The Maestro’s Boy

Don’t do it.

The boy froze in his tracks, both palms pancaked to the glass window. The realistic presence of the voice broke the hypnotic trance he’d held over the trinket in the shop’s display. Sneaking a quick glance over each shoulder, Doro dismissed the voice of his conscience and continued fawning over the golden pocket watch, whose insides were exposed. The pristine harmony among the network of microscopic gears made him wonder if God Himself shared a similar perspective when watching the universe of His creation tick. The brilliance of the timepiece’s exterior reminded the boy of the golden fleece so coveted by Jason and his Argonauts.

Thou shalt not covet.

Doro’s heart leapt and he turned in a circle like a dog chasing its own tail. Not one living soul was in close proximity, save for the occasional passerby clickety-clacking down the cobblestone thoroughfare. The voice had become incessant recently, regurgitating the boorish musings of Doro’s Sunday school teacher. At that moment, the boy caught a flashing glimmer out of the corner of his eye. He was convinced the pocket watch itself had winked at him. In the midst of his resolve to make that watch his, by hook or crook, how could Doro have known it had merely been the reflection of the sunlight that had penetrated the thick layer of metallic grey clouds?

Thou shalt not steal.

“Oh, what do you know!?” Doro cried out.

The Maestro may not have seen the crime if his last patient hadn’t cancelled his appointment. But old Signor Tartuccio had fallen victim to yet another bargain. Yesterday’s pastries for half the price. It was a financial steal, but it came at the cost of severe indigestion, and yet old Tartuccio resisted not. There were some mysteries of the mind that could not be explained, not even by therapy with the wisest man in the provincial Italian town. It was only by happenstance that the Maestro had been free during what would’ve been his last hour of administering therapy. From his office window on the third floor, the Maestro had watched his son play the thief yet again.

You mustn’t feel ashamed. You’re not the guilty one.

“If not I, who is? A father must mold his children.”

Doro isn’t a child, Maestro.

“He’s still a boy!”

You were younger than he when you came to wisdom.

The Maestro removed his small bifocals and gingerly rubbed the bridge of his nose, reflecting the accuracy of the last statement.

“Do you suppose nature can teach what nurture could not?”

The decision is his, Signore. Give him the opportunity to prove himself.

“And if he lies yet again?”

He’ll have the Angel to answer to.

A chill seized the Maestro’s heart in its icy grip. He remembered his own encounter with the Angel all those years ago. The Maestro shed one furtive tear, wishing he had more faith in his boy to tell the truth.

Doro ran.

The boy whistled through the town at a full sprint, past the corps of fir sentinels and into the heart of the Forbidden Forest. The path once marked by compact wood chips soon became unkempt potpourri made of mud, roots, and pine needles. Then, Doro ran some more. When his lungs felt like sacks of burning coal, the boy fell to his knees and flung his hands above his head. The sun had gone down hours ago and without its guidance, Doro couldn’t find his grandfather’s cottage. The boy had loved his grandfather, a jolly old man that had never made Doro feel like a stupid child, the way Papa did. The so-called Maestro of Piombino.

You shouldn’t have lied. You shouldn’t have stolen.

The boy jumped to his feet, suddenly aware of every inch of distance he had put between himself and his home. Despite the attempt to pass the voice off as a figment of his imagination, Doro couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Who are you?!” he yelled. “What do you want?!”

The towering trees bounced his voice between them until the reverberations boomeranged back to him.

To guide you.

“I don’t need guiding! I don’t need anyone’s help!”

Everyone needs help from time to time.

“Oh, what do you know? I don’t have to listen to you.”

Suddenly, a radiant white light illuminated the forest like a bolt of lightning from the hands of Jupiter. Doro clutched his eyes, temporarily blinded by the flash’s brilliance.

“Come, Ronzio,” said a pleasant female voice. “You’ve done well to try, but your work is done here.”

Doro felt a slight tickle from behind his right ear. When the boy finally opened his eyes, he saw a large bumblebee floating towards a blue aura. He touched the back of his ear, wondering how he hadn’t noticed an insect of that size crawling on him.

“Who are you?” Doro asked, trying not to let his voice tremble.

“Different things to different people,” the female voice replied. The source of the sound seemed to be coming from the center of the blue aura. “Some consider me a fairy, while others call me a witch. Still, others call me an angel.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know what you want, Doro.”

The boy wondered what reply would secure his safe passage.

“I want what all little boys want.”

“Not to be treated like a little boy?” the aura offered.

“That’s right!”

He covets the possessions of others.

The bumblebee flitted around Doro’s head.

“What’s that?!” the boy cried out.

“Your conscience, Doro,” the aura replied. “It’s a voice you should’ve listened to a bit more frequently. Perhaps then, you’d behave in a manner fitting of a man. Good men don’t envy what others have. Good men don’t steal what doesn’t belong to them. Good men don’t lie about the wrongs they’ve committed.”

“It’s just a watch!” Doro yelled back, wondering how this mysterious entity could know the details of his recent whereabouts.

“There is a string that connects everything in existence, Doro. You didn’t only rob Signor Collodi of a prized antique, but of the good he’d do with the proceeds of its future sale. Do you understand? Everything is connected. And this isn't the first object you've stolen, is it?”

“Oh, what do you know?!” Doro screamed. “You’re just like Papa. I’m not bad because I take things! The world is for the people who take what they can get. That’s what everybody does. Take, take, take! It’s the only way to change your stars.”

“Your Papa is a wise man,” the blue aura told the boy. “But he wasn’t always the Maestro. He learned the ways of the world at his own expense and grew as a result. You could benefit from his experience, but you don’t respond to instruction, Doro. You upset the world’s balance when you act so rashly, and you’ve been given so many chances to mend your ways.”

“See this?” Doro said, raising both arms above his heads. “No strings on me. I can do what I want!”

“Perhaps that needs to change.”

You mustn’t feel ashamed. This isn’t your fault.

Through misty eyes, the Maestro looked at the insect on the windowsill and offered the cricket his palm. For years now, the Maestro began his day with a walk across the cobblestone street that led to Signor Collodi’s shop window. Despite the desperate pleas of his conscience, the old man felt he deserved the heartbroken pangs in his chest every day he cast his eyes to the lifeless marionette suspended by strings, frozen mid-dance.