The Broken Reed
& Eternal Flame

In the beginning, he could do nothing more than send his fingers viciously over the various openings making wild movements of discord until his grandmother, being a practical woman, presented him with simple compositions of music and showed him how to bring forth their melodies. Some he would recognize. Some he did not, but he learned to play them, and it seemed she would not cease until he learned every song ever transcribed on paper. There was never a time when he hated the instrument so much.However, now that he was familiar with the piece, he seemed to go back to that time when he first learned to play, only his motions weren’t as mindless as before. Instead, they seemed to be the very song of his restless heart, and the tune sang it all for him clearly as if looking through glass. —