The Orange Drum
We’ll give you a drum, the little people said, and you’ll see what we mean.
For TiF Inanimate Objects. Thanks.
The Orange Drum
The wind was up, meaning it was time for the little people who lived in the grass. They scampered through the motionfull orange and brown leaves, looking for birds or the big people to trick.
Sing us a song, they said to the sparrow, and we’ll give you a gold coin. The sparrow sang Beethoven’s Fifth, turning its beak to the gray sky. When the sparrow was finished, the little people gave her an old, rusty nail.
The little people wore their hair cropped short and a tin whistle tied about their neck with a piece of red yarn. The little people were strange with these whistles and blew them at random, all through the day.
Say, said the little people to the man, you look like Keith Moon.
The man was surprised. He’d once been red-haired and fair and had never played drums. He said, It hardly seems likely that that could be so.
You look, said the little people, like you came from the moon. The little people held their tan hands up to the sky. The day became dark and the moon rose orange and near full.
The man was confused. He was old and the cataracts were filling his eyes. He looked at the moon as if through a fog. I think you’re confused, he told the little people. The moon has little to do with the man.
The little people laughed. Their t-shirts were blue like a late autumn sky. Their eyes were gray like the early winter rain.
We’ll give you a drum, the little people said, and you’ll see what we mean.
The old man was wary. He’d heard of these little people before. He wanted to sit in the chair at the edge of the lawn to rest his sore knees. What will I give you for this drum I don’t need?
The little people blew their whistles and ranked to attention. You’ll give us the picture you keep in your wallet.
The man patted his back pocket. The picture was of a girl he knew when he was young. She wore her pale hair in two slender braids.
It’s all I have left, he said, and you’d ask it of me?
The little people nodded their little tan faces. It’s a very fine drum. And you’re a very fine drummer. They pointed up at the moon that was now just a sliver.
The old man wanted to see this drum. Would it have a blue sash to wear around his neck? Would it be silver, stretched taut with an animal’s skin?
Let me see the drum, he said, and I’ll give you an answer.
The moon was now gone and the little people were lost in the dark. You’ll be young and be free, said their disembodied voices. Younger than Keith Moon when he died. Free of the pain in your old broken body, from the inside of your head to the lunula of your nails.
The man thought of the girl in the photo. She never did love him and he never did marry. The little people waited on him as the sun began its slow climb. They were eager and shining with its red on their faces.
I know this is a trick, said the man to the people. The drum will grow legs and will run from me too. I’ll be fair and be young and broken-hearted as well.
The little people brought out the drum. On its white face was painted the hour of the man’s death, streaked in the crimson of the new rising day. All was old bone and red blood, and the dangerous new beat inside the man’s breast.
