I passed a fiddle on the street and realized I had become a saxophone. The street was populated with instruments, walking along and playing in concert a grand beautiful song. I, too, had sound pouring from the top of my head. The music came from inside me and resounded off of the buildings. I knew what each note should be although I had never heard the song before. And no song was ever more lovely.

As I walked along, the timbre of the music changed with every new group of people/instruments I passed. A clique of xylophones and glockenspiels gave it a light, plunky sound. A harp, a bell, and two timpani made it at once airy and solemn. I walked into a deli staffed by flutes and felt like dancing away. It was then that the limitations of my new form finally struck me. I couldn’t dance. I had no feet. I tried to look over my body, but my neck was stiff brass and couldn’t bend. I sighed and a sour note came out, disrupting the mellifluousness of the song.

The flutes suddenly stopped playing after my faux pas. I felt embarrassed and made to leave, but one of them barred the door. Another four encircled me, swaying menacingly and screaming shrilly. I tooted in alarm. Although I was intimidated by them, I could see that the flutes moved gracefully. It seemed that they were comfortable in their bodies. Perhaps they had transformed a long time ago and had had time to adjust, or maybe they were naïve and unaware of their rigidity, as I had been before I tried to dance. In any case, I felt extraordinarily meek, clumsy, and powerless in the face of their agility and threats.

Unable to contain my fear, I began to blow loud arpeggios in my best impression of a siren. The flutes were startled at first, but soon resumed their gradual approach and ever more violent swaying. I blew louder and panicked, overcome by visions of myself as an unrecognizable lump of brass dumped in the alley behind the deli. The flutes continued to close in until they were nearly touching me. Then one leaned back, winding up to strike the first blow. I shrieked a final high-pitched snort and braced myself for the attack. Then the room began to rumble as if in a tremor.

The flutes were caught off guard and some of them fell. Others began to whistle pitifully. The rumbling came in bursts, rhythmically. With every shake, the flutes lost more of their composure, until, after a minute, they could do nothing but tremble on the floor.

As the rumbling continued, I began to feel that there was something comforting about it. I felt a kinship to it. It had a pitch, a low, rich sound. I joined in its song, singing accelerating arpeggios in its key. Our music crescendoed and I began to lose myself in its movement. Then the door opened behind me and I saw my savior. Filling up most of the doorframe was a gigantic sousaphone, blowing like there was no tomorrow.