Can you play something?

He took a sip, and placed the cup back on the piano, in the same precarious position as before, half cup on half cup off. He looked at the liquid, which resembled the color of the piano, and played a single dull note to salute the continuity of it. He got up and walked to the window and placed his forehead against the cold glass, he closed his eyes and listened, he heard a car pass by slowly, and he hated her for it. He tried to listen, to see if he could hear anything inside the house, but couldn’t, realizing not for the first time that he hadn’t paid any sort of bills in a month or two. He went and sat back down at the piano, took the last sip from the cup, and refilled it from the refrigerator, which by this time was merely a very fancy containment device, considering that there were no forms of power by which to keep everything cold and satisfactory.
He sat back down at his piano, sipped his beverage and placed it exactly as he had done every other time before. He stared at the cup, brown and orange liquid sloshing around, he played a note, he thought he saw the cup move, just a fraction and played another note. It definitely had not moved, it stayed where it was, taunting him with its utter immovability, he played a few more notes willing the cup to give just a millimeter, maybe even less, but it refused him. Four days had gone by since he began trying to move the cup with notes, and it had been four days of fruitless torment for him, the only time the cup moved closer or further away from the edge was when he didn’t succeed in placing it exactly where he had taken it from a minute before when he went to refill his glass. His head hit the piano keys, emitting a disgruntled noise from the piano; he groaned in response and brought his head back up, to begin again his cup moving exercise, he played each key, from highest to lowest, and then inspected the glass. He could gauge the movement of the cup, he assumed, from the condensation ring that would be left behind, the lack of one therefore proved that he had not succeeded.
He caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked down the street to see an elderly couple and a scruffy black dog padding down the street; he saw them at around this time, or what felt around this time everyday. Since he hadn’t had any use for a clock in a while, and felt therefore that he didn’t need one to remind him that he had nothing more pressing to do, than to sit around all day in his front yard, sipping gin and playing mind games with a glass cup. The couple by and large ignored him, this so far being their fourth time in seeing him with his piano and a glass of gin, and he assumed that their general attitude toward the whole thing was a sense of poor bastard, but pay him no mind. They passed in silence and then resumed conversation when they were at a safe distance away, with only the black dog occasionally looking back with what seemed a pitiful glance in his direction.
He passed the time idly, occasionally going back to his experiment, playing a few notes, then staring at his cup, daring it to move. It was during one of these strenuous exercises that he noticed he was not alone.
“Can you play something?” a voice inquired from his elbow
“no” he said “can you?”
She motioned with her hand for him to scoot over, and then plopped herself down next to him on the stool, she began playing, and he couldn’t quite place it, it reminded him of old nursery rhymes, and assumed it was one of those. He looked at the girl who could not have been more than 12 or 13, and listened to her play. He felt a little uncomfortable and stared down at his feet and the tattered brown loafers that he sported, his feet next to hers appeared much bigger, she wore sandals with her toes colored bright pink. He realized that he had been staring at her feet for sometime and brought his head up to watch her hands, which were also colored bright pink, dance around the keys.
She finished playing, and sat where she was for a moment as if absorbing everything that she had just played.
“well what do you think?”
“it was… good” he replied
She looked despondent with his response, and began playing something else. After a few moments he realized what she was playing and began to sing the words, along with her playing. He sang it slowly, and with what he felt was very little emotion.
When the song had finished, and the last words of the song had floated away he noticed that she was staring at him now, he wasn’t sure when she had stopped playing, but it had been before he’d stopped singing, which made him feel a little foolish, she must have noticed because she patted him on the back and began to play something else. He watched her fingers play around on the keys for a little while longer, until she stopped playing abruptly.
“I have to get home” she said “it’s dinner time now, it was nice meeting you”
“It was nice meeting you too.” He said without getting up.
She walked around the piano to his side and gave his shoulders a hug, looked at his piano one more time and noticed the cup, she picked it up, sniffed it, made a face, then hopped on her bike and was gone.
He wanted her to stay longer, he had enjoyed the company, and also listening to someone that could play something instead of single notes. He also wanted to ask her to teach him something but thought better of it, she was probably a neighborhood kid, and he’d most likely see her again, that’s when he’d ask her. He thought about putting his piano away inside but changed his mind, besides he had a tarp anyway, and the fridge could stay outside also, because it was way to heavy to haul in and out every day.
He thought about his cup of gin and inspected it’s position, it hadn’t moved during the hole ordeal, except when the girl had picked it up, but she’d done a pretty good job of putting it back down where she’d found it. He decided that if all that playing hadn’t moved it, no amount of playing could, and with the back of his hand, he sent it whisking into the grass. He thought about what the alcohol would do to the grass, probably kill it and turn it brown, which seemed the likeliest thing to happen.