Whither Jukeboxes?

Little Snarly lives in the back of a cubicle. All day & all night little Snarly hears the breathy workers as they rattle their keys & their keyboads all the worklong day. Little Snarly wonders if she too were ever a breathy worker, since she has a ring of rattling keys around her waist, & a flat rattly keyboard at her fingertips. But little Snarly cannot breathe, & little Snarly cannot move. She lives frightened in the back of her cubicle.

Little Snarly was not always afraid. Little Snarly used to have a friend. Her friend was full of coins. Little Snarly's friend would pull out a coin & force the gleaming round metal into machine slots. He'd give little Snarly soda, newspapers, candy, telephone calls, bubble gum, toys, anything, anything that could be got by a coin in a slot. But the thing little Snarly liked best wasn't something she could hold in her hands, but something she held in her head: music. Her friend would put a coin into a jukebox & music would come out! Good music, bad music, music you could dance to, music that'd make you laugh, music that'd make you cry, all kind of music! Little Snarly would sit on the folded daily newspaper, chewing gum, eating a candy bar, drinking a soda, sticking tiny stickers on her hands, & sway, sway, sway to her friend's gift of music.

Little Snarly remembered a sad day when her friend ran out of coins. A coinless time began, & her friend, either ashamed of his lack, or perhaps going somewhere to get more coins, her friend disappeared. Little snarly missed him a great deal, missed him more than the newspapers, the candy, the sodas, the toys - but not more than the music. & it occured to little Snarly that, perhaps, she didn't need her friend to get the music. She just needed the coins.

So little Snarly found the cubicle. The keys were dutifully wrapped around her waist & the keyboard was set dutifully in her lap, & little numbers came out of the workers' mouths which told little Snarly that, at some point in time, if she rattled her keys like them & if she rattled her keyboard like them, & if she managed to breathe just like them, she would get coins of her own. So, one coinless day, with only the sound of the rattling of her breathy workers coming in over her cubicle walls, little Snarly rattled, too.

She rattled until she was out of breath, & then she caught her breath, & then she rattled some more. She couldn't quite rattle in the way the breathy workers did, so she tried different kinds of rattling, & when she did this, one worker, called a supervisor, would come into her cubicle, readjust little Snarly's key & reposition little Snarly's keyboard, & then leave her alone again. It must be said, no matter how hard she tried, little Snarly could never rattle like the others did, & she experienced more & more dread every time she tried, because the supervisor's visits were more & more frightening. She kept trying, though, because she couldn't help think about the coins. The coins she would get to help put music in her head.

One day, the supervisor came to little Snarly's cubicle, & wasn't there to readjust her keys or to reposition her keyboard, & little Snarly knew from the smile on her supervisor's face that he was there to give little Snarly her coins. Her heart raced. Her brain was so hungry for sounds other than rattling & breathing that it pounded. The supervisor handed little Snarly an envelope. Little Snarly grabbed for it, almost dancing in her seat. She could hear outside her cubicle that the others had stopped rattling, too. Everyone everywhere was holding their breath.

The envelope was light, too light, but little Snarly opened it anyway. Inside were thin strips of paper in dull colors, folded neatly, as if cut neatly off a giant strip of paper, then folded, & placed into an envelope made just to hold the dull, smooth, same-sized strips of paper. No coins at all. There were no coins in the envelope!

Little Snarly waited for the outrage from beyond the cubicle. But there was none. A single simple sigh emerged from all the workers & then, after the sound of what had to be the same strips of paper in the same handy envelopes stuffed into pockets or drawers or purses or wallets, the breathy workers began to breathe again, & the rattling started again, this time with more determination, more purpose, more self-satisfied somehow, more menacing.

Little Snarly couldn't move. She didn't want a single rattle to come from her. She breathed silently. She simply didn't understand. & she was scared. So she moved slowly - without a rattle - into the back of her cubicle. Where she now lives. & she has forgotten about the coins, & she has forgotten about the music she wanted in her head. & because she makes no sound, her breath nearly silent & her body still, the workers- including the worker called the supervisor - have all simply forgotten about her.