MillerL1213


 * Cindy** wants **to be a drummer** because **she loves music** but **it is illegal for women to play certain instruments in 4012.**

Climax: She plays a song in the courtyard and people overhear her and come watch.

My name is Cindy Lloyd. I’m 16 years old and I live on Main Street in Western Ohio. The year is 4012 and patriarchy is at an all-time high. In aspects of careers and hobbies that is. Both my parents are musicians, my mother plays the flute “like all respectable women do” and my dad plays the Saxophone “the instrument of wise men.” See, in the 4000’s, all activities have a deeper symbolic meaning, specifically, concerning my story, music. Each instrument is made for either males or females, there are no crossings or loop holes. If a woman is writing, singing, playing, or showing interest in a males instrument immediate actions are taken by authorities. On the symbolic level of music, each instrument represents a trait, whatever instrument that person is playing, receives that trait. How or from whom I don’t know, “the universe blesses to the sounds of symphony” is what they have been preaching to us since we can talk. Seeing that both my parents are musicians, it was pretty much planned that I would be one too, but I didn’t mind, I loved to listen to music of any kind. I secretly would listen to my dad play his saxophone when he thought I was asleep, or listen to my mother trill on her flute as I “did my work.” Being a woman heir to the Lloyd name in music I was limited to a few instruments: The flute- an instrument of well-mannered respectable women, the clarinet-the voice of quiet women with clever minds, the piano-immense creativity, the French horn- an instrument for the gentlest of women, or the chimes- for beauty. My mother wished long and hard for me to learn the French horn, seeing that I was the child that would destroy anything I could reach, and wail when I didn’t get my way. I started lessons as soon as I could hold the thing, which was around age 4, I needed to prop it against my lap in order for me to make the proper sound, the reason being- it was still too big for me. My mother didn’t mind though, she was ecstatic about her daughter learning the ways of music, and my father beamed with pride at the thought of his daughter being “gentle as a deer on a dew-drop morning.” I saw their excitement and figured me playing this thing will have a good outcome, I was too young to fully understand the reasoning behind it. I remember the first day I heard the sound of a drum. It was August 12, 4008, I was walking down the center park thinking of nothing in particular when I heard a loud crack. I looked up, startled; I waited a moment before many loud cracks came on after the other. Curious I followed the sounds into a small brick clearing; there was a man with a drum. I covered my ears and watched his hand flow in a rhythm too fast for my eyes to catch, I watched mesmerized by the flow of the notes and the speed of the sounds that somehow blended together to make music. I raced home that day and started to research the drums. Drum was a strictly a male instrument I knew, it meant power, independence, and superiority. Unthinkable traits for women to obtain nowadays. I stayed up all night searching videos of drummers, drumlines, drum types, stick types, and all I could about this foreign instrument. It has been 4 years since that encounter, and by now I had been playing with two twigs on my pillow every night. I often thought about how my parents would react if I told them I can drum, would they let me? Would they go to officials and demand an acceptation? Probably not. It was February 6, 4012 when I finally got the guts to find out. I came to them, my twigs in my back pocket, and asked them to watch while I showed them something. Expecting to see me play the French horn, or show them a song I had written, I pulled out my sticks and began playing an exercise I had be working on for the past week. I closed my eyes not wanting to see their faces until I was finished. I gripped the sticks as if my life depended on it and opened my eyes. My mother wailed and covered her face with her hands; my father snatched my stinks and snapped them in two, throwing them into the electric fireplace. I held my tongue, knowing if I went to grab them I would be in even more trouble. Instead I ran upstairs and shut my door, not knowing if I should be surprised by their reaction, sad, or mad that I thought they would approve. August 12, 4012, the same day I first heard the drums. I hadn’t played much since I showed my parents, but I listened, every day, to the sound of the rhythmic taps made by drums. On this day specifically I went to the center park again, the man was always there on the 12th of every month,I didn’t know his name, or why he was there, but it was something I looked forward too. I walked to the park and went to the brick clearing where he always was, but to my dismay he wasn’t there. I looked through the bushes and saw his drum, with a pair of sticks, but the man was nowhere to be found. Quietly I walked up and picked up the sticks. Their smooth texture surprised me, they were neatly taped with pure white tape, and the drum itself seemed to sparkle. It was a beautiful maple red, with silver drum heads and silver rims to match. There was a note attached to the top head with the words written “//To the girl who is always listening, enjoy!//” I was confused at first, does he mean me? I looked over my shoulder, wondering if I should play, I touched the drum, tapped it with my fingers. It’s sharp crack was such an amazing sound I couldn’t help myself. I tapped it with the stick quietly at first, then I got louder as I grew more confident, soon I brought my other hand up and began to play. I wasn’t playing anything in particular, I just let my hand do what they wished and I listened to myself play. I finished playing and opened my eyes only to see a small crowd had gathered. Frozen in fear I stood behind the drum, eyes wide. What would happen to me? I was playing an instrument of men. My mind was urging my legs to move but they wouldn’t budge, the crowd that had gather watched. Some impressed, others angry, and a few looked flabbergausted that a girl would dare touch a drum. What felt like an etruity passed until someone started to clap. The crowd parted to reveal the man whom I had been watching play for all these years. He stepped up looking at me, smiling and clapping. Slowly, others joined in, until nearly half the crowd was clapping for me. The man walked up and put his arm around me, “What’s your name?” he asked. “C-Cindy” I said shakingly, worried he was an official here to take me away. “Well Cindy you got a real talent for drums, and a whole lotta guts to get up and play even if you thought no one was watching. Go ahead and keep those sticks, I got more than enough already.” By then the crowd had dispersed and continued on their way. I beamed at the sticks that were now mine, I thanked the man sincerely and raced home. I didn’t care if my parents saw my drumsticks, I sprinted up stairs taking them two at a time and ran into my room locking the door. I set the sticks on my bed and admired them, a few moments later I picked them up and hid them under my mattress, I place I knew neither my parents or anyone but me, could find