Harmonica

Somebody’s playing the harmonica outside. Fine by me. De los Reyes Street has had enough videoke abuse from its residents. Perhaps this was a teenage boy who’s been dying to tell himself yes, he has a musical instrument he can call his own. When he was eight, nine years old, he begged for a violin, even a second-hand the likes of those sold in Raon. But his father had other things in mind, also saying that violins are for sissies. And music? Music breeds weaklings. Music will just isolate him from other boys with whom he could play basketball or wrestling instead. He didn’t want to have a son like a lonely princess stuck in her tower, playing that stupid violin. Yet the father didn’t know, that would be the last time his son would ask anything from him, of him, ever.

~ a journal entry, two nights ago