It's Just A Room

The stillness was starkly depressing in a room that had never been quiet. Opening the door onto silence brought flashes of memories in a kaleidoscope of images. The silence needed to be awoken from the forced slumber the room had endured.

Filling the void first, the quiet whir of the desktop as it opened, the first time since mid-March. A few quick clicks of the mouse and the Canadian Brass filled the room. As per the posted schedule, he had a scant hour to gather things, some of which had taken a lifetime to collect. He started with the files on the computer, copying them to an external hard drive.

While the files copied, he let his eyes wonder around the room. It wasn't large, having once been used as a filing area, the filing cabinets had moved long ago, giving way to healthy growth and progress. Its walls were an industrial light cream in color, not the worst of the five possible choices it might have been painted.

The furnishings were sparse, a desk that looked to be a relic from some army surplus store, two bookcases loaded with books on composers, music history and theory, instrumental method books and piles of scores. Six chairs, a music stand in front of each of them, stood empty along the wall across from the massive green M.A.S.H desk. A single stool and stand finished off the room's furniture, the perch from where he had spent almost 15 years preaching his brand of the gospel. His horn, still on its stand, waited for the next lesson. He packed the horn, a concert tenor with an F attachment, the "workmen" in his collection, in it's gig bag, now headed for home.

The Keurig on the counter looked disgusting, a weird green film drifting on the water in the reservoir, dumping the water he made an executive decision, dumping the whole unit into the rolling trash barrel he had dragged down with him.

Looking at the scores on the shelf, trying to decide what he needed and what he didn't -

"So ya think we'll be back in September?" Artie, the very definition of irascibility, and the buildings Chief Custodian, asked from the doorway.

"I don't know man." Pulling my mask back into place. "It's going to be tough ..."

"Yeah, how do you keep kids six feet apart?" Artie looked over at the barrel. "Don't make that thing too heavy!" Turning to leave, he turned back, "are you going to take that retirement incentive?"

"What incentive, you mean the offer to pay us double of nothing?" Chortling at the school boards folly.

Artie laughed. "Yeah, that's what I thought about it too."

He loaded his horn and papers on the rolling cart he had brought in, feeling he was leaving many things behind weighing heavily. Turning off the computer and the lights, locking the door, wondering if this room would ever be open for business again.

Word Count: 491