Bad Times for Ting

1458 Words3 Pages

Ting belonged to a different time, a better place, a more convivial atmoshere. Ting, a small sound, a sound hardly used even in the days when music was loved and listened to, when songs were cherished by everyone for their vast range of contrasting styles Ting's sound was never placed up front by the leaders of the orchestra. Always a composers afterthought. Ting recogised his place in the score and keenly hung on to it. Ting was a survivor within music, and now a survior without it. Unbelievably bad times changed from worse to permanent. Ting took to wandering through the ruins of Middleseton, out of sight, unseen by frightful noisy of machines as they hunted and chased him. Ting ran and he hid, talking shelter wherever he could find it, often in small desolate places just beyond the reach of the every present dangerous winds and rain. Ting explored boltholes carefully, rejecting some accepting other as a place to rest his tired body. If considered safe Ting immediately closed his eyes to sleep. Whether by chance, design or unlucky coincidence a passing appliance appeared in the street outside to release a high-pitched electrical pulse, or a slow moving truck, grinding through the gears disturbed Ting in his bed, waking him, making him move on and on and further on. Deafened by mechanical madness, driven insane by all shapes and sizes of unmanned machines Ting dodged and weaved beneath, between and around mechanised cleaners, sweepers, diggers and excavators. He squeezed his way past trucks and tractors busy destroying what other self-motivating renovators had recently repaired. Hazards were everywhere. Bulldozers drove waves of water ahead of their blades, flooding already saturated streets, making roads almost impassab... ... middle of paper ... ...he closest to his safe place. At every turn Ting called out. 'Can you hear me?' never hoping to raise his voice above the accompanying howling wind. Panic began to replace hope. 'Where are they?' Ting clawed at anything he believed might be used for a shelter. 'If I'm the only musical Sound out here, what do I do?' Ting forced his, painful to the touch, legs to climb into the bows of a fallen sweet chestnut tree. Wheezing as he breathed Ting looked along the fast flowing street, he thought he saw something out there. He was right: A sudden bolt of lightning lit up a cello, tossing and bobbing along with the swell of the flood. Waiting for the right moment Ting reached out to grab the instrument, hoping to snag it on an overhanging branch. His first attempt failed. Urging himself to try harder Ting managed to capture the cello and release it from the waters grip.

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