Rite of Passage

At last! The postman had delivered her eagerly awaited parcel. Carefully Tamarin removed the surprisingly small black case which lay within its protective bubble wrapping. Only by deep breathing could she stay her palpitating heart and trembling fingers as she opened the case. There in three velvet lined recesses, glittering like a pearl in a freshly opened oyster, lay her very first silver flute.

How very different from her flute which had been made from a humble length of bamboo so many, many years ago. Then Tamarin's uncle had made it small enough to fit her six-year-old hands. He had fashioned it from a sacred clump of bamboo growing high up in the mountains, far away from Tamarin's humble village nestled in a curve of the Mae Ping river. But that had been so long ago. Now she was a modern, sophisticated young woman studying at London's prestigious Royal College of Music.

Gently removing the three sections, Tamarin assembled the flute. Then, just as her uncle had taught her she brought it reverently up to her bowed forehead, paying homage to the ancestral musical spirits. As the cool metal pressed against her skin Tamarin was once more transported back to her village alongside the river and she knew without doubt that her long dead uncle was still watching over her.