the accordion player

"...the picture of an accordian made his heart skip a beat.

it's been a such a long time that those flashes in his memories are no longer clear as day. he frantically looked around the house. nothing. it was nowhere to be found.

on his 7th birthday his mom brought him to the department store to pick out his own birthday present. it was probably the best day in his life as far as he was concerned. mom had never let him do that.

the toys. it was like a world made of dreams. he didn't know what to pick only because he wanted to bring everything back with him.

and then at the corner of his eye something caught him by surprise - an austere looking little box-like thing with what seemed like a piano keyboard. it was fascinating. he'd never seen anything like it. the veneer on its sides looked so intricate. someone must have put in a lot of loving efforts into its construction, he thought.

and then he saw something else not far from the intriguing mystery box. it was a handheld video game console, a gameboy. he knew very well because he'd seen a well-off friend bring it to school. it was an object of envy.

mom knew him well. she'd said he could have the gameboy if he promised not to ask for a birthday present the next year. brimming with joy, he couldn't contain his excitement, grinning from ear to ear.

yet for some unknown reason he didn't say yes immediately. he deliberated. because he'd remembered that the mystery box from before cost about the same as a gameboy. he knew that mom would let him have either.

life is all a big mystery in itself. as it turned out, he went home with the mystery box. and he learnt that it was called an accordion and that you could make all kinds of sounds with it. music.

on the way home he remembered regretting his decision. he thought over and over about how stupid he was. he tried to ask mom if he could come back next year for the gameboy. but mom made sure that he understood the meaning of a promise. he sulked.

the accordion sat in its quiet little corner of the room untouched for days. he didn't even want to look at it because it reminded him of what he could have gotten. and the thought that he could have been the envy among his friends made him even angrier.

then one day weeks later. he remembered that the accordion also came with a cassette deck. another first for him. he'd never owned a music cassette up to that point. he was curious. and he thought it was probably the only thing worthwhile that came out of that debacle. it was by a serbian accordion player named vlad popovich.

in it popped into the cassette player. his trigger-happy little finger gave a good push to the bright old orange "play" button. he was flabbergasted.

in the ensuing years he learned to appreciate and loved playing the accordion. his instrument changed with his growing size, but the image of that very first accordion would always be fresh on his mind."


i'll end off here and leave you to figure out who the protagonist of the story is.


+listening to: the great explorer by frank gambale