The following is a creative nonfiction course essay describing a space.
A Loud Room
You will notice one of two things: the chairs have been tossed around by a hormone tornado, or a pencil will land on your head, and as instincts guide you, you look up to realize that over sixty pencils have been launched into the thin board ceiling. No entertainer will ever pursue the dynamic change necessary to turn this forte into a piano.
The room is split into sections. In the front, rests the woodwinds: flutes, piccolos, clarinets, and oboes. Behind them, the weirder woodwinds: saxophones, bass clarinets, and french horns who don’t belong there. Next, the obnoxious brass: trombones, baritones, tubas, and worst of all the trumpets. Trumpets are testosterone. In the very back, percussion: xylophone, marimba, bass, snare, timpani, claves, triangles, cymbals, bells. Everything from drum sets to a handheld wooden block makes a home in furthest corners of the room. The only untouched instrument is an antique out-of-tune piano leaning against the front wall. Above the sea of music, our 34th president Dwight D. Eisenhower stalks silently with an unsettling glare. His origin is unknown, he is one with the band. The room is Dwight.
Reeds are the voice of a clarinet. They’re made of wood covered in a dis-solvable glue, which tastes like paper pinching your tongue. When reeds drop to the floor, they are reused because that shit is expensive. Stray hairs are washed off in a water fountain behind the towering closed doors. In the brass section, the fumes of valve oil rest on lips. Despite the presence of saliva covered sound machines and one tipped over french vanilla iced coffee, everything is dry. Here, it is always too hot.
Due to the little ventilation and closed door policy, smells turn to stenches. Male odors mimic wet dogs hiding behind an array of Old Spice products. Brass instruments and music stands melting in unregulated year-round heat emit metallic whiffs tingling your nose. A whiteboard, covered in a countdown calendar and symphonies of distasteful memes, reeks of rubbing alcohol and the Expo marker chemicals that will probably get you high. The only calming scent comes from the marimba; two rows of stained wood bars increasing in not only size, but pitch and vibration.
The hums, toots and blows never echo. Sound absorbing panels are displayed like gallery art on each wall. Chairs scrape the floor. Pages flip, trumpets buzz, woodwinds whisper, brass mumble, and the pulse of percussion throbs. The baton taps the stand. Morendo; everything is silent.