Flute

By NationChild

Created on January 5th, 2007

It didn’t look as though anyone had played it in a long while.

I fingered the old flute. Little rust marks had appeared on the once shiny, metallic surface. The creased from the covers long gone stood out in pale orange. The flute just looked unused, unloved. Until now.

I played a note. The instrument still worked. Playing a whole scale, I noted the melodious sound that emanated from it. Hmm…this is such a nice instrument. With a bit of work, maybe I can change it to how it was.

“Alright, everyone! Get out your instruments quietly and start practicing. I’ll be back in a minute.” Our music teacher strutted out of the room.

Taking my flute pieces gently out of its case, I started to assemble the pieces.

“Come on! I want you to knock me against the wall with your sound! Forte!”

We played as long and loud as we could. The flutes were barely audible, yet I still felt as though our band would have sounded different, without the flutes.

“Remember, this is a waltz. The keys to this piece are soft crescendos and slight ritardandos.”

Our band sounded different. Much more gentle. We were taught that when we played soft, we should be able to almost lure people to the location where we were playing; it was that soft and elegant and punctuated.

The flutes held a semi-major part in this piece. People couldn’t hear us, yet they could. There was a subtleness in our playing that accented the strings instruments.

“Nice job, everyone. Start packing up. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With a satisfied nod to us, our music teacher walked briskly to her room. Yeah, that was her. Ever so busy…at least, trying to be.

As I cleaned my flute with a cloth, I examined it just as I had done when I had first spotted it. The metal gleamed in the sunlight coming from outside. There were no longer spots on the instrument. It had be reborn.