The Piano Teacher and His Starr By Rocco Di Pietro

One day the piano teacher found himself lingering over a kindly slightly older female student, whose hands were very supple, as he showed her a certain fingering in front of class. He was aware that she inspired in him a tremendous gentleness and patience but did not give it much thought. He in fact treated her as if she was a special needs student, the other students noticed his doting on her. This particular student was very kind and gentle, almost like a lost soul, but one day she surprised him. During one of the practice routines she suddenly stood up from the piano as if she wanted to show the teacher something about proper posture, when all of a sudden she thrust her arms straight out in front of her body, with her wrists up and palms facing the teacher. She then calmly asked the teacher to put his hands out in the same position and to press against her palms so that the 20 set of fingers would be perfectly aligned. The piano teacher feeling he would humor her, as she seemed at that moment like the most hapless creature in the world with absolutely no talent for the instrument ,did as he was told, as the class wondered what was up? Suddenly and without notice as his palms pressed against hers he received a jolt that went right through his body. He pulled away stunned, at first thinking it was merely some kind of static electricity, until he saw in her eyes something that terrified him. Stepping backwards and without realizing what he was saying he blurted out, your psychic, arent you, to the amazement and bewilderment of the class, which he then dismissed. As the students left he became very nervous as he thought that people with second sight, or people who shined, brought misfortune or even death. The student did all she could to calm him by telling him her story. She had been benevolently stalking him for two years, waiting for him, checking him out, as she would sign up for his class, come the first week, and drop, sitting in the back of the room. The piano teacher did not remember her. She would drive from another city where she lived the two hours away

to see him, her name was Starr Gemstone.

Her real motive was to learn from him as she knew he had a profound sense of history and that he had taught history for many years. Her purpose being to actually read more accurately the things she saw in her clients destinies, and to be more accurate, as she realized she got things wrong. With this in mind she made him a fantastical on the spot proposal and asked him to move to New York with her and be her partner in her business. She wanted him to teach her ethical responsibility which she said she saw was the teachers great contribution in his many years of former teaching in prison. She explained to him that he did not always have the gift as she called it, but was hit by a car and left for dead. After being pronounced dead on the operating table she was taken to the morgue were she spent the night remembering death vividly. When they opened the drawer the next morning and found her alive, they rushed her back to hospital where she discovered she could see or Shine as she called it. Then she proceeded to give a reading of the piano teacher. She pulled from her note book sheets of paper and pencil, and started a kind of seismograhic writing that looked like pure gibberish but which filled up many pages with indeciperable lines of scribble while her eyes went slightly off, so you could see more of the whites of her eyes than you were supposed to. She began telling him things no one could have known, and she did this by reading his emotions, and could even see his death she said as it now might be, but she got things contextually, and historically wrong, and mixed things up chronologically. The piano teacher was skeptical but was fascinated. He befriended her and introduced her to his friends so she could do their charts as well. In one case she had seen some ominous things in his blind friend but would not say what they were. When he died a horrible unsuspected death two years later, the piano teacher was glad he had made the decision not to join her, as he felt that he could not tamper with peoples lives that way. She herself was having second thoughts about taking on clients as she had a young woman who was pregnant and whose child she knew would die, but could not tell her. It was becoming apparent that having the gift was a great burden to her, and she did not want to burden the piano teacher with her insights. They parted, amicably, after he had given her several lessons on history. Years later in Rome, while the piano teacher was walking along the Appian Way, he took a double take as he was sure he recognized her in a part of Rome the Gypsies were very fond of working. She was putting coins in a gypsy woman with childs cup. When she turned around, the piano teacher had disappeared down a hidden Medieval side street.