Have you ever heard the saying “time to face the music”? Probably, but I hadn’t. I was the idiot who created it.


It started on August 11th, 1834, in a small town 30 miles north-east of Concord. I was sixteen at the time, and lived right next to the church with my father. My mother had died of tuberculosis ten years ago, and my father never spoke of it. We moved on, he and I working as hired hands on farms that lay around us. New Hampshire is normally a very temperate place, but that summer it got incredibly hot. We worked, carrying water to the fields, since it hadn’t rained in months. We weren’t the only ones inconvenienced by the drought. There was a small village on the ocean shore, but they did not have any conveniences, so they sent all the sailors to us to get water and supplies. This brought good business to Proctor’s General Store, and to the church, which contained the town’s only well.


We always had enough in our little town, but something always drew me towards something more. I grew tired of hauling water and feeding hogs. But one muggy August night, I went too far.


I heard music filtering through the fog. That was bizarre, especially since our town’s only musician, David Stapps, had left for St. Joseph two years ago, taking his banjo with him. But this music was something even beyond your archetypical banjo, this was beautiful. The sun had set two hours ago, and most of the neighbor’s lamps had been doused. I could smell a cigar burning from Mr. Proctor’s store, meaning he was probably doing his nightly book work. Widow Hawthorne was still up knitting, anxiously waiting for news about her son, who had left with Stapps for Missouri.


The music continued, then stopped suddenly. I shrugged it off as a dream, and tried to sleep. But the music began again, significantly louder this time. I still thought it was a dream, until the door to the General Store creaked open, and Mr. Proctor stepped out. I silently climbed down the stairs, and went out to talk to him. Before I could though, Widow Hawthorne had grabbed her cane and came out, eager to see what was making that beautiful music.


The music led out of town, towards the coastline, and the cemetery. Mr. Proctor still had his cigar lit, and the gentle ember at the end glowed in the fog like a beacon. The moon was full, but the gloom obscured it into oblivion, making it difficult to see. After mere minutes, we found the source of the music. It came from the mausoleum, right next to the cemetery. If any of us were less entranced by the music, common sense might’ve saved us.


I cracked the mausoleum door open, and the music stopped. An arm grabbed me by my shirt collar, and pulled me inside. He locked the door, as Mr. Proctor violently slammed his fist against it. I was temporarily blinded by the light inside the mausoleum, but when my eyes refocused, I saw the truth.


Four women stood next to four harps. They put a bag over my head, and the man hit me with a rock. When I awoke, I was in a ship bunk, a large red welt on the top of my head.


I felt physically weak, and after seeing a large cut on my arm, knew they had drained me of a significant amount of blood. For what, and how I ended up on an Australian trading ship, I know not. We were ported in Boston, and I was allowed to go off-ship with an escort. I found a copy of the New Hampshire Statesman and State Journal, with an article about my disappearance. I found a more recent one, with a letter to the editor prominently displayed on the first page. It merely said: “Will the editor of the Courier explain this black affair. We want no equivocation - 'face the music' this time.”


The captain said that after the ship returned from its current charter, I could be released. He offered me a job as a crewman, which I begrudgingly took.


A year later, I returned to New York, and bought a horse to make the trip back up to New Hampshire. I stopped at Concord for a hot meal, and asked about news of my town. Everyone I talked to either changed the conversation, or walked away briskly.


After my dinner, I traveled the last thirty miles to my town, and I was shocked. The General Store was burned down, half the houses were in horrible disrepair, and the Church’s roof had fallen in. I learned later that the town believed it was cursed, after I disappeared, and the General Store getting hit by lightning a few days after. Mr. Proctor had died in the fire, and Widow Hawthorne had died when she fell down the stairs into her cellar. The rest of the town had moved, some to New York, some to Georgia, and some to Missouri.


I’m nineteen now, and live in Boston. I sailed with the Australian trading ship two more years, but last year I settled down, and got a job as a tailor’s apprentice. The librarian is teaching me how to read, and eventually I would like to work as a journalist.

I still miss those muggy New Hampshire nights, when I’d hear Bill Stapps pluck on his banjo, and the smell of Mr. Proctor’s cigars. I couldn’t care less that I had an idiom fashioned after me.

Every night, I walk past the Music Hall, and hear the harpists play their melodies. I would be more entranced, but I know what happens to men who get snared by the love of music.

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I took a great deal of time making sure this story is historically accurate. For example, the first known use of the idiom "Face the Music" is actually in the August New Hampshire Statesman and State Journal in 1834.

The theme this week was Music, so I went with a more inspired thing.

Poll here, I'm against Torm this week