Birthday Music
by Juno Verse
It's been stored away in the cedar chest since my mother put it there in the early 60's, well, 1962 to be exact. She was a careful woman, but over these many years the bow has flattened, and the wind-up parts have corroded some from non-use. Oh, the many birthdays it visited--we brought it out with all the other presents, wound it up to let the jaunty “Happy Birthday” tune tick out from the pile of gifts and rub against the frosted cake. We all smiled and cheered to hear it on our special day, never realizing that like the spring-loaded song, life can stop suddenly.
It's not that the life went out of my mother when dad died, but she shifted away from reminders of what used to be. She tucked many things away. Now that she has passed, it is right to have this little package of cheer used again to mark the passing of a year, an age, a time that can never be again. It needs to mark someone's year and all the promise to come, with laughter and song. In her best moments mom would have wanted it that way, and let it move on.
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Author's Note
Part of the significant objects project. Object is a music box.
Other stories by Juno Verse
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Zero comments...geesh tough crowd. So poorly crafted? Too depressing? No one here is my friend?
I like the idea of contrasting the jaunty happy birthday with, well, death. Sorry for the delay in commenting...
Do you happen to know what song the box plays...would be a misrepresentation for S.O. if it was some other song. Thanks for the comment...guess folks aren't liking it much. Better try next time perhaps.
Wow, you packed a lot of significance into this music box in two hundred words. An object to be cherished, to be brought out each year. Well done. I went ahead and smashed mine in my short.
Thanks, and yeah I wondered if the story included its destruction ... how could that be ...or maybe a Paul Auster kind of dream that never happened in the end. I'm not sure how much the S.O. folks obsess over accuracy.
It's funny -- people tend to bid way less on objects that are -- in the stories -- destroyed. Even though you can see from the photo that it's not destroyed.
This is not my favorite Music Box story, Lynn. I guess I don't feel like it's a story -- I'd want to hear more about the mother, say, or the narrator's relationship to the mother, or... something? It's also a bit sentimental for my taste.
Lynn, I see you're a fan of dark, funny writers like Borges and Amis -- why not channel them, for a story like this?
melancholy sweet, this story. I agree with Marcy, well done.
re: the song -- I think that no matter what the tune, over the years it would have become a birthday song to them
Josh, thanks for the tips. I'll try again since I am a hopeless fan of Significant Objects. I would think sentiment sells...?
I try (not always successfully) to distinguish between sentiment and sentimentality -- the latter being sentiment that's a bit predictable, I guess. But I sound very preachy and critical, when in fact I'm sometimes a sucker for sentimentality. So ignore that part; my real criticism is about the lack of plot. However, plotlessness isn't always a bad thing, for the SO project -- as long as there's something else really engaging happening (e.g., fascinating description, characterization). Rob and I have no hard and fast rules, really -- we'd just end up breaking them.