last night I knocked by accident a little thing down the back of the old piano that sits in my living room. when I peered behind the piano I found that the rear section was covered only by a frayed cloth with large rips in it. so I reached down through a hole in the cloth and stretched out my hand in the dusty gloom of the piano innards, and there I touched upon something decidedly un-piano-like. from my vantage point I couldn't make out what it was, but my hand told me that it was something hard and flat, that it had two wheels, and most importantly that it was trapped inside there and urgently required my attention.

I manfully wrenched the piano away from the wall and fervently set about rescuing the mystery object, the original thingy I had intended to retrieve now long forgotten. as I tugged to and fro on the awkwardly placed object I felt like a doctor attempting to retrieve a baby from its mother's tight womb. then I realised the old piano had a front panel that could be removed quite easily. once I'd detached the panel from the body of the piano my mystery object just fell right out, born if you will via emergency caesarian section. and there was my baby, staring goo-goo-ga-ga up at me, decked out in lurid red and brown. my colours. I removed the wheels as if cutting an umbilical cord, dusted it down as you would clean a newborn, and beamed with admiration as a proud father would.

then a memory poked at me. I thought back to when I was an adolescent and the time I'd found out that my mum had thrown out my old skateboard. she had thought that it was just a worthless piece of junk. to me though this was a traumatic event because in my mind I believed that through separating me from my skateboard my mum had inadvertantly exorcised an important part of my youth. now I realised that the new skateboard from inside the piano was more than just a fortuitous find, it had been placed there by some other medium that knew of the childhood trauma. the arrival of the new skateboard was a balm of forgiveness that would fix and heal past transgressions. I felt happy.

I have no use for the skateboard any more.

so I've thrown it out.