“Um, do I really need to take part in this?” the prison guard mumbled, but his words got lost in the racket.
Rachel put in the earplugs she used for her afternoon naps and sat down in her chair to watch.
Her silence was unnerving, but the lack of any immediate counterattack put Elliott in an even better mood.
“Let’s do this thing!” Elliott hollered, rousing his fellow band members.
“Yeah!” Sykes cheered.
The prison guard simply muttered, “Umm, my shift is over, so I’d like to go home now...”
“Ha ha ha, we’re going to go all night!” Elliott declared.
Despite his meticulous planning, Elliott had overlooked an interesting phenomenon. Though they were just hitting things with wild abandon, after so long, they couldn’t help but fall into beat. Even if they thought they were just creating meaningless noise, order would eventually arise from the chaos.
Ever so gradually, a pattern was born from the cacophony.
Rachel, who’d been listening with her eyes closed, suddenly stood up. She dug through her mountain of wooden boxes and returned carrying her trumpet—the same trumpet that had noisily awakened Elliott on a previous night. She raised her instrument to her lips, closed her eyes, filled her lungs with air, and began to blow.
A marvelous and confident melody arose from the chaotic soundscape. And in that moment, history moved.
Out of all those present, Rachel was probably the only one with any musical training. When she joined the fray, the rest of the “instruments,” which had been competing for attention, found a common direction. The other performers, who’d already started to establish the beat on their own, got sucked into the flow.
The violin’s melody shifted to match Rachel’s. The rhythm of the pots changed. Before they knew what had happened, the six “instruments” began to play in time with one another. Still, the awkward ensemble wasn’t fully lining up, resulting in a frustrating dissonance. Although their initial goal had been no more than to produce unpleasant noise, everyone now listened closely, trying desperately to match the other’s rhythm.
“Guh! I’m supposed to be the star here! The way things are going, Rachel will swallow us up!”
Elliott desperately dragged his bow over the strings, sounding worse than a cat raking its claws on glass. He couldn’t let Rachel jump in and take control of the ensemble. Having completely lost sight of his original goal, he vied with the trumpet for the melody.
Rachel’s trumpet rang out, its tone dripping with soul. Elliott’s violin screamed with passion. Sykes struck his barrels in a spirited rhythm, and Margaret charmed them all with a beautiful cooking-pot drum solo in the interlude. Wolanski was absorbed in himself, shaking his bundle of empty cans. The prison guard, who just wanted to go home, unenthusiastically struck his triangle.
It was perfection—a perfect session. Their individual personalities collided and bounced off one another, yet together they formed a single sound.
There was no score, no particular piece they were attempting to play. Instead, the improvised melody grew and wrapped itself around the six musicians, eventually giving birth to a new composition. However, there was no audience to hear it and no one to transcribe the sound. Only an ephemeral soul, filling this one moment in time.
Five of them gave themselves up to the music, the likes of which they would never hear again. And then there was the guard, who just wanted to go home.
Just as their crescendo reached the moment of nirvana...
“You’re too loud! What time do you think it is?!”
The chief lady-in-waiting came in shouting, breaking the sonorous spell.
She snatched the violin away from Elliott and said, “Enough is enough, Your Highness! I understand you want to play around, but you are not a little child! You realize that a large number of people live in the palace, right?!”
Elliott’s eyes darted about. “M-Me and the others were—”
“The others and I!”
“Right! Th-The others and I didn’t mean to disturb you...”
“It’s not normal to gather all this garbage and pretend to be a band in the middle of the night!”
“I’m sorry!”
“B-But ma’am,” Sykes butted in, “His Highness was doing it to teach Miss Rachel...” He was about to say, “a lesson,” but he stopped himself.
The chief lady-in-waiting sighed and nodded. “Yes, that too! Even if the underground dungeon keeps the sound from echoing outside, did none of you spare a thought for the trouble you were causing Lady Ferguson, who is shut in here and can’t leave?! Look, the poor dear’s buried her head under the covers.”
“Huh?”
They all turned to see Rachel, who’d been putting on a heated performance with her trumpet just moments ago, curled up in a ball in her bed.
“You poor thing. Locked up in here, and then subjected to this kind of awful imposition on top of it.”
“No, no, wait! Until just now, Rachel was—”
The prince tried to defend himself, but Rachel poked her head out from under the blankets, tears in her eyes. “Ma’am...” she said with a sob, “I was tired, but His Highness and his friends forced their way in here.”
“Y-You’re trying to act like you weren’t involved?! That’s not fair!”
“Urgh... It was awful...”
“Well, I never!” cried the chief lady-in-waiting. “Your Highness! Don’t you feel sorry for Lady Ferguson, being forced to endure this nuisance so late at night?!”
“No, listen, she was in on it too!”
“After what I’ve seen, how can you say that?! Come upstairs! I need to have a word with you!”
“He’s telling the truth! Believe us!” Sykes begged.
In disbelief, Margaret asked, “Wait, us too?”
“And me?! Why?! I want to go home already!” the guard wailed.
“Silence!”
The chief lady-in-waiting escorted the impromptu band out, with the exception of Rachel, and lectured them until morning.
It was so quiet in the prison that the improvised performance seemed like it had all been a lie.
Shrugging it off, Rachel readied her pillow and turned out the lights.