The Piano at the Station

For two years, the piano in the corner of the central station had been silent. It was an old piano that the city had placed there for travelers, but the people who rushed past it every morning rarely noticed it.

Then, one cold Monday in January, music began to fill the hall at exactly seven o'clock. Someone was playing a slow, beautiful piece that nobody could name. By the time a small crowd had gathered, however, the player had disappeared, leaving only a cup of tea that was still warm.

The same thing happened the next day, and the day after that. Soon the mystery pianist was the talk of the station. Commuters started arriving early in the hope of seeing who it was, and a café owner whose shop faced the piano offered free coffee to anyone who could solve the mystery.

In the end, it was a cleaner called Zhou Min who found the answer. She noticed that the music always started when the first train from the north arrived, and stopped just before the second one left. One morning she waited quietly behind a pillar and watched a young train driver hurry from the platform, sit down and play for exactly eleven minutes.

When people asked him why, he smiled. His grandmother had taught him the piece, he explained, and playing it between two trains was the only quiet moment of his day. He has not stopped, but now he has an audience that waits for him.