Martina Wore Her Oboe

Martina wore her oboe. It was her jewelry that set off pale silken fabric that further set off her labored cheeks that puffed out when she played. She expected the antagonistic fibers and the inevitable travails of sewing the reed and winding the red wire to hold it, knowing it would fray within a week. Just like her nerves that knew the drinking habits of her paramour, a lug who failed to bow to woodwinds. She had a trio that rehearsed together and performed beyond the metronome that unified their heartbeats and the fingerings. The man she was supposed to love would count the measures and the moments until cocktail hour that followed her performances. She knew they were not made for each other, nor was she made for the routine that overtook whatever life she might have had.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pale Male

He speaks into video microphone as though it were a nest of mirrors. Throughout his engineering presentation, he drops names, while whining that he cannot make his way through the bureaucracy.  At some point midway through this keynote he says, "standard of deviation" as though this phrase existed. I think he may have absorbed some concepts that morphed into misnomers from a colleague enrolled in statistics classes. A pale male, our keynoter might have passed these classes, but his insecurity keeps showing. He declares he wants to make change. Clearly no one has handed him a bill. 
Read more
He held in mind a video of his reign as the supreme leader of all living and non-living beings with a self-replicating acclaim for his greatness. He ordered a yearly jubilee year of his being crowned the greatest of the great ones, during which marching bands from every corner of the earth would appear in full regalia performing brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments to perfection. No level of expenditure would be enough; each successive annual celebration would exceed all prior extravaganzas. He harped on his deservedness wherever an audience would emerge. When at last he had persuaded a sufficient number of weary listeners to heed his call, the first of many celebrations came to fruition. To his dismay, the musical assemblage consisted of 1,000 flutophones, white plastic flutes the young players could clean with soap and warm water and afford. 
Read more

The Truth Has Scars and Needs a Coat of Paint

He has a personality the size of mainland China. A heart twice that size, if either could be quantified. Everyone he knows loves him except the one he loves the most. She tells her friends, "Why would I love him? Look how much he does for me now. How could he do more?"  Each day he wakes up dreaming she'll return. Each night he knows his dream has not come true. He hopes for better the next morning.  His friends don't want to say anything. They know that if they did he would be sad. The truth has scars and needs a coat of paint. Why won't anyone do something? They've all learned to tell themselves, "He has to want this change of heart; we can't do it for him." Same convenient excuse for those who face a drunk and lack the courage to confront. Convenience and comfort keep the world complicit.  One morning on a whim he glances in the mirror and recognizes a young face hidden behind the wiser eyes. He feels the urge to protect that child and learns
Read more