Anna had just been accepted to Apribium University and her mother was ecstatic. It was every Bangellamore mother’s dream to send at least one child to Apribium. Anna had even received a full scholarship due to her excellent performance on a particular standardized test. Could any parent successfully contain such pride?

Anna was happy about her acceptance, too, but for entirely different reasons. While her mother basked in the kudos and well-wishes of Bangellamore’s finest, Anna desperately wanted to get out of the place. If she had to look down one more row of houses, all painted the exact same red, she was sure she would develop chronic nausea. She knew that at Apribium there were halls and dormitories of all the different colors in the rainbow, and even some colors that someone had had the ingenuity to produce by mixing.

When September came, Anna’s mother already had a “Proud Apribium Parent” bumper sticker and Anna had carefully adhered to the suggested reading list that Apribium sent her, even forsaking practice of her precious Fallamazoo. Her head was full of quantum physics and Sumerian history and modern neural theory. She felt so sharp she feared she’d put peoples’ eyes out.

Her first day at Apribium, after she had introduced herself to her dazzling emerald dorm room, she had an appointment with her adviser.

“So have you chosen a course of study yet?” he asked her after she had sat down and confirmed she was from Bangellamore and that she was exceptionally good at standardized tests.

“Life!” she exclaimed passionately, fully knowing that it was not the answer he was looking for. She blushed when the adviser did not respond to her attempt at humor.

“Music,” she then said more somberly. “I want to learn how to perfect the Fallamazoo.”

“Lucky you!” smiled the adviser, “Since we have Alwen Sumari on our faculty.”

Alwen Sumari was the most renowned living Fallamazoo player. Of course Anna already knew that he was on Apribium’s faculty.

“But,” continued the adviser, “he’s on sabbatical until next semester. I think you’d be well-advised to concentrate on your general education this semester, and when Sumari comes back you’ll be ready to devote yourself to your instrument intensively.”

Anna smiled and bounced slightly in her chair. “I think that’s a great plan,” she said. “I can learn all sorts of things this semester, and of course I’ll keep practicing my Fallamazoo.”

“Of course,” returned her counselor, and Anna suddenly noticed an elusive ominous quality in his expression. She could not imagine why.
 
                                                                ***

Anna’s first few weeks at the university were exhilarating. She took kaleidoscopology from Professor Andrea Moyaya, who had won a Nobel Prize. She started out strong in entomology, but in her Traffic Tickets as Literature course she could barely keep up.

She rejected all social invitations, even the one from the supposedly “good-looking” boy across the hall (as if Anna would know what “good-looking” was!) She had too much to learn. At first she thought she’d stay ahead of her classes, but now she discovered it was all she could do to stay a day behind!

Her Falamazoo lied in the corner of her room. She had enough energy to dust it after every late night she spent reading and typing and calculating. No matter how much work I have left to do, she thought, it’s very important for my brain to get at least two hours of sleep a night..

Like a flash, the end of the semester rolled around, and Anna found herself reciting the names of insects at her Traffic Tickets as Literature oral exam, and explaining herself in plain black and white on her kaleidoscopology in-class essay. Her Falamazoo had not been played in months. But Alwen Sumari was coming back to Apribium next semester, so that would soon change.

The semester finally came to a complete stop, and Anna was put on academic probation. When she came home for break, her mother was impressed that her daughter was now a veritable fountain of knowledge, but could not understand why Anna had been mailed such a poor report card.

Anna slept a lot during her week off from studying, and, as before had been entirely unlike her, spent her waking hours watching vapid television programs like Blue Screen and the Dish Liquid Variety Hour.

“Why don’t you practice your Fallamazoo?” asked her mother (who watched the vapid TV shows, too, but only because it gave her things to talk about with her neighbors. It was clear to her that Anna’s motivation for watching was something far more malevolent than her own).

“I would,” answered Anna, “but I forgot to bring it home with me.” Ten, or even five years ago Anna would have sooner forgotten her right arm than her Fallamazoo. “Professor Sumari will be back this semester,” continued Anna somewhat pathetically. “I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things once I have the chance to focus.”

Indeed, when Anna got back to Apribium, the first thing she did was make an appointment with Sumari. The time had come to pursue her dream.

Her appointment found small, bald, pointy-nosed, bespectacled Professor Sumari shaking his head. “This is a terribly old instrument,” he said as Anna allowed him to inspect her Fallamazoo.

“It has sentimental value,” she replied in defense of its antiquity. “It’s what taught me that I had a....soul.”

“That’s very poetic, Ms. Gamoon,” said Sumari. “But you can’t keep up in my classroom with this old model. The other students will be using Version 8.0 Fallamazoos... how are you going to get by without Version 8.0 automatic tuning, without digitalized sound, without the built-in rhythm section??"

“Surely,” said Anna. “there are still people who appreciate the pure musicality of the original Fallamazoo.” She knew perfectly well how to manually tune her instrument and was of the opinion that one should seek out a drummer or two if one was in need of a rhythm section.

“Of course there are...older people who like the sound of the old instrument,” answered Sumari, “But in a progressive university, we have an obligation to our students to take the most progressive approach to teaching our tremendous resources will allow us. You’ll have to get a new instrument.”

Anna saw  then that she could really no longer learn on her trusty Fallamazoo, the one that as a child she had played in such a way as to coax the taciturn town misfit Styles Zing-Memble into complimenting her. She turned to leave Professor Sumari’s office.

“Leaving so soon., Ms. Gamoon?” he called after her.

“I’ll buy a Version 8.,” Anna said, and she did. It was quite different from her old instrument. She even had to learn a whole new fingering pattern for it.

After her dubious first semester, Anna once again became a star student. After she got used to the Version 8.0, she was Apribium University’s top fallamazooist and gave numerous solo recitals that always sold out. And Anna’s mother prized the stellar reputation Anna had acquired in exchange for her soul.

But Anna kept her old Fallamazoo, even  though she was not yet allowed to bring it out in front of her audiences. Once she had mastered the 8.0, she rarely ever practiced it, as practicing her original instrument allowed no time for the new-fangled thing. If she ever became a recording artist, and it was very likely that she would, she would blow her soul out through her old friend for the world to hear.