Lone Trumpet Night

You can see his eyes in his shiny black face. His trumpet is golden-red, reflecting the sky and the sun now low over the horizon. You smell wet sidewalk after rain and you smell salt-winter-air, and you smell seaweed souring from the beach as you stand and listen, looking up to the roof. You, with all the others on the sidewalk stop walking when the music begins; a tender sadness like a lite rain floats down from the roof and is held in a collective chest as together you stand, a group of strangers now as one. Listening.

The lone trumpet holds the very essence of the setting sun, holds a meaning so simple and natural, like the sky turning purple-red slowly.

There he is sitting on the roof, two stumps wrapped in white gauze hanging over the black-tarred ledge. His horn in his hand pressed to his mouth, his large eyes closed, his cheeks so puffed and the sound piercing through the growing darkness; the melancholy, lonesome serenade only a trumpet can make.

The evening comes on and is here, as it should be.

The music ends as smoothly and correctly as it began.

A car horn beeps. People return to their journey on the sidewalk. One last look at the silhouette sitting leg-less on the roof. You hold your hand up, wondering if he can see your appreciation. If he can, he doesn't wave back. But he must find it nice to sit up there, lonely or not, legs or not, and play music like that.

You hope so, for everyone.

253 words.