The golden arm and its fingers

第二篇創作

Long time ago, there was a small village in Taiwan. Some people said they saw a ghost with a golden arm appearing sometime at midnight. People didn’t want to go out at midnight. They were afraid of the golden arm, who tended to take children especially young boy away from village.

One night, the sky had no cloud, but there were no moon and no stars either. The golden arm entered the boy house. The door was locked, but she appeared in front of the boy’s bed. She waked up the boy and said, “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you, if you follow my command. I want you come to my place every Tuesday, and I want you to be a famous pianist, or I will kill kids in your village one after another.”

The boy, Jay, didn’t want to see kid dying in his village. He followed the golden arm to the graveyard. She taught Jay to play piano with her gold arm. Jay studied and played piano before, but showed no improvement. He kept in grade 11. His teacher wondered whether he could be a pianist in the future. However, Jay had shown improvement lately and his teacher was surprised unbelievably.

The village held piano contest every year. This year, Jay also entered the competition. He had no problem and won the champion cup. But his rivalry, a girl who was the second place winner, was angry and she was also taught by the same piano teacher. The teacher told her that Jay’s fingers were strong like he had a golden arm and fingers.

One night, the girl couldn’t go to sleep and saw a shadow walked out of Jay’s house. She peeked carefully, and made sure it was Jay. She was curious about Jay’s move, since he won the piano contest. So, she followed him to the graveyard. She saw him enter the coffin for half hour and returned his home.

The following night, however, Jay didn’t go out. She waited till the morning light, and made sure Jay didn’t leave his house. The third night, Jay also stayed and slept in his house. The fourth night, it was the same. It was until the next Tuesday night. She saw Jay walked up the hill and stayed there for half an hour. She had third intuition and was expecting something happened with Jay and his piano play.

The gold arm ghost kept teaching Jay piano play and every Tuesday’s lesson. But, one Tuesday light, she waited and waited and saw no Jay coming. She was angry and decided to go down the hill. She entered Jay’s house without knocking. The girl hid herself behind the rock outside Jay’s house, observed a long hair woman squeezing in from the thin hole of the door. She gasped and breathed like she had just seen a ghost.

She heard their conversation. “Why didn’t you go to my place to play piano?” the golden arm questioned. “I got a fever, ma’am. My legs are frozen too.” Jay replied. “OK, I don’t want my student being lazy, do you understand? I am waiting for you on next Tuesday.” Suddenly, the golden arm pulled the door and the girl fell down from outside. “Who are you? Why do you follow me? I am going to kill you immediately.”

The girl was frightened and asked for help. In no time, Jay turned on the flash light. The golden arm ghost was blind and yelled, “shut off the flash light, I can see nothing with flash light on.” The girl ran away in a hurry. As the gold arm stepped outside, there was a big flash lightning from the sky and rain began to pour harder. Jay saw the golden arm rusting under the rain.

The ghost retreated to the graveyard and found the golden arm had disappeared. The next Tuesday, Jay was still sick, but the golden arm didn’t show up. He wondered and thought the golden arm ghost might not come out again, therefore he didn’t go to the graveyard anymore. Jay later became one of the greatest pianist and singer in Taiwan music industry.

~the end.