Trumpet--End
Friday, December 30, 2005
...And the Girl awoke early, to a steady rain against her window. The porno magazine had fallen to the floor, its colors dulled by the diffuse light of the cloudy dawn. She climbed out of bed and put on her cardigan sweater, the one that had held the magazine, stuck her feet into her slippers, went to her dresser, flipped shut the lid of her trumpet case and latched it, grabbed its handle and ran on her tiptoes down the stairs and out the door. The block was quiet, the rain light. She raced through it, looking both ways each time she crossed a street, and arrived, panting and damp, at the park. She looked around her at the wet wood of the benches and chose one, placing the trumpet case on the edge and assembling the instrument as she caught her breath. As raindrops fell on the brass surface, she wiped them away with her sweater sleeve, working her lips intently. She stepped up onto the bench and surveyed the grassy field and the baseball diamond. She was exhilarated by the thought that no one knew where she was, indeed no one in the neighborhood, probably, was up and moving except her, that she could do something unobserved but real. And she brought the trumpet to her lips and blew the Haydn solo, all of it, playing to the rain, even-toned and strong, a little fast maybe, her eyes closed as her vision went inward and melted into all of her other senses, as she became the piece she played and became the rain, and became the bench and became the air and let herself become.
****END****
