The Devil's Violinist

Prologue

  When I was six, I fell in love. Love is a whirlpool of mixed emotions-- happiness, sorrow, anger, and fear. It's only when you've been swept too deep when you realize you can't climb out.

It all started when my mum took me to a concert hall. We were going to listen to what many people claimed to be a young prodigy. Wearing my new white dress, I beamed as the people around me gushed at the little six year old me before them. I sat down on the a velvet cushion and, after a moment of silence, I began fidgeting. After all, you can't expect a six year old to be able to sit thorugh an entire concert without moving. Then, I saw him. A tiny boy, no older than me, holding a beautiful violin. The quiet talk around me silenced and I felt the apprehension rise in the room.

Giving a nod to his accompanist, he raised the violin to his shoulder and lifted his bow. The music started. The piano played a slow tune before the violin took the lead. And then everything changed. What once had been a little boy now had become a true violinist. The burning passion behind every bowstroke, the emotion the boy put into every note that rang throughout the room. The moment the boy put that violin on his shoulder and ran his bow along the strings, he became something more. He took us on a journey. From a quiet spring morning to a blistering summer to a serene autumn to a frigid winter, I was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

When the music ended, I was still waiting for one more note. Only a true violinist could make an audience of this size sit back in their seats, so touched by the music that they couldn't even bring their hands together for an applause. There was silence in the room.

I heard a little breath taken by the violinist. He closed his eyes, as if he was appreciating the music with the audience. Turning my head toward him, he opened his eyes and they met mine. A jolt passed through me. He was nervous. After that spectacular performance, he was still nervous. He wasn't just a soloist after all. He was a child too.

After a moment of quiet, a soft clap sounded from the other side of the room and the audience erupted into an unsteady applause.

That night, as I left the concert hall, my ears were still ringing with the violin's melody. I took back more than just a late night. I had taken a little piece of him with me.

                                                             ♪ ※ ♪

It was years before I heard of the boy again. I was nine when I went to another one of his concerts. Yet, something was different. I heard the whispers, the mutters passed between the crowds gathering in the lobby.

When we entered the hall, he stepped out on the stage. He raised his violin to his shoulder and the music began. But where had the power gone? Where was the confidence, the passion? Where was the boy who played as if every note was his last? Before me, I only saw a numb shell of the violinist I had seen so many years ago.

And then, all of a sudden, the music stopped. A hollow thud echoed throughout the hall. That night, a violin was dropped. A boy, fallen from greatness. A boy, who had lost his love.

That night, a single name was passed throughout the audience. A whisper that grew into truth. They called him the Devil's Violinist.