the Chello

I have a chello which I am trying to play.

I am trying in earnest and manage to get some sounds on the high strings. But the beautiful thick low strings are all loose and wobble uselessly, too slack to sing.

I keep on and on trying though to make them sound and sense as I do so that somewhere I have a memory of their song.

The Piano

I am at my childhood home, there is a party going on. The guests are having fun and being creative: one girl has made some wild body jewellery out of heavy nylon rope, woven throughout her hair and all around her body like a thick blue snake. She is sexy and her eyes have the fire of an uninhibited pleasure seeker.

I feel on the outside, I see myself dull and boring. I want to join in but have lost something and must find it before I can. I go into a room on my own shutting the door on the fun; am confronted by piles of boxes filling the room. I know that the thing which I seek is hidden within these boxes; the volume of ‘stuff’ I must search through is overwhelming.

I take a deep breath and begin my hunt, pulling out box after box and emptying their contents. I find a big acoustic base guitar: its body sensual and feminine, a torso made from warm flesh coloured wood. The strings though are not taut. I pluck at them but the dark thick metal wobbles disappointingly, too slack to give voice to the beauty. I lay it to one side for later as I know I will be playing it soon.

I continue aware of nothing except each box and my desperate hunt. I have pulled out so much stuff I wonder how ever it will fit back and realise things will never be the same again. I sense though that I am nearing my target, the thing I have lost is close by and so I make one last ditch effort and recklessly shove all of the crap to either side.

I stand back to see what has been uncovered and there it is, my piano! My beautiful old piano: upright and made from the darkest solid rosewood; a “particularly fine example of its kind” because the blind piano tuner told me so. I recollect small feet in white ankle socks tiptoeing on pedals, tiny hands dancing up and down the length of its ivory keys; a small girl lost within a cathedral of sound whose waves expand and seek to posses every cell of her growing body.

I notice that the lid is closed, that there is only just enough room between boxes to get in and sit down. But it is uncovered and ready – ready to begin.