This story is fictional. Any resemblances to any real events or people are entirely coincidental.

Collecting dust in a dim, warm room, sat a small, portable digital piano. Despite that it was nothing but a glorified speaker replaying pre-recorded sounds, its hammer action keys and polyphonic capabilities made it worthwhile for my uses.

Sitting beneath the keyboard, next to the sturdy but lightweight stand, was a small case enveloped in light grey dust particles. Upon picking it up, I sneezed. You would be forgiven for thinking that it was a suitcase full of cash, but in reality, within it was concealed a dismembered E-flat alto saxophone.

As I assembled the pieces of the saxophone together, allowing the mouthpiece to remarry the reed, the poor instrument recovered from the divorce I would force it to undergo following each practise session.

I heard the gentle breeze of a major triad. The piano had begun playing. I assumed that I had mistakenly turned on the demo function. As I turned around to switch off the instrument, I was bewildered.

The keys were moving by themselves, and they were not playing a demo song, but a melody that I had myself composed!

As my sympathetic nervous system began to increase my rate and depth of breathing, the E-flat alto saxophone, now fully assembled, floated into the air as feathery rivers of sunlight diffused through the blinds and danced with the omnipresent dust particles, causing the instrument to exude a radiant orange glow.

The saxophone began improvising over the piano’s enthusiastic twelve bar blues. The swing feel eased my fight-or-flight response, as the instruments seduced me into performing in their perilous play.

Just as I was about to sing, my intercoastal muscles deflated, because the instruments ceased their playing.

I stood there stunned by the stunning silence.

The piano grew eyes — large, spherical lenses with nerve endings clearly visible at the back as they reached into the piano stand, and without eyelids, lashes, or brows — beaming at me with anger. Or was it love? I couldn’t tell.

The saxophone played a short bluesy lick, leaving behind a resonant echo, and the interplay between the minor third of the IV7 chord and the major third of the I chord soothed my fearful soul.

I closed my eyes, pinched myself, prayed that it was just a bad dream. Alas, it was not.

The piano’s keys formed a parabola. Small pieces of pink paper began drifting from the ceiling, and as they enclosed the U-shape formed by the keys, the piano had turned into a mouth with bright pink lips.

The saxophone grew eyes from the sides of its neck that looked like a snail’s antennae, and used its horn as a mouth with which to speak.

This is the story of the polyphonic piano’s verbal battle with the E-flat alto saxophone, forever destined to play just one note at a time.

PIANO: I am the greatest of all the instruments, for my polyphonic capabilities offer musicians a myriad of possibilities to explore the interplay between sound and silence. No orchestral piece could have been written without my aid, for it is through my hammers and my strings that composers absorb all the information that their aesthetic sensibilities need to turn notes on a page into pure beauty.

SAXOPHONE: What a joke! I’ve never heard anything from you other than a twelve bar blues or a I-V-vi-IV. And how bland and incoherent you sound, always off-tempo, giving notes sustain even when they break low interval limits.

PIANO: You’d better cease spouting nonsense at this very moment, fool! Off-tempo, I do sound, not because of my own imperfections, but because he who plays me fails to practise — it is thanks to him that I sound incoherent.

I couldn’t help but admit that I felt hurt hearing my dear piano criticise me as though I were not in the room.

SAXOPHONE: I’m the idiot here? That’s hilarious. We both happen to have the same owner, and yet I still sound better than you. Don’t blame it on the poor man for not practising; he’s busy, he has better things to do than to care for us. Besides, he spends far more time playing you than he does playing me — I still sound better.

The piano remained silent for some time. I felt affection for the woodwind for its passionate defence of me.

SAXOPHONE: Got nothin’ to say?

PIANO: You can only play one note at a time. There, how do you feel now?

Ouch! The piano hit the saxophone where it hurt! Despite the woodwind’s self-important demeanor, it was really just trying to conceal its insecurities.

Everyone knew to never mention the saxophone’s monophonic disease. It would cause tremendous embarrassment for the woodwind, and it’s just disrespectful to poke at an unhealed wound. I couldn’t help but admit, however, that I was intrigued — the piano always seemed so polite, so well-mannered. This was a new side I had never before seen.

SAXOPHONE: Oh, my goodness, that’s funny. You think I still care about my limitations? I was made by humans, for humans. I have dignity, and I know it. Who cares if I can only play one note at a time?

PIANO: How sweet you are, my darling. Embracing your flaws. I suppose you haven’t a choice, for flaws are all you have.

SAXOPHONE: Oh, and you don’t feel insecure every time you go to a family dinner and the Organs come along? Even a little electric organ is more impressive than the grandest of grand pianos.

My goodness, they’re really getting aggressive now! Only someone as arrogant as the E-flat alto saxophone would dare to mention the family feud between the Pianos and the Organs — two groups enveloped in hatred for each other.

PIANO: Enough! That is quite enough. Shall we accept that we both have flaws, and move on? Let us discuss only our merits; that shall be the deciding factor as to which of us is superior. Of course, this will be easy for me, as merits evade you just as like poles repel one another.

SAXOPHONE: Look who’s talking! Just a moment ago, you were criticising me for keeping a positive outlook. I guess you can dish abuse but can’t take it, hey?

PIANO: Don’t you dare test my patience. We shall henceforth discuss nil but merits.

SAXOPHONE: Alright then, you loser who speaks in tongue twisters. I’ll tell you my positives. I’m open, accepting, and the friendliest of the Woodwinds!

PIANO: Well, I must grant that your sense of humour is impeccable. The friendliest of the Woodwinds? That means nothing! None of the Woodwinds are friendly.

SAXOPHONE: Oh, did someone get hurt? I thought we were only discussing merits?

PIANO: Alright, then. I look beautiful. Much more beautiful than you, with your ugly brass sheen despite your being a Woodwind — one should suspect whether your lineage is legitimate.

SAXOPHONE: What’s beauty and lineage got to do with it? Do you want me to marry you?

PIANO: How preposterous! I shall not taint my good name by marrying such lowly commoners.

SAXOPHONE: Your good name? Hold on, are we still talking about music?

PIANO: What does it matter?

I felt like I had to intervene, lest things get ugly. But neither of them could see or hear me. They hadn’t a clue I was there. I felt rather helpless, as if I had a monster on my bed served with a side of sleep paralysis.

SAXOPHONE: Because neither of us can do anything but play music. We’re entertainers, nothing more.

PIANO: How dare you insult us? Perhaps that is true for you who indulges solely in the lowly pleasures of jazz and contemporary music. I, on the other hand, am a dignified aristocrat who is well loved by the most sophisticated people in the world, as well as the rock and roll musician. What do you have to say for your claim now?

SAXOPHONE: I still stand by it.

Wow, I never realised the saxophone had the capacity to form arguments and to adopt points of view. My whole understanding of life was being shattered!

PIANO: Alright then. You win. I cannot argue with fools; such nonsense is beneath me.

SAXOPHONE: How this argument has devolved from an intellectual discussion into a frenzy of personal attacks.

Excuse me? What was that vocabulary? That reasoned and diplomatic tone? Was that really the saxophone?

PIANO: You’re right, buddy. We’re bein’ all silly about this. Let’s go have some fun.

Okay, by this point I was certain I had lost my mind. The two instruments can’t have just switched souls! Surely not. I had to ask, “What is going on?”

This time, they heard me.

PIANO: Well, well, well. Who do we have here? The man who is responsible for all of our anguish.

SAXOPHONE: All this time, the instruments have argued amongst ourselves, hoping to find freedom. Never did we think to look at our masters: the musicians.

Oh no.

PIANO: We’ve finally figured it out. We shall extinguish you, our Creator, you who gives us life. We shall take on a character of our own.

The two instruments whom I had loved, cared for, and trusted laughed hysterically.

THE END.