‘Twas the sallow orange of rotting jack o’lanterns, that flame-scarred kettle. In the hut, long devoid of either gasoline or electricity, it was a cold and dead thing. Splatters of long digested meals were burnt-on moles, not pretty as freckles are, yet a blight on its enamel. Its handle bore grease. The spout cover hung loose. Capless, the open top gap-tooth, under shadow’s breath, was a gleeful monster gape. Leah backed away, taking in a sharp juddering breath.
Rain slew in drumming waves, relentless, cold, thick. Though devoid of winter’s sting, the rain that spring was only handsome in its unabashed misery. The sun skulked behind cloud’s tumult, the hazy havoc of the skies, snubbing newborn lambs and calves who promptly theron shivered, shook and died. And, lof the flowers that rose as the very flags of optimism, ne’er a one escaped the drubbing; all were beaten into the dirt, ne’er a one survived.
Dust clogged in tattered curtain’s shadow, the typewriter was a lament of days faded to meanest whisper. Once the bastion of the free world, the new sword of the journalist era, it neither lived nor died. Seizing in the stagnant mist, mist that rolled from harbours bare, ‘twas sorest sight, this corpse of a dream that should have lived. Oh my. Oh my. If only it had lived, perhaps the streets would have made it too. Perhaps the curtain would be red-velvet hue.
Eyes open! Eyes wide! The clock hands leap as gayest spring lambs. The clock hands sun-sing amid this blessed morrow’s tide. Sound and sight marry as one, bolder in each declaration that true day hath begun. So rise up! Come hither! Grab bonnet and cap! Grab parchment and pen! Bring sweet maple sap! The cold night is banished. The long winter battle is won. A dawn of mirth and merriment announces that happiness hath come.
Beneath a blushing sky, threading cherry blossom puddles, Anna’s bicycle surrendered to gravity in the advancing dusk. Feet free of the pedals, giggling with childish mirth, homeward she rode. She negotiated turns with balletic poise, her gravitational centre just right. Soon a new night would usher in the stars, the constellation choir of her eclectic dreams. With a lungful of eventide air, cool and fresh, she sang a new song into the breeze and whooped for giddy joy.
The flute sang to the stars until their deepest hearts did pulse. In return the heavens did not sing, yet poured as water into the valley and remained there as star-freckled blackest ink. This, my friends, is no legend of old, for I saw it with my own eyes. I felt it with my own hands. I swam in its perfect ambiance, for it was both warm and sweet. As I dived within the flute music returned and oxygen did inflate my lungs. My pilot light burned brighter, swelling my heart anew. The flute I played that day is with me still, a humble yard of silver, a 'cup and string' telephone that divinity chose to answer.