Short Stories!

Melody Willow

"That is so cool!" Harmony says and grins.

She would have hugged me then because of the excitement, but the rules state we aren't aloud to do anything affectionate in a public setting. "Next stop, the willow's family house" we hear a robotic voice says from the ceiling. In no more than a millisecond it was our stop. We jumped out of the bus and into our house. Our dad was in the living room playing his Trumpet, while my mom stands next to him and playing the cello. Our house was bland and had few furniture, the only thing that covered the walls was posters. Our mother looks over at us as she plays and smiles at us. We smile back at her.

Their was a time everyday where you had you practice music or art after school, this was that time. We pressed a blue button on the side of the wall and after a second the wall opened to reveal our practice room. It was a small room, not much in it but a drum kit, guitar, and stands plus a wall full of sheet music. We know that we will get ridiculed by the state if we don't play so we sigh and walk into the room. We put our bags down near the door and go to our instruments. We both were average at playing them because we have to be in order to pass the tests at school. We both played at the same time so we could listen to each other and get the rhythm of the song because without each other playing, we would be a train wreck. So we both played our favorite song, it was called Ride, as a practicing song, but no one knew the author's name was because it was an old song. It was all the way from 2016, so it was pretty old. It had lyrics and everything and we both sang along to it with our terrible singing voices. Then an idea popped into my head, if I want to be a writer, maybe I could write songs? As we played the last notes, I told Harmony of my idea.

"No you can't write you're own song! Everyone will know you wrote it and we will be done for! They will find out about what we do and we will get ridiculed!" she says. I shake my head.

"You can keep on playing that sheet music but I am going to write a song, and you will love it!" I say.

She shakes her head at me and then goes through her warm-ups on her drum kit. I run over to my bag and pull out the notebook and pencil. Then I sit on the floor next to my guitar and think of some lyrics or at least notes for the song. Then I thought of the first words of the song within a minute of thinking. After that I kept on writing and writing, idea's clogged my brain as I wrote word after word. My handwriting was sloppy but at least it was something. I sang little bits and pieces of it under my breath.

"You can be anything you want to, I can be anything I want to......." I hum.

Harmony glared at me but I could tell she supported my decision. She did always want to make computers and robots one day which was against everything our society believed in. She hit her drums and played almost all of the songs we had in the room.

I smiled at my song after a half hour of writing it. I finally finished the lyrics and notes for my guitar! I don't even glance up when I heard the wall door swing open. I was so engrossed in my song to notice my mother looking at me. I was too busy to notice the horror on her face as I hummed the tune under my breath. Harmony didn't notice the approaching mother and even if she did, she didn't warn me.

"Melody!?!?" I hear my mom yell, "What is that in your hands? What song was that you were humming? Why aren't you practicing your guitar?"

"I am writing my own song! I want to write! I love writing! Let me be myself!" I say back to her harshly.

We never go into fights like this but I was ready to defend my passion. She looks fed up with me and is shaking her head. Harmony starts to play a boss battle song on her drums and I almost laughed, almost.

"Melody Willow! What have I taught you about writing your own work! You can't do it! We already have all the songs we need and more are getting written by the bots every day so you can't write a song Melody! You can't" Mother rants.

I look at my pages full of notes and lyrics for the song. Then I look at my mother and her red face. I can do this. I can do this.

"Melody, I can't believe you Melody! We have to stick to the rules Melody! If we don't stick to rules, you know how angry the state gets at us!" Mother rants again.

I don't hang my head in shame or in sorrow. Instead I look up at her with anger in my eyes and fire in my heart.

"Well if the government doesn't like it, I don't care! I am only me! I can't change who I am mother! I'll go to the cot room and write!" I shout.

Then with my head held high, I push open the wall door with all my strength and walked to the cot room. No one would ever walk in their house to another room, they would they would take the wall door to other places in the house. I storm across the tracks and run to the cot room. We aren't aloud to do anything in the cot room but sleep, we weren't even allowed to get dressed or have anything in here but pillows and blankets. So when I stormed out of the room and told them I would write it in here, I was breaking all the rules. There was no going back. So I went into the cot room and sat down on my cot. I then preceded to whistle the tune of my song. I knew I was breaking most of the rules of the government that I knew, but I didn't care. This is who I truly am, a writer, I can't change that! Soon enough the doors opened. I didn't look up untill I heard a robotic voice.

"You're under arrest for breaking codes number 21, 1738, 1876, and 552!" a police officer yells and grabs the notebook and pen out of my hands and rips it to shreds. Then he shines a light in my eyes. I suddenly fall to the floor, I was paralyzed literally and figuratively. The police officer stood over me with his robotic body and voice.

"You can't be what you want to be in this city, you can only be what you are made to be, laws are laws Melody Willow and no one can break them"