripping the recorder tight. 

 

Photos of a birthday party and every seat at the table is empty, the only other guest apart from the birthday girl - the red recorder. 

 

A photo of the parents and they are no longer happy, they scream at each other and gnaw and thrash and there in the background, framed by the living room door, the little girl and she plays the recorder. 

 

Another picture. The father has suitcases and he leaves the house, watched by his wife is now not his wife and has no feelings left at all for him. From a bedroom the curtains are parted just enough to see the girl and the instrument she plays. 

 

But then she realises that the girl is her. She has her face. And the man is her father, and the wife-who-is-a-wife-no-more is her mother. She almost topples backwards down the stairs. 

​

Every photo has become her. The girl on the beach, the party, through the school-days and the recitals and the lonely scary nights of shouting downstairs, horrid constant noise coming through the walls. It’s her it’s her and it’s always been her. 

 

No friends, just the music. No family, just the music. And when she didn’t want the music anymore she is left with nothing. And maybe that’s why the final picture frame was empty. Empty save for her warped reflection in the glass. 

 

A woman who works in an office shuffling numbers. A calculator, not a person. A tool, used by her clients, her boss. Just an instrument. 

 

 

​

twinkle twinkle

 

She was at the bedroom door now. The melody was so loud now that her nose began to bleed and her vision hazed and jittered. But she had to see, to see the little girl playing through it all. And grab the recorder. And snap it between her bare hands. 

 

She pushes the door open and bright white light crashes out in a wave. Her sight adjusts quicker than she’d wish and she sees it and her blood is suddenly ice and she wants to scream but she can’t. Her voice, her breath is gone. 

 

There, before her. A giant recorder - made of muscle and sinew and flesh, red-raw and throbbing crimson-blue-purple - and it has lips and something is pressed to them as it blows into it and the melody plays. 

 

It is a hollowed-out child - a little girl - and she is full of holes that the recorder works its tentacles across, turning the air into 

 

twinkle twinkle little star

how I wonder where you are

up above the world so high

like a diamond in the sky

 

She blacks out. Everything becomes nothing. 

 

There is just the darkness. 

 

There is just the music.

​

​

Inspired by a weird dream - the closing image of the monstrous recorder playing the child - and this is the story that unravelled out of that.

 

I performed this at Blackshaw Theatre's annual 'ScareSlam' at The Pleasance as part of the London Horror Festival 2019 [see pic], and have also had it read at one of the semi-regular 'Tales of a Frightful Nature' storytelling nights by The Knock Knock Club at the Old Red Lion Theatre, Angel. 

​

I myself have never learnt to play an instrument.