Hitting the Skin

“Do you still have your glockenspiel?”
“My crystal glockenspiel? I’ve still got it, yes.”
“I keep telling you, it’s not crystal. It’s not even glass; if it was, I’d have credited you with ‘crystallophone’. Anyway, you’ve still got it?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s pretty. It’s a talking point. I don’t play it, though.”
“Did you ever? I mean, apart from that one time, with the teaspoon?”

[CUT TO: Sixteen years ago. ILB has just been sent some very basic MP3 files containing rough approximations of ad libitum tuned percussion lines. As it turns out, although Louise bought a glockenspiel with glittery, coloured metal bars, she neglected to get any mallets.]

“A few times. I mean, I’m not really a musician, so…”
“Neither am I, but I started the band.”
“Yeah. I had to return the xylophone, though.”
“The one you played with the pencil?”

[CUT TO: Sixteen years ago. Louise has just excitedly sent an e-mail to ILB informing him that she is going to rent a xylophone from a music shop. A day or so later, she further messages him to tell him that she has forgotten to pick up the mallets, but would a pencil work?

ILB doesn’t know, but tells her it can’t hurt to try.]

“Did you know I played that one naked?”
“You did what?”
“I’d just had a long wank, you see, and it was hot…”
“…it’s always hot where you are…”
“…and I thought it would be a shame to put anything on, so I just turned my laptop on, and played the xylophone like that.”

[CUT TO: Sixteen years ago. ILB checks the front porch of the house he lives in to find a letter postmarked from South Africa. He finds the sheet he sent to Louise to find her thin, slanting handwriting spelling out her full name. He wonders if she has received the CD yet.]

“Should I edit the CD inlay? Have you credited as playing ‘naked xylophone’?”
“I would love you forever if you did that.”

ILB no longer has said CD inlay. But she doesn’t need to know that.