I don’t know who you are but I like the way you think ;).

Is this a war zone? The aftermath of some sort of natural disaster? Either way the fact that this piano is not only there but in decent condition is quite remarkable.

This is such a compelling image that people can’t help but pass it around on the internet, I’ve run into it tons in the last few months alone. It’s one of those pictures that instantly makes you say ‘What’s the story behind that?’

The soldier’s clothes are pretty grimy so I’m guessing he’s been out in the field for a while by this point. Who is he? Was he patrolling the area and just happened on the piano? And I wonder if he’s plunking on random keys or if he knows how to play the piano and is playing a song he learned while back home.

The visual statement of a soldier playing a piano in the midst of a wrecked landscape is very poignant. It’s a snapshot in time that has it’s own bit of poetry and mystery about it, giving us hints at a really interesting story.

What caused the very unlikely meeting of this soldier and the piano at this particular place? The whole story might be out there somewhere, I don’t know, but even on it’s own this one second of the story is very compelling.

I saw this picture on Stumbleupon one day and unfortunately there was no context for what the real story is …so I’ll just make one up.

Call it a longshot theory if you will :P, a story to match the unusual-ness of this picture. And so I give you…

—

THE MAN AT TWISTER MADNESS

Edgar wasn’t the kind of guy who took chances.

In fact he avoided as much risk as possible, there was rarely a day that he left the house without his trusty reinforced umbrella and rain boots.

Then one Wednesday in June his wife up and left him. She took all her things and in their place left only a hastily penned Dear John letter.

‘What could I have done to stop this from happening?’ he asked himself over and over again while shaking his head and standing in the entryway where the letter was taped to the wall. The squeaking of his boots echoed loudly through the now empty house.

Some would say that Edgar snapped that day but those closest to him know that he was incapable of such a hasty and unexpected emotion. What he did do was step out of his rain boots and calmly, methodically walked out to his car.

The crisp pristine socks on his feet had never touched dirt before, but there is a first time for everything and the socks tasted the grime and dust of the city being ground into every fiber.


Not even he knew how long he drove for but he was next spotted in a Vegas casino pumping quarters in to a tornado themed slot machine.

Twister Madness it was called and the point of the game was to line up three twisters to demolish increasingly rooted Kansas towns.

He chose this particular machine because it was only a few light steps away from the ATM. At the ATM he was always only a few button pushes away from the bank account that he’d carefully cultivated over the last seven years.

He sat at Twister Madness day and night. Quarters slid down the chute and flew out, a quarter pile started to form and people stole some but he didn’t care.

He soon became the casino’s biggest attraction, The Man At Twister Madness, and so they hired two guards, then four, then six to stand perimeter to his flashy pile of quarters.

At some point instead of taking quarters people started to throw some of their own into the pile. A story had begun to circulate that if you threw a quarter into the pile like a wishing well it would bring you luck at the slot machines for the next twenty four hours.

The paint on the arm of the machine started to wear off on his hand but he didn’t stop. Something about the dazzling lights and artificial blips and bleeps were comforting, glossed over the memories of all those careful days he went out in rain boots while his wife was mulling over her options.


Then the power outage. First it was a blink or two of darkness as the power struggled to stay alive, finally succumbing to a two hour death.

In the dark sitting in his chair he could vaguely see the blinking lights with his mind’s eye and his arm had an airy feel to it, like a ghost of it was still moving upwards to pull on the slot machine arm.

There were also the sounds of quarters, though he couldn’t tell if they were being added to his pile or stolen away in the darkness.

When the lights came back on there was a swish of a happy sound, an ah! from the mostly unseen casino crowd, but Edgar made no sound. His arm instinctively rose to the upturned arm of the slot machine but instead of pulling it down he pulled himself up, joints creaking into their (these days) rarely used upright formation.

He waded through the pile of quarters, then the surrounding crowd. As people started to notice what was happening there was an even louder sound of ah!, this time full of surprise, from the crowd and then a general buzz of commotion. The Man At Twister Maddness was leaving!

When he left the casino he vowed to get his old life back, or at least the part of it that he could get back. His socks, pure and clean and uncomplicated, that’s what he wanted and he set out to recapture the magic they had once held.


So he knitted. Well… first he had to learn how to knit… but once that was taken care of he set out to knit as many comfy pure clean safe socks that he could. And each pair fit snugly into his new set of yellow rain boots.

It was impossible to stop there though and he was soon spotted going around town in full knitted suits. It made him feel good and happy in a way, and just as importantly it started to give him a badly needed income as he was able to sell his extra knitted suits and socks to the curious people who passed him on the sidewalk.

But word got out about how The Man At Twister Madness was now hawking knitted goods on 31st Street and the crowds came in an hourly pilgrimage. They would surround him with outstretched hands, some flinging quarters for good luck but many others grasping at some corner of a knitted sock or flared pant leg hoping to rip off a good luck charm to take back to the casino.

One day when the crowds had left him standing with nothing but a torn garbage bag of yarn threads he decided to hop on the subway and leave to find a place of peace.


To his surprise the subway turned out to be the place of most peace. He rode from town to town spending his days just sitting and doing knitting out of a large trash bag, methodically linking each loop to the next.

And that is where I met him. We shared a subway car and ended up talking the whole day through, my trip to the boondoggle shop long forgotten. He told me his story as he knitted and even let me take a single picture of him.

There was only so far away from home that I could go though before I had to turn back and as the time came for me to leave our conversation dwindled.

He continued knitting with his head down as he had the whole time but I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable, I didn’t want to waste away my last moments with him by sitting in awkward silence.

But the silence gripped me and so I sat until my final stop came. And still he knitted. Maybe he isn’t one for goodbyes I thought, so I just gathered my things and slunk out.

It wasn’t until the doors were closing that I thought of a final question. Maybe it wasn’t the best but it was something to say at least and plus I really did want to know. As the doors came closer together I stood on my tip toes and yelled

‘Aren’t you afraid someone will recognize you?’

He just looked up at me and smiled, pulled his knitted hat farther down his face, and was gone, whisked way by the blur of the subway.

I come across this picture every so often on the internet and it makes me giggle every time I see it. The ‘look’ on the dog’s face just makes things even more funny but of course the hair is definitely the punchline here.

I gotta hand it to these ladies, they do know how to achieve the silky blond hair look whether it be in human or dog hair.

It’s a tattoo that someone had done on their arm of something from the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. The tattoo is of the carvings of the two trees, crown, gate arch, etc on the door to the doom-filled domain of Moria.

Obviously something about that part of the Lord Of The Rings story made such an impression on that person that they had this large tattoo done to permanently bind it to them. I wish I could ask that person what it was and if they’re going to have more LOTR tattoos done.

Seeing this picture made me wonder what kind of story-based tattoo I would get if I were to do something like that. The first stories that popped into my mind were something from Ender’s Game or Ender’s Shadow, two of my favorite books.

But then I then I thought about the author of those books…Orson Scott Card.

Long story short Orson Scott Card (amongst other things) is quite the homophobe and thinks that equality for gay people means the ‘end of democracy in America’.

Er, hmm. I’m thinking a tattoo of something by him might burn my skin from all the transferred bigotry so never mind on that one 0_o.

Back to the drawing board I guess, I’m not sure what kind of story tattoo I’d get. What do you think …what kind of story tattoo would you get and would it matter to you who the author was?