She was young and wroth, just like the city she was living in. She was wearing a plaid shirt on most days, her hair was always braided and her fringe covered half of her face. If you didn’t know her, but just saw her on the streets, you would’ve said she was an ordinary teenager going against the rules, and you wouldn’t have been very wrong.

As usual, she roller skated along the pedestrian street. School started at half past seven, so she usually hurried, but this time she didn’t bother. After all, she was ahead of her class already, so she thought it wasn’t worth going in so early and sleeping through the first class anyways. The people around her were lost in thought, everybody was headed to work, some kind of meeting, or business trip. She watched a group of pigeons fly away when she got near them, and then a little bit further, she scared away some sparrows.

After the huge office buildings, she noticed a soft, quiet music coming from the middle of a crowd at the foot of the bridge. She stopped, and made her way through it to where she heard the sound come from. In there was an old man standing with several instruments all over the place. Some of them were caught in his beard, a few were scattered around him, but on top of all that, he was proudly holding a clarinet, and playing an extraordinary, still pleasing melody, that people seemed to really enjoy. She was mesmerized by the strange music for a while, only when she later looked around could she see all the dropped jaws and wide-open eyes on others’ faces. She couldn’t wrap her head around how that man, who came out of nowhere, could get the attention of everyone on the street with just his clarinet’s voice. Nobody was able to do such a thing in her always stern and boring city.

She stood silently for a while, as all the people around her. The music got louder and louder, and when she thought the old man wasn’t looking, she picked up a rattle from the ground, because she saw a strange pattern on it, that she wanted to examine. Except the man in fact was watching, and just as she would’ve started to panic, that she got caught, he looked at her, and broke into a warm and friendly smile. Holding the clarinet with only one hand, he waved at her, to start shaking it to the rhythm. She was a little hesitant at first, but she eventually started playing along. Surprisingly, after a while more and more people started grabbing instruments from the street, and taking part in making an endless chaos of sounds. Some of them even tried dancing to the music, and several minutes later the whole city was jumping and laughing with joy and excitement. The people were finally talking and having fun, and it’s safe to say, that on that day, many friendships were made.

She got so carried away with the dancing, she didn’t even notice that meanwhile the old man took off, leaving his instruments behind as relics, to always remind the no longer stern city’s residents of this delightful day.

by Dóra Deák