“Made of rosewood, padauk, or simple plastic, resounding with two octaves or many, and whatever mallet pleases you, but xylophones remain just that: quivering fountains of life.”

“I can’t play,” she told her lover.

“You’ll learn, for me.” The music-breathing alien placed her hand on the idiophones, and smiled.

Russell Hemmell is an alien from Mintaka snuggled into a (consenting) human host. He’s had fiction published in PerihelionSF, Strangelet Journal, Vine Leaf Literary Journal, and elsewhere.