The Green Room’s Requiem

In the autumn of 1982, I joined the school orchestra as a flutist. Our practice room was a converted storage cellar beneath the auditorium stage, accessible only by a narrow, iron staircase that spiraled down from the wings. The first time I descended, the air grew thick with dust and the smell of old wood. The room itself was a labyrinth of forgotten set pieces: a cracked Greek column, a moth-eaten velvet curtain, a grandfather clock that had stopped at 3:17. The light switch was at the bottom of the stairs, and I hated being the first to arrive. The darkness above, the oppressive weight of the stage overhead, and the silence that seemed to breathe all made my skin crawl.

One frosty morning in late October, my father dropped me off early for a sectional. The school was still quiet, the hallways lit by a few fluorescent strips that buzzed. I pushed open the auditorium doors; the main lights were off, and only the faint glow from the exit signs cast a red haze across the empty seats. I walked to the wing, my footsteps echoing on the wooden floor. At the top of the iron stairs, I peered down. Absolute black. I swallowed hard, grabbed the cold railing, and started my descent, counting each step to keep my nerves steady.

Halfway down, I heard it—a low, mournful hum, like a distant cello playing a single, sustained note. It was coming from the practice room itself. I froze, my heart thudding. The sound was familiar, like the tuning note we used, but deeper, more resonant. I told myself it was just the old pipes settling or the wind outside. But the note didn’t waver; it held, unwavering, waiting. I forced myself to continue, my hand sliding along the wall until I found the switch. The fluorescent lights flickered to life, revealing the room in its usual chaotic state. The hum was gone. I sighed with relief and set up my music stand, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been listening.

The next morning, I arrived earlier than ever. I was determined to conquer my fear. I flicked on the lights even before I reached the bottom, illuminating the stairs and the room. But as I descended, I noticed something different: the grandfather clock, which had always been frozen at 3:17, was now ticking. The pendulum swung gently, and the second hand moved with a steady rhythm. I laughed nervously—perhaps the janitor had fixed it. But when I looked closer, the clock’s face showed the correct time, exactly matching my watch. I began to practice, but every few minutes, I caught myself glancing at the clock. It seemed to be ticking faster, the second hand sweeping in a blur. I stopped playing to watch. The hands spun wildly, then stopped at 3:17 again. A cold draft blew across the room, rustling my sheet music.

That evening, I decided to stay after school to retrieve a sheet I’d left behind. The building was empty, and the auditorium lights were off. I made my way down the iron stairs, the darkness swallowing me as I went. When I reached the bottom, I paused. The practice room door was ajar, and a faint, flickering light seeped through. I pushed it open. Inside, a single candle burned on top of the grandfather clock—which now stood at the center of the room, though it had been against the wall that morning. The clock’s face glowed with a sickly green light, and the hands were ticking backwards. Around the base, someone had arranged a circle of old, yellowed photographs. They were all of children, each holding a musical instrument—a violin, a trumpet, a clarinet. Their eyes were empty, and their smiles were wrong, too wide.

I backed away, but the door slammed shut. The candle blew out. In the darkness, the hum returned, louder now, a choir of notes that seemed to rise from the floor. The photographs began to flutter as if caught in a wind. The clock’s chimes rang—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen times—and then stopped. A voice, barely a whisper, spoke from the clock: ‘We were the first band, the green room’s children. You will play our requiem.’

I didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, I resigned from the orchestra, telling the director I was too busy. But the school didn’t let me go easily; they said I was a key player. I avoided the auditorium entirely, but I could still hear that hum in my head, following me through hallways, growing louder when I passed near the stage. One afternoon, my friend Rosa, who played the cello, asked me to wait for her while she fetched her bow from the practice room. I couldn’t let her go alone. I ran down the stairs behind her, but when we reached the bottom, the room was transformed. The walls were covered with old sheet music, scribbled with frantic notations. The clock was gone, replaced by a large, black piano that hadn’t been there before. Rosa laughed, thinking it was a prank, and played a few keys. A dissonant chord echoed, and the grandfather clock reappeared, its face now a gaping dark hole.

From that hole, a cold hand reached out, gripping Rosa’s wrist. She screamed, but I grabbed her and pulled her free. The clock’s mouth closed, and the room fell silent. We scrambled up the stairs, and I never looked back. Weeks later, Rosa started having nightmares, muttering about ‘the green room’ and a requiem. She transferred schools by the new year. As for me, I gave up music completely. But sometimes, in the quiet of my own room, I hear that low, mournful hum, and I know the clock is still waiting, ticking backwards, for the day when I must play its requiem.