A Tyre In E Flat

Paulina was walking down the street one day when she met a musician. He told her he was a lifeguard and could say 10 in Urdu. She thanked him and together they walked to a park

The day being beautiful, it seemed the whole town had poured into the park. Blue, green, red and black , there were all shades and sizes of people. And swarms of children running amok.

Paulina and her friend were lucky to find an empty bench in the first place because the second and the third and the fourth places were all occupied in the first place. So they settled down on the bench and became observant. Here is what they saw:

An old man sneezing on his wife. Two kids staring with amazement at the old couple. Two birds in the sky becoming three, falsely multiplying. A young man falling in love with the old man’s wife. Empty trash cans brimming with heaps of garbage. Blue sky, red noses. Mothers conversing with fathers while fathers looking bored. A dog chasing another dog, the other dog in turn chasing a cat. And finally right in front of their face, a cute little girl with a balloon tied to her waist gliding smoothly on the fresh cut lawn, waving, shouting, running towards a flock of birds lazing on the grass looking like a bunch of dead airplanes in a hangar.

Paulina rubbed her eyes and kept on looking. The musician produced a harmonica from his pocket, stood on the bench and started blowing in and out, a tune called "Blowing in the wind." Soon a bunch of kids gathered around and started clapping with their tiny hands, retaining their childish air, not knowing the meaning of the song. It was simply marvelous.

Suddenly there was a shout from the lake and everybody started running. The lazy birds scampered away to a safer distance from the running feet. Paulina and the musician too ran towards the lake. They saw a huge crowd gesticulating like crazy towards the center of the lake where a four year old boy had somehow fallen in and was drowning. Without wasting a moment the musician tore off his clothes and jumped into the water. A deafening silence fell over the crowd. After a minute the musician surfaced empty handed. The crowd gasped. The musician dove back into the water. This time when he came up, he seemed to be clutching something against his chest. The crowd cheered with joy as the musician swam ashore. When he got out of the water, to everyone’s surprise, he was holding an old accordion instead of the little boy.

Soon the musician strapped the accordion to his naked body and started playing a jovial tune. All the adults in the crowd warmed up to the song and paired up to dance. They formed a circle around the musician, linked their arms and started kicking their legs in the air, in time with the song, singing shouting ole etc.

On the other hand all the kids in the crowd watched with utter confusion. They were horrified at the insensitivity of their parents. Their brother kid had drowned and instead of mourning, their was merriment. This troubled the kids so much that they started shouting, demanding a stop to the music and dancing. But it all fell on deaf ears. The musician had kicked out a faster song sending the adults into a renewed frenzy of dancing and singing. That did it. The kids instantly formed a union and elected a five year old kid with eternally falling pants as their president, in order to voice their grievances. The five year old fatso immediately jumped on a bench and gave a heart wrenching speech.

Holding his pants with one hand and shaking an angry fist in the air, he shouted out his disgust over the sky-rocketing prices of the candy in the market. He demanded the closure of schools for seven days a week every week and lastly suggested the free distribution of ice cream for all the children present in the park. This stirred an excitement among the kids and they cheered and applauded at the top of their kiddie lungs. The five year old fattie got so excited by this attention that he raised both his arms above his head and joined his hands in a fraternal gesture forgetting about his ever falling pants, that now lay crumpled on his ankles.

But alas the enchanted adults had sang and danced through the speech without paying slightest attention to the kid’s riot or the changing color of the sky for that matter. Suddenly out of the blue came gray, there was thunder, lightening and the rain started coming down in buckets. This sudden intrusion broke the party and everybody ran either for home or shelter. Paulina ran around looking for the musician and finally found him in the public restroom cold and shivering.

Next day the daily newspapers ran the following headline:

“FIVE YEAR OLD BOY DROWNS IN THE LAKE”.