The Discovery of Music

There might be rain coming, said the TV.  The TV doesn’t know anything about rain.  It shows the pictures but it didn’t take them.  It talks non-stop but can’t tell you a thing about itself.

Since we came home Jenny has only turned the TV on once. That was this morning and she turned it off again. She didn’t even bother to sit down. All we know is that rain might be coming, and I suppose that’s all we need to know.

Anyhow, Jenny now says that she is going to sell the TV. I have no problem with that. I can walk past the TV as though it isn’t there, even when Jenny’s watching it and people are shouting at each other. The worst thing is when you can hear it in the room all by itself. It doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.

For me, when it’s noisy it’s not really home anymore. And by noisy I don’t mean Jenny’s violin. She’s been practising a lot since we came back from Dorset and because she is upstairs when she is playing, I have the whole downstairs to myself. I like hearing her there.

But now that the TV is off we keep hearing Mrs. Willow next door. Even when we know she’s on her own we can still hear her laughing. I don’t know whether you’re supposed to laugh when you’re on your own but this sounds like something nasty just flew into her mouth and she’s trying to let it out again and it won’t come out.

Jenny said maybe some music will help. So next time Mrs. Willow was laughing, Jenny went to the upstairs window and played her violin. The laughing stopped and we heard Mrs. Willow close her window. That made us laugh but I don’t think anyone heard it.

Poor Mrs. Willow. She hasn’t been the same since her apron caught fire.

We never hear music from the Willow’s house. And of course the TV doesn’t count any more. Jenny says that they need to discover music. Mr. Willow sometimes whistles when Mrs. Willow is laughing. So I suppose if they heard it all on Jenny’s violin they might start being quiet for a change. Jenny can make her violin sound like whistling and laughing at the same time.

I am very happy to have my box of pictures again and I searched through them and found one that shows how music was discovered. So next time you hear your neighbour’s TV shouting at their empty room, just look at this picture and imagine what it would be like if they moved to another house, or if they sold their TV.

The Discovery of Music