imaginary cities: rau —

There was a trumpet somewhere but it was tarnished and could only play the theme from F-Troop. There was a drum but it got broken when someone I once knew drove a fork through it, just for something to do. There was a guitar but three of its strings were missing and noone took me seriously enough to play it. There was a harmonica but it fell in the bath and I left it there to rust. There was a flugel horn but you should ask my sister what happened to it, that day at the performance. There was a triangle but it decided to go to Bermuda for a holiday and, strangely, was never heard from again. There was a bass but it got confused with a US Army installation and was arrested for some trifling offence. There was a keyboard but I used it to write things on my computer and it ended up not being able to produce any sounds at all except for the cowbell. There was a saxophone but that went out of fashion in the 1980s along with shoelace ties and pointy black boots. There was a harp but it got drunk on mead and has never been the same since. There was a melodious Irish tenor but he got lost in the foggy dew and came back as the ghost of Enya. There was a backing choir but they got enlisted as extras in Sister Act 2 and – well, you know the drill. There was a paino – see “keyboard” above for its fate. Quite sad, really. There was a banjo but it was reincarnated as a colonial poet and, since that colonial poet died quite a long time ago, it’s now also dead. There was a lagaphone but I’m afraid the bush band revival has been over for some time now. There was a gum leaf but a koala ate it. There was a spoon but a junkie stole it. There was a mellotron but I’m not even sure what that would have sounded like anyway. There was a zither. There was also a ukelele. But in the city of Rau all of these instruments have been silent and sad for a very long time now.