Dominic

Your father never allowed you to learn the violin. "You will not," he had said, his voice dripping scorn, "learn to play that thing. My son will not play that which amuses drunkards and lowlifes in village fairs." And you had to obey, because when you didn't, he wasn't shy about making you hurt in dozens of places with his hands or his belt. So you, the marquis's son, never learned it. You never touched the instrument the relatives on your gypsy mother's side played with such skill that made it sound like a weeping human heart, or a banshee, or a storm over the distant mountains. You learned to play the piano instead. And you also learned to drive your father crazy, to laugh at his face, and weave magic with nothing but spit and a mumbled curse, while your father pored over heavy tomes written in obscure Latin and badly copied Greek.

And you grew up to become fearsome.

And you grew old, much older than any human possibly could, though your visage did not reveal it, and still you never learned to play the violin.

And one day she came into your life.

And for the first time in your very long years you found yourself yelling just like your father had. Setting rules that she broke with a laugh and ample defiance. Chasing her inside your mansion of a house swearing to God you'd strangle that brat even if it was the last thing you'd ever do. You found yourself angry again, your temper flaring. You remembered what it was like to drive someone crazy, but this time you were at the receiving end. You found yourself ambushed, surprised, made fun of.

I think this is when you actually understood and forgave your father.

And it must have been then that you realised for the first time that you never did learn the violin, not even when your father was gone. Because she had the guts to pose the question.

Will you learn it now? Or you think you're too old and tired for that, for learning to touch a new beloved when your fingers run the piano keys with such skill that make it sound like a weeping human heart, or a banshee, or a storm over the distant mountains?

I love you so much.

All those people that came to inhabit my head over the years and tell me their stories, or allowed me to see fragments.

I love you so much.

You are what will be left of me when my time comes.

“The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.”
― Marcus Aurelius