Mikki Aronoff ~ Three Stories

The Prodigy Maker

The man with no eyes and ears who tunes pianos tap-tap-taps at our door at the creaky-crack of dawn and plunks his satchel of tools down next to the spinet. His bul­bous nose glis­tens like a shim­mer­ing pond. His breath, like scram­bled eggs and cin­na­mon toast, shim­mies up our nos­trils when he bends over, flap­ping his hands, scan­ning for the bench. Before he set­tles, his thin fin­gers flounce out the back of his tail­coat, fad­ed grey and frayed from his days con­duct­ing the vil­lage orches­tra. The kit­tens are entranced, bat at the bells he’s sewn onto the jacket’s tails to keep naughty felines out of reach as he works. Pulling a rag from his pock­et like silk scarves out of a top hat, he cleans the key­board, sticky with crumbs and jel­ly, some stuck from sticks and stones lodged between them. A tun­ing wrench dances a jig in his hands as he slides up and down the slip­pery pol­ished seat on his thread­bare trousers, nod­ding and hum­ming and adjust­ing strings till Chopsticks sounds like Chopin when we bang on the keys. Mother is pleased; her twins may win a com­pe­ti­tion after all. She press­es a mam­moth bou­quet of bishop’s lace and corn­flow­ers, still damp from the dew, into the piano tuner’s hands along with a fat enve­lope, as we run out, hoot­ing and gig­gling, onto the field behind the house, cart­wheel­ing down a ser­pen­tine path recent­ly stripped of its blossoms.

~

Omelets

“That’s not the way you do it,” said Samuel as he pro­ceed­ed to try to demon­strate how to crack eggs with­out break­ing the yolks. “Let’s pre­tend that didn’t work as well as my method,” chuck­led David, pick­ing out bits of shell from the mess Samuel made and flick­ing them aside. The men were hap­py vaca­tion­ing on an island teem­ing with hum­ming­birds and frangi­pani blos­soms, far away from the smog-choked city, away from the dai­ly tedi­um of han­dling accounts payable (Samuel) and receiv­able (David). Here, thanks to atten­tive staff, fresh eggs arrived on their porch doorstep each morn­ing, still warm with feath­ers stuck to the shell, along with plump fruit to slice or juice and a bas­ket­ed clutch of gua­va tarts leak­ing brown beads of sug­ar like amber. But there was some­thing about the eggs, their shells with eddies of vio­lets and oranges and yel­lows, as if they were dress­ing for Easter or com­pet­ing with the dawn. Yolks brighter than the sun—a morn­ing prayer. “Let’s come back every year,” they said in uni­son, their faces blink­ing like fire­flies as their lips smacked and nib­bled fluffy omelets glow­ing gold in asylum’s ear­ly light.

~

I Keep Asking My Doctor What to Do About My Problem

The first time I saw my doc­tor, he told me he escaped his home­land — once known for sam­ba and pineap­ples, to get here. There was a dic­ta­tor at the helm. Like Hungary, he said, but sun­ny, as he moved his stetho­scope from my back to my front and shined a light into my eyes. He told me cops chased him down the run­way as he sprint­ed in his scrubs towards a thrum­ming Cessna, the oth­er seat occu­pied by a rene­gade pilot who idol­ized Indiana Jones and laughed too much at his jokes. He didn’t know yet how he’d reim­burse her for this fly­ing favor, but giv­en the way she eyed him, he could guess what she had in mind. When they land­ed, he was met by the clin­ic head play­ing czardas on a pic­co­lo and giv­en the key to a stu­dio apart­ment across the street from a gat­ed community.

Another time, a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. As he checked between my toes, my doc­tor claimed he’d won an award for his research and was flown first class to Chicago to present at an inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence. Medical schools reached out for him like squid, fought for him like wal­rus­es, each insti­tu­tion wav­ing a big­ger bag of cash than the ones before. He said it was like Doctors Without Borders, but down­side-up. “What do you think of that?” he asked me, his mis­matched socks pool­ing around his skin­ny ankles, his shab­by shoes in need of a shine. He took my blood pres­sure and shook his head, said to watch my salt.

“It was my des­tiny to be in America,” he whis­pered last week as he stuck his pinky into his ear and wig­gled it around.

“I’m still pee­ing too much,” I told him, again. Louder.

Footsteps are sound­ing down the hall, clack­ety-clack. Soon, burly men in uni­form swarm into the tiny exam­in­ing room and lift my doc­tor up by his armpits.

“But isn’t he famous?” I ask as they drag his limp body away, the tips of his thin soles scuff­ing the hall­way linoleum.

“Mind your head!” echoes from the park­ing lot.

“What about my prob­lem?” I scream out the win­dow, as I watch them shove him into the back­seat of a black van with dark, tint­ed windows.

“Do you think he’ll write?” I ask the nurse as I but­ton up my sweater, sprint for the ladies’.

~

Mikki Aronoff lives in New Mexico, where she writes tiny sto­ries and advo­cates for ani­mals. She has sto­ries in Best Microfiction 2024/2025 and Best Small Fictions 2024 and upcom­ing in Best Small Fictions 2025.