Friday, 18 April 2008

Percy changed

Percy regarded his enemy. Now was the time. The rose axminster carpet proffered purchase for each toe, newly wrinkled from the long bath, and each digit clawed the pink, ready for the task ahead. He had loved her once, her glistening surfaces and chrome-plated curlicues, but now the disused, overpolished tuba cloaked him in a thin crust of three decade old rejection, , faded and yellowed as the letter that Percy read and re-read,

"March 1978. I regret to inform you that subsequent to audition and interview, you will not be offered a position with the Band this year."

And he had not played since; sentencing himself instead to a servitude spent in beeswax and dusters. But today, this Sunday, would be different. Percy laid a finger on a single button and quashed the urge that rose from his bowels to spit and wipe away the imprint of grease cavorting over the bright metal. The tinkling of horns and trumpets sounded outside the bay window; the regiment, sweating proudly in their brown and red poplin serge, were fast approaching. Percy hoisted his adulterous nemesis onto his shoulders, bowed legs and wrinkled knees straining to a wooden creak as he refamiliarised himself with the weight, and tested his teeth on the mouthpiece. All in order for the final rebellion. He would show them.

Through the quiet pomp and ceremony of Sunday in the English Village, forcing his way between the tight starched ranks of the marching band, came a sagging white streak carrying a tuba, attired in nothing but a thin red sash across his narrow shoulders, upon which was emblazoned the slogan "TUBA MASTER 2008", in fresh black ink. The euphonious notes of Beethoven's fifth rioted and tumbled over a shredded shrill Amazing Grace, the very last tinny triangle stamped into submission, as Percy, head high and stark naked, gloried in his last triumph.

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