The Peace of Melancholy

It started with a saxophone, someone on the street who was guided by the pensiveness of the afternoon and the ruby sun which was just settling behind shadowy buildings. The saxophone player was dark and ragged but his sound was pure. Then bells, coming from a window below, I could barely hear them. They came and went, babbled with a shyness borne of regret. They might have been the kind of bells that mother’s put on baby’s shoes, but the musician was no child. I sat at my open window, and quietly hummed a bridge between the two. There were other people on the street, but there were only the three of us in the music: the saxophonist, the bell ringer, and me.
Then the wind drifted into the tune, awkwardly at first, it tickled the dry leaves on the tree but didn’t dare abuse its power and take over the music. An ambulance crept down the street in silence, its passenger beyond help. The saxophonist paused, and was gone. Only low bells marked the passing. And then they disappeared.
I closed my window and addressed the evening.