Free Piano (Not Haunted)

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Free Piano (Not Haunted) by Whitney Gardner

It’s 1980 and ✨Vision✨ is performing at the Day-Glo Galleria. This is a time for side ponytails, cutoff jean jackets, blue eyeshadow and hoop earrings. It’s the time for color, one hit wonders, and The Mall is the place to be. The crowd is going wild for ✨Vision✨ as she performs, grabbing at her on stage, but that's too much and it affects her performance. After her performance and as she is leaving, ✨Vision’s✨ fans start pushing past the barriers and chase her out the door and into the pouring rain. Her tour bus is there, her name emblazoned upon the side, and her greedy, mustache wearing, mullet sporting manager Marty is also there. With his usual charm, Mullet Mustache Manager Marty berates ✨Vision✨ for a lackluster performance and doesn’t give a crap about how she is feeling. As they’re pulling away into the storm, ✨Vision✨ pulls out her new Prophet-5 synth. She’s going to write new material though Mullet Mustache Manager Marty objects, wanting only her one hit performed ad nauseam. They start to fight, again, with both pulling at the instrument when lighting strikes the tour bus.

It’s present day in Cascade Cove and teenager Margot is singing as she walks down the street, her ukulele on her back, when she spots her friends Sebastian and Evan looking for junk to smash for their online channel where they smash things. Sebastian has found the most smashable piece of junk, an old Prophet-5 synth, that is free and definitely not haunted, according to the sign. Evan is convinced it’s cursed, but Margot is convinced it’s amazing and she wants to make music on it. They put the synth in their red wagon to help take it to Margot’s where she is sure her dad will teach her how to play and she can write real songs for once. If it doesn’t work out though, Margot promises Sebastian that he can smash it!

The 80s didn’t make lightweight instruments and Margot’s mom isn’t home, as always, to help her move the not haunted synth, so Margot struggles to drag the synth to her room, but she does it! Once it’s plugged in, it makes an amazing VVRRRAAHHM sound when she presses down on the keys. Margot sends a quick text to her dad about her cool and definitely not haunted synth, asking him to teach her how to play when they have dinner that night, but he’s putting off their meal until tomorrow. Meanwhile, the synth has turned itself off. Odd. Margot switches it back on, messes around with playing it and records a social media post with it. 

A little while later, Margot heads down for dinner. Her mom still isn’t home, but there is a sticky note amongst the many notes tacked around that there is dinner to reheat in the fridge. Yeah, no. Margot leaves and heads to the smash pad to see Sebastian and Evan. The smash pad is a deck up a tree in the forest by the beach where Sebastian and Evan throw things from for their social media channel SONS OF SMASH! They aren’t there, but they were recently, judging by the watermelon remains on the ground. Margot watches the video they posted, surrounded by the debris. @SONSOFSMASH has 300 followers, which is so many compared to her @MARGOTLELE’s 12 followers. Sigh. Margot sits, watches the beautiful sunset and starts to sing a new song. Wait… is that something? 

When Margot gets home, her mom is there looking frazzled and exhausted as usual. She’s also not pleased that Margot’s dad pushed his visit to the following night because he needs to tell Margot he’s moving to Los Angeles. What?! He was supposed to teach Margot how to play the synth! Her dad thinks his music is finally taking off and only by moving to Los Angeles can he take it further. Margot is mad and starts throwing sticky notes around accusing her mom of never being home and making her stay behind. It’s not fair and said in anger, but her mom just tells her to talk to her dad. Margot stomps off to her room where she watches her dad’s videos and sees his 9.2k followers…

The next day, Margot’s dad pulls up to her house, his jeep filled with moving boxes. He doesn’t really try to explain why he’s moving to LA, but he says Margot “gets it” and that it’s the next step for a creative like him, but she should keep making her own music and take piano lessons from videos online. It’s all lame nonsense and before long, her dad is driving off. Margot turns on the synth and starts smashing away at the keys in anger but it keeps turning off. Sick of everything, Margot texts Sebastian and Evan that she has something to smash. 

At the smash pad, Margot tells her friends about her dad and then pulls out a pink cat statue of her mom's to smash. The boys are shocked, her mom isn’t the one moving, but that’s not the point for Margot, however, in the end, she can’t do it, so they smash actual junk instead. Later, as Margot is walking up the steps home, she falls and accidentally breaks the cat statue’s ear off. As she’s fixing it, she can hear moving around upstairs. Her mom isn’t home. When Margot investigates, she finds nothing. 

Margot’s mom arrives home and they hug it out and apologize to each other. Margot shows her mom the synth, and she recognizes the sticker on it, an eye with lashes and a V in the pupil. It’s the symbol for ✨Vision✨, a singer from the 80s who was a huge one hit wonder. 

It’s Sunday Sundae Sunday for Margot, Sebastian, and Evan. They ask about her piano, and if they can smash it yet while they get their ice creams. Not yet. Evan still thinks it’s cursed, though he likes the short video she posted with it. While they’re talking, Evan’s Aunt Linette calls them over because she has something for him. Inside her shop, the Mystic Mermaid, Aunt Linette gives them a box of junk to smash. Margot picks up a creepy old doll to freak Evan out. Again he thinks it’s cursed despite his Aunt cleansing anything she brings into the store. 

Later, back at home, Margot finds a note from her mom. She stopped by at lunch but heard Margot playing so she didn’t disturb her, but she sounded great! WHAT?! Margot approaches the synth carefully. It’s freezing and it starts to play on its own. Margot falls back, crawls to the plug and yanks it out but then she’s overtaken by something that makes her eyes go red. Suddenly, Margot is back to normal in her bed. 

The next day at breakfast, Margot is looking at her dad's videos. He’s going to do a live Q & A if he hits 10k followers, but then Margot hears music and singing from her room again. When she investigates, Margot finds the ghost of ✨Vision✨ sitting at the synth. 

At first there is screaming, then deep breathing, then everything is fine. It’s fine. It’s only the ghost of an 80s pop sensation… who is really good at playing the synth! ✨Vision✨ explains it was her synth in life, but she never got to write a single song on it. ✨Vision✨ fires a million questions at Margot and is obviously not familiar with current technology or phrasing, thinking Margot wants to move to LA to start a cult when she says she wants followers, so Margot has to explain cell phones, the internet, and social media influencers to a ghost. ✨Vision✨ doesn’t understand why having a high follow count matters, thinking it sounds like the way her manager speaks, and tells Margot that what is really important is why she wants to write music, and she thinks Margot’s reasons are bogus. 

When ✨Vision✨ POOFS away, Margot unplugs the synth and puts it in her closet but it starts flowing red. Nope. She runs out of her room, down the stairs and through the front door to sit on the front porch, catching her breath and singing to calm herself. Eventually, she has the idea to ask Linette how she cleanses new items for the Mystic Mermaid and heads to the thrift shop. Linette gives her three stones, a quartz for cleansing, a black tourmaline for protection from shady vibes, and a dark opal for the pretty colors. With some salt, cedar, rosemary, and lavender scattered around, it might do something. Just be sure to open a window when using the stones and be polite when you ask the ghost to leave. 

On her way home, Margot gets a text from her dad asking her to share his latest posts. She doesn’t send the response she really wants to send. At home, she puts the quartz and black tourmaline in front of the closet with the synth, and gets out her ukulele and sings the song she started on the smash pad. ✨Vision✨ comes to watch which means the rocks obviously don’t work. ✨Vision✨ loves Margot’s song and while ✨Vision✨ plays the synth, Margot plays the ukulele. All week they sing and play together, ✨Vision✨ helping to perfect Margot’s song. 

One day, annoyed by her dad’s latest social media post, Margot Googles ✨Vision✨. She’s taken aback by how good she is AND that her video has 100 million views on YouTube!!!! This means nothing to ✨Vision✨, though she does tell Margot to turn the video off when it shows her manager. Margot shows ✨Vision✨her dad’s (unimpressive) videos, and she asks Margot what her dream is. If it’s just to be famous, it’s not a great reason because fame is suffocating. Margot doesn’t want to be alone anymore, she’s always alone and, potentially mistakenly, equating likes and follows for caring and not being alone. Margot plays her new song on the synth and records it, hoping it goes viral and she’ll be noticed.

✨Vision✨ watches as Margot plays the synth and records her song, but she thinks Margot should stick to her ukulele because the song suited it better. Margot changes instruments and ✨Vision✨records it, then the song is posted. Margot can’t stop checking her socials and she gets a whole three new followers. She’s obsessed with it. When Margot goes to her room, there’s an eerie red light and the synth is on and making a strange REAAVVE noise, and its display is showing 666. This isn’t ✨Vision✨. Margot unplugs the plug and runs to her mom, who is asleep on the sofa. 

The next morning, not only has her mom left for work, but her three new followers have stopped following and the comments on her song are not savory. Later that day, Margot is looking for sympathy from Sebastian and Evan, but she just gets angry instead, and when she gets home, she unfollows @SONSOFSMASH and is angry and sassy with her mom who is on her way to work. The final straw is her dad going live on social media, saying “music is life” and that the only family he needs is his piano. Raging, Margot stomps to her bedroom and calls ✨Vision✨ out but she doesn’t respond. Then she sees her ukulele…

Margot grabs her ukulele and though it is storming, she heads to the smash pad and throws the ukulele from the top, smashing it to pieces. Cut to Margot’s bedroom later where she’s in bed, still angry. ✨Vision✨ appears and asks if Margot is buggin’ out. She’s definitely buggin’ out and blames ✨Vision✨ for it. Margot is still only bothered by what others think, not what she thinks and likes. They get into another fight about fans and fame, Margot telling ✨Vision✨ she doesn’t need her help because she’s no longer relevant, and starts to try and play the synth. ✨Vision✨ tells her to step off. The fight escalates and becomes nasty name calling and false accusations. ✨Vision✨ grows in size and her eyes turn red. Eventually, ✨Vision✨ leaves Margot, her parting words cutting into her. 

After a few minutes of silence, Margot notices the synth, its playing by itself, has an eerie red glow and looks spooky. Suddenly, Margot sees herself singing, creating music, being famous, traveling the world and meeting her adoring fans. Her eyes are huge and glowing red. This entices Margot. ✨Vision✨ appears and pushes Margot back, bringing Margot back to herself. 

✨Vision✨ explains she doesn’t haunt the synth, she’s protecting people from the ghost of her manager who does haunt it. Back in 1979 before she was ✨Vision✨, she played open mic nights, and loved playing for the fun not the fans. Marty changed that, he created ✨Vision✨, changing her look and sound. Everything revolved around Marty and what he wanted. One day, she saw the Prophet-5 synth before a show and bought it. She was going to fire Marty and get back to her sound and having fun. The same day, they died, fighting over the synth. Marty is the ghost haunting the Prophet-5, and ✨Vision✨ haunts Marty, protecting unsuspecting people from his evil influence. Well, they have no choice but to destroy the synth, and Margot just so happens to know a couple of professionals who can give Marty a smash hit! 

At the smash pad, Sebastian and Evan have brought a box of junk to smash, but Margot has been waiting for them. Margot apologizes about the way she acted the other day and recruits them in smashing her very haunted synth. Sebastian wonders if smashing it will be enough and decide they’ll talk to Aunt Linette about bringing out the big guns and arrange to smash the piano that night. For now, let’s smash this printer! 

Back at home, Marty tries to influence Margot and puts images of success and adoration in Margot’s mind, but Margot brushes it off and grabs the instrument. Marty is relentless, attacking her with the power cord and images of being with her dad on stage, but Margot is stronger than that. She pushes the piano down the stairs. ✨Vision✨ appears then offering to keep Marty at bay while Margot transports the piano to the smash pad. It’s tough going and it storms a little, but finally Margot reaches the smash pad where Sebastian and Evan have ghost bothering supplies from Aunt Linette. On the target mat, they are very liberal with the salt and draw the symbol Aunt Linette gave them. At last they climb the rope ladder and together heave the piano over the edge and it smashes. Does it work?

Nope. It just pisses Marty off. At the same time Marty’s evil eyes appear in the piano, the tsunami sirens go off. Sebastian and Evan climb down the rope ladder but it breaks before Margot reaches the ground. Sebastian and Evan run for help, but Margot can’t hold on. She falls to the ground and Marty’s devilish face forms from the piano parts. 

✨Vision✨ catches Margot just in time. Margot is safe, but Marty starts to attack ✨Vision✨. A fork of lightning hitting the sea gives Margot an idea. Marty feeds off attention, well, good luck getting any in the sea where there are no musicians, no fans, no spotlight. ✨Vision✨ grabs the Marty-piano parts and floats to the water. With an electric “catch you on the flip side!” ✨Vision✨ disappears under its surface. 

The storm has stopped and everything has calmed. Margot is desperately trying to spot ✨Vision✨ but gives up, sitting on the sand and crying, but then, ✨Vision✨ appears! She’s come to say goodbye before she moves on. It’s enough for ✨Vision✨ that Margot will remember her, not for her big hit, but because she was the boldest, bravest bolt of lightning in a bottle. As ✨Vision✨ fades, she tells Margot to make music for herself, then Sebastian and Evan come running up to Margot with her mom and Aunt Linette. 

Back at home, Margot starts singing a song about Sons of Smash and her mom tells her to get her ukulele out, which means Margot has to confess it “broke” while all three teens look awkward. Margot’s mom picks up the pink cat statue, the same one Margot was going to smash in anger, saying she’s been saving for a rainy day and it certainly rained today, then encourages them to smash the cat. Inside is filled with her savings and enough money for  Margot to buy a new ukulele which she adorns the case with a ✨Vision✨ eye sticker. As she plays and sings, ✨Vision✨ watches from outside the window. Meanwhile, in Venice Beach, Margot’s dad walks past a street seller who has a Prophet-5 synth he found on the beach. It still works.