Concert Pianist - A Short Story

This is a short story.


I'm writing a novel about a virtuoso concert pianist
Who, after years so incensed, outraged and aggrieved
By the unscripted percussive expectorations
And incalculable contributions of English audiences
Has his agent book him on a series of performances
Around the sanatoria of this fair country
Where, with a subtlety and an irony that can hardly be credited
He waits for the tubercular inhabitants' hacking, coughing and retching
To reach a violent crescendo
Whereupon he interjects an unwanted Bach fugue
So far few publishers have answered my appeal for an advance