Hamish’s Blog

This is the original piece of writing for my descriptive writing assignment. I will also post the revised copy and see what you think about the changes.

Observe the Winter Music

Eyes thrust up, high up in the darkened sky. Flutes swirl and twist and spray out through the air with an almost spontaneous burst of excitement. The glance flicks to the streets of trombones whose impatient horns blare, trying to get home out of the cold. Above the wispy flutes die away and thunder bearing cymbals encroach into view; slowly at first then faster and faster. The sound that goes unheard by the earth is like that of someone telling another to be quiet, which crescendos to its loudest pinnacle.

The view drops down, down, down through the brisk air. Drops of cornets make poker dots on the pavement, sounding like the plonking of a xylophone. These spots fill out to become a thin sheet of water which bounces up around the pedestrians ankles when stood upon by even the lightest of feet.

The eye scours the bustling alleyways for more eyes but none can it find for all are tucked safely under hoods. Safe from the cold. People hastily trundle through the streets carrying brown paper bags filled with soups, vitamins and hot roast chickens, to keep away the mounting chance of unwillingly catching the cold. Their tubas are irregular but each keeps an even pace, shoe to sidewalk, shoe to sidewalk. The crowds of passersby invoke a small amount of euphonium, this feeling of worry and tension fills the eye leading to suffocation taking over. The euphonium reaches a high note and suddenly the crowd disperses, people going every which way.

There is a slow in the actions of the world like the cold has frozen life. But everything is just on pause, because up again to the sky the eye climbs and lingers for a moment. As if by magic, glockenspiels majestically float from the clouds, glistening a pearl white, swaying, flipping, shaped like that of stars, dainty, fairylike. One or two at first, then hundreds, perhaps thousands, faint against the grey sky, to the ignorant, but ringing out indefinitely to the sharp of mind. Earth’s confetti. The eyes widen with a sense of joy, watching children play, almost circus like, frolicking in the light and fluffy snow. Playing hide and go seek, the joy turns to soprano cornets, the eyes involuntarily well with tears, overcome with emotion as all the children vanish in the white abyss, the eyes turning to the ground.

Colourful coats rise from the snow. A perfectly rounded compacted horn races past the eyes. The eyes frantically look round and see the many smiling faces. The fight begins. Horns made from a hundred glockenspiels, a combination of sweet and mischievous. Firing squads blast each other from either side. The sound of the timpani’s is deafening.  Blaring trombone’s start up again, driver’s angry at the children’s in the way fun. The tangy smell of brass is so defiant that it is possible to taste. The eye just doesn’t know where to look! So many sounds, so much action, the striking piece seems as though it should sit in a picture frame.

It’s loud and soft, complicated but beautiful, fast but sweet. The view blurs as everything gets faster, a silent hush follows as though everything will disappear. Bang, it all ends with a bang.

New life is now born.