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March 18th, 1995
9 years old
Rose sat on the park bench, watching all the other kids play on the playground with a pout on her lips. Rose felt the spot beside her depress slightly as another person sat next to her.
She looked to her side to see a man with black, mop top hair style, a bow tie, and clothes that looked like hand-me-downs, in the way they look entirely to big for him, and each piece of clothing was raggedy.
Instead of speaking, he smiled softly, and kept his gaze forward. Rose took that as a silent cue, and did much the same. They sat in comfortable silence looking at the playground that was teeming with children clearly around Rose's age. Rose kept the small pout on her lips, although it was somehow dulled with the comfortable presence beside her.
"Now, why would a young girl like you be sitting on this bench instead of playing with you're friends?" He said, a childlike persona around him.
Rose sighed lightly. "They said I'm boring."
The man's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You seem like a nice young girl, aren't you interested in art, music, science?"
Rose shook her head, and shrugged her shoulders. "S'What's your name?"
"The Doctor." The man said, with a quick, wide smile. "What's your name?"
" 's Rose." She replied, looking up to smile at him.
There was something questioning in his gaze, when all of the sudden something splashed through his eyes and throughout his face. If Rose could think of a word for it, the closest she could come to is recognition. But they'd never met, so that couldn't be it.
"Well dear Petal, what about-" He pulled something from his jacket, a short-ish, circular pipe with holes up one side and one hole at the top of the opposite side. "-learning how to play this?"
Rose looked at it with apprehension, and the man played 'Mary Had A Little Lamb', and her eyes filled with amazement and awe.
The man chuckled at her amazement, loving that she was so thrilled in something so small. "Now this one is mine," He said, watching her mood dampen slightly, "but," He said, pulling out another, less colorful recorder, "I believe this one belongs to you."
They sat there for a good portion of the afternoon, learning notes, rhythms, history on the said instrument, and songs. By the time it was almost time for Rose to go home, she had learned almost everything the Doctor knew about the recorder, which was in a way a small, and big feat.
Rose's mother's calls in the distance alerted her it was time to go, and smiled widely at him. "Thank you so much!" Rose said, leaning forward and hugging him before letting go and standing.
"Now," He said, with a slight mischievous, slight happy smile, "no one can say you're boring. If they do, tell them you can play the recorder. I bet they can't."
Rose nodded and ran off to her mother, excited to tell her about the new instrument she could play, and all about the nice man who taught her. Although, for some strange reason, she could never seem to quite remember his name.
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