Short Stories

Needlenose

by Terry Barlow
06/15/20
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The needlenose plyers was often mocked by the other plyers and wrenches for its strange long needle-shaped nose.  It would come home to its plyer parents in 😢 tears.
It's mother would often reassure it that the shape of its nose was very special and no accident.
"But why can't I be shaped like the other plyers?" he would sob, heartbroken by the latest teasing. 
"I can't answer that for sure, but I think it will be clearer to you some day, and I mean in the not too distant future." His father added, wisely. And his mother promptly committed it to faithful prayer.
A few weeks later a musician neighbor was unpacking his flute to practice. The plyer family often enjoyed listening to him practice on his back porch. But this particular time he was stymied and frustrated at something that had never happened to him before in all his years of playing. He simply could not extract the small towel he used to clean his flute from inside his flute. It was stuck there where he had stuffed it after the last time he played the flute. He tried five or six implements to no avail. He was determined not to have to ask for help, but finally he broke down and humbled himself,  and asked his wife if she had an idea how to unstuff the towel, but nothing she suggested helped either.
  "You could take it to the music shop. They would know what to do."
  " And they might charge us a bunch of money too. No way!"
  " Well, you asked. That's all I know to tell you."
As a last resort he humbled himself further and went next door to the Plyer family and knocked on the door. He rarely ever knocked on their door, so he felt a little guilty doing it then,  not so much to visit as to ask for help with his own problem. It seemed a little selfish but the Plyer family was so gracious he soon forgot about his guilt.
"Come right in, to what do we owe this great honor? Are you going to play your flute for us?" Noticing his flute under his arm as they asked
"I wish I could but that is just the problem, you see, I can't get this silly cloth out of my instrument and I knew there were more tools here.," showing them the problem. "But Mister Plyer, you're too big and wide and Mrs Plyer you won't fit either," he was too tactful a neighbor to say directly that Mrs Plyer was too big, but that was the farthest thing from her mind as she looked at Needlenose.
"Please place your flute on our kitchen table," requested Mr Plyer.
"Needlenose your nose appears to be the exact size and length to be able to enter the end of the flute and grab hold of the cloth," observed Mrs Plyer.
"My nose? But my nose has always been a problem."
"Well now it may be the solution to a problem," his father responded. "See if you can insert your nose in that flute, son."
Needlenose obediently did just that, gripped the cloth and pulled.
Presto, out came the cloth!
"Unbelievable!" Exclaimed their neighbor with a laugh. "If you knew how long we have been trying to do that and failing time after time with tool after tool. And you made it look so easy!"  Needlenose beamed and his mother wept, as his father clapped and then bowed before his son. "That's what I'm talking about, son, now that's what I'm talking about!"
Later that evening the Plyer 👪 family heard beautiful, lilting flute music flowing from their neighbor's back porch and wafting through their window.
"Needlenose, do you realize you literally unlocked that lovely music and set it free? You made it happen, my dear one. How does it feel?"
"Its beyond words, mom, this feeling is beyond words," he answered with a smile. "I just want to hold onto it forever!"