Time Constraint

Micro-fiction

Photo by Me☺

He delicately re-adjusted his tortoise shell glasses pushing them up the ridge of his nose to his brow. The pad glue he used to get the instrument pads to stick made his fingers sticky and left a cloudy smudge on his glasses frame.

The door opened triggering the old victorian shop bell above the door.

“David…David?”

The man with sticky-glasses walked to the front. “Hi, I’m Daniel. How may I help you?”

“Is David here today? I must get this saxophone re-padded it’s leaking all over the place and I have a gig tonight.”

“Let me take a look.”

Daniel unlocked the case, picked up the saxophone and flittered on the keys. “I can have it ready in an hour,” he said.

“Great, great. How much will it cost? Er, what’d you say your name was?”

“It’ll cost 400 dollars. My name is Daniel.”

“What? That’s outrageous, I can’t pay 400 dollars for that?”

“Can’t?”

“No. I won’t”

“Okay, then.”

Daniel gently placed the saxophone back in it’s case, handed it to the man and said, “Thank you for coming in. Have a nice day.”

He went to the back of the store, sat down at his workbench and started re-padding an old, Buffet, Bass Clarinet.

“Hey, dick-head, I’m gonna tell David about this. What was your name? Hey you, I’m gonna come back there and kick your ass!”

“Have a nice day sir. My name is Daniel.”

The sax-man stormed out the door and slammed it so hard that the victorian shop bell came crashing to the floor.

A grey-bearded man came out of the bathroom. He finished drying his hands and readjusted his red suspenders. “Daniel, what was all that noise about?”

“Oh nothing Dad, just some guy with time constraints.”

300 words