The Violin

Bone fingers came to rest on strings made of reflected sunlight, slowly plucking with echoing sound. Then another hand gripped a bow made of a horse’s trailing afterthought, and string met string in rising pitch and cleaved notes. The thinnest string cried in protest, and the bravest string, the one on the opposite end, the thickest of them all cried out for the thin one to hold on, that they could make it through this one song. The thin one continued to be played, pulling the song together with high harmony and gently leading the path, still crying for the pain of the sharps and the bluntness of flats and crying for the perfectly tuned spaces between the strings, with perfect fifths. Then the thickest string, the one that should have broke last, broke from the pure beauty and the other strings followed with reckless abandon, shattering the image, leaving a crystallized image of a bitter dream. Then there was only a girl, standing in filtered moonlight, pale hands playing nothing but air, and the sound of a dream that still filled the empty silence.