~ Drummer Boy ~
It had been six years since their studio had been torn apart. He remembered the very last nail that had been hammered into the sheet rock. R25 insulation, 1/2 inch carpet, and 3/4 inch sheet rock to be exact. No one complained about the noise. Hell it wasn't noise, it was music, art created with sound, their sound. But they'd had to move and it was gone.
Pushing on the rickety door he flipped on the light and, arms folded, regarded the old blue Yamaha kit. It was his first kit; his mother kept it despite the fact that it was old. Trim peeled off the bass drum, stands pitted with rust from the damp garage, and drum heads that were well worn with use and age. A heavy film of dust covered the bass drum. Even a few broken sticks littered the cement floor.
She never could throw them away. They were signs, mementos and she had always been sentimental right down to the pick she kept in her wallet from their first show along with the first set of sticks he made that still sat in an old coffee mug in the kitchen. He had even tried to teach her to play once and she had laughed insisting there was no way her arms and her feet could move independently.
He sat on the stool, took out his iPhone, plugged the ear buds in and started to play. An old set of sticks, chewed up by the many times he hit the rim were still shoved under one of the mounts. He wouldn't have long before someone pounded on the door, probably the cops, telling him to knock off the noise. Until then he'd play for her, for the astonishment and joy he remembered in her face when his hands and feet moved in rhythm and his hair flew about his face, chaotic and on fire.
