MafiaScum Headquarters
Early Evening
The conductor stepped onto the rostrum, and a hush fell over the audience. She tapped her baton on the stand bearing sheet music she'd memorized weeks ago, and dozens of eyes locked with hers. She raised her hands, and lips were set to reeds, bows to strings, and mallets were raised. With a gentle motion, she issued the first cue.
It began softly, with saxophones, cellos, and a single tuba calmly playing the well-worn melody of a familiar folk song, evoking images of pastoral harmony and contentment. The conductor turned, and the flutes joined the refrain, then clarinets, oboes, and the rest of the woodwinds. Muted horns began to play in counterpoint, a
distant threat to the peaceful tune. The conductor's arms danced through the air, and the two competing melodies rose through the night air, urgency and peril in their opposition. The strings and woodwinds reluctantly joined the martial sounds of the horns, but were quickly overwhelmed. For a time, only the conquering horns and percussion were heard.
The conductor raised her hands again, and the snare drum rolled. A new tune began, a plucky, defiant march of light horns and clarinets. On the dueling melodies wound, the conductor's baton diligently transcribing the soul of the music above the heads of her orchestra. The music rose into a crescendo, and the two finally met in a clash of cymbals, trilling woodwinds, and braying horns. The conductor's hands raised high to the heavens, and a collective inhalation of breath marked the final confrontation. The conductor's hands gestured expansively the full orchestra played in unison, the clock tower's bells ringing plaintively while fireworks representing cannon shook the night air. In the moment of glorious, righteous victory, the conductor's hands shook with released tension until finally cutting the piece short, and silence reigned again.
The audience thundered its approval, and northsidegal stepped down from the rostrum, bowing to her adoring public.