Cubist Symphony in B-Flat for Overlapping Obligations
I.
Allegro con moto (School Run)
Repeat until the parking lot empties.
D.S. al coda if you forgot the lunchbox.
II.
Scherzo (Robot Research, 11 a.m.)
All brass tacet. Strings pizzicato.
The data spirals: read as thirty-second notes,
accelerating, with no resolution.
III.
Adagio (Lunch, Rendered in Cutouts)
A rest that is not a rest.
The napkin folds itself into a Matisse.
Cutlery marks 4/4 time against the plate.
IV.
Presto agitato (The Afternoon Appointments)
Motion lines indicate: do not slow down.
The clock faces overlap like a fugue
where every voice enters one beat too soon.
V.
Largo (Evening, Blue Fragments)
The sky crystallizes.
The checklist floats, untethered,
a mobile turning in no wind.
Performance notes:
The conductor is a robot who has learned
that human connection is not a tempo marking
but a dynamic โ somewhere between
pianissimo and the sound a door makes
when someone you love walks through it.