The fiddler

Warm rays from the sun fell as if God himself watched, listening intently on his lonely fiddler. The fiddler played a melancholy tune in the center of the grand room. There basking in the heavens light, which fell through the large arched windows. Draped around every window are deep rich red curtains. Red as the blood that coursed through the fiddlers veins. Red as fire, red as the passion which swelled inside him.

The boy’s lengthy fingers gripped the bow, dragging it back and forth. He continued to play the sorrowful tune. A tune which only a man should know, a tune filled with loss, a tune filled with nothing but emptiness. The shadowed figures who watched the boy swayed to his tune, to them the tune was just another piece played by the young prodigy. The bow dragged on and on and to the boy the piece seemed never to end. Never to stop, just as his insatiable thirst to please God. To please his father, to simply be a better son. Anger swelled through him coursed where his love should be. The bow played violently thrashing at the strings playing the tune of anger till God himself found the piece unforgivable and broke the strings ending their connection.

God abandoned the boy leaving him in the depths of hell. The tallest shadow raised a hand, the boy’s skin burned red. His eyes swelled as he sank to the floor. The fiddler grew tired, tired of this life. Tired of the pleasing and playing. A thought pushed through his mind, thought only the devil himself would say, only would think of. The boy’s only thought was sacrifice, if he wanted God back he would need to pay the price. The bright room once filled with the rays of heaven were now cold and distant.

He walked through the gray dull halls of a home, a home he felt unwelcome in since the day of his birth. His mind shuffled about scattering between the good and the bad. Soon insanity set in, he felt empty walking as if he was nothing more than a husk. His lengthy body dragged, clutching his bow and fiddle. His feet stopped in the lifeless hall in front of a mirror. He saw nothing more than a corpse, a boy with pale skin, and eyes that looked back at him were not his but those of a monster born to cause the unthinkable. The husk tried looking for the boy in the mirror. The one who God loved, cherished even. He looked and looked, trying to even spot the boy who had a sense of life in music, a sense of feeling. A boy who was at peace. All he saw was a boy riddled with bruises, blemishes and burns tattering the porcelain skin. The husk saw nothing, but a boy who was drained, used for the enjoyment of others. Nothing but a corpse, a pile of walking bones.

Thoughts of death consumed the husk, trying to figure out why God betrayed him, why God snapped his strings, why he left him in Hell once more. Anger filled the boy rushing thoughts of hate for his family and the one who had believed in. Tears welled in his eyes dripping down his cheeks. As he sobbed silently he muttered in the mirror, “Why, why does God mock me, why do I play the part of a puppet.” the boy sniffled, “I played till my hands were raw, till they spilled red. I played till my bones ached, and yet nothing I do gives me purpose.” He sobbed silently in the cold dark hall. Nothing was left in the boy, nothing but death. Death which crawled, slithered through his veins. He felt it retching, taking over his mind, consuming him. The husk is newly filled with a simple purpose, to bring death. Slowly he crept towards his room, leaving the violin behind for it too had no purpose.

He waited till the sun set, till God’s eyes were closed on his heinous acts of the night. The boy hummed a tune, he walked to it, dancing each step gracefully. The boy waltzed to the tune of death. Exiting into the dreary hallway once more, he crept down the hall. He watched as his shadow morphed lengthened into existence he watched it turn into something. Something which had no name, something which kids would deem a nightmare. Eve, the boy, earlier before the sun had set, kept his knife from dinner. There before his sister’s room, the door opened a jar he stood. Breaths hitched in his throat. Eve closed his eyes, imagining the monster which loomed in shadow took the knife and guided him. He imagined it was not him tearing the one person whom he actually adored. It was the monster which he harbored, Eve did no wrong.

Once awake from the trance, he looked around, there she laid still on her bed. Her eyes froze in fear, ever locking the horrors before her death. Eve rushed from the room, clicking the door shut behind him.

He crept to the next room where his mother would be asleep. He put his ear up to the door and heard nothing. He opened it enough to just peek through to see. Enough light flowed into the room. There she slept alone, he watched waiting for his courage once again. This time he did not close his eyes, instead the monster simply guided him and told him what to do. Hate welded in Eve’s heart. It burned his veins thinking of everything she had said to him, everything she had done.

His sister at least had the merciful death, a death to simply put her out of her misery. Eve crept in, the door creaking, his heart beat filled the room, she shifted a bit spooking Eve just enough to regain back a bit of consciousness. But yet he remained on his sacrificial path. With deep breaths he felt as if God was within him guiding his knife. He realized then and there that God created him to be this. God gave him the strength he needed to be free. Unshackled now Eve was, and with his new found gift he thrust the knife.

The room was silent, nothing but the beating of his heart, nothing but the hitching of his breath. There leaving he hummed his tune, a tune which was new to him. A tune he would never give up. A joyous tune he hummed as he marched his way down the hall, leaving a trail of bodies behind. At the very end of the monotonous hall was his father’s study. The only time Eve has ever been in the room was for scolding's or lashings. The study was his fathers private dwelling where he would spend most of the day and night in. Eve hated and feared his father the most. Eve heard the voice of God ring through his head, telling him to finish what he had started.

Eve again creaked the door open, lights from the fireplace filled the room just enough inside to his father’s silhouette staring out the large window. Eve opened the door enough for him to squeeze through and slowly closed it behind him. The room was warm and reeked of strong booze. His dad, still unaware of the boy, continued to stare longingly out the window. Eve crept further into the study hunching himself around the large desk in the center of the room. Just as his other deaths he wasted no time. Eve launched himself sprinting, unwavering thrusting his knife deep into his father. With little unawareness he cried and kept at it just as his violin. A flames crackle filled the room, Eve was done. The house was silent for all but him.

The night grew colder for so did his heart. In order to see if he was right in these deaths, Eve brought himself back to his sister’s room. There she lay splayed in fear, Eve dragged her body down and out of the hall. He reached the stairs and carefully minding his love for his sister still dragged her down. Tough as it was for the boy he reached the foyer and on his right was the dinning hall. There the room glowed from flames in the fireplace. The red wallpaper is decorated in Gothic black flowers. He propped his sister in her chair. He did the same for the others, his father being on the bigger side was more challenging for the boy. In the end his family sat once more at the long table.

Eve stood beside his dead father and played his broken fiddle. Flames flickered, burning the little amount of wood left in the fireplace. Eve’s broken tune filled the room. Eve still pictured them muttering about him, chattering on how he was nothing more than a violinist. He played and played till his hands were raw. Till his heart could not hold it anymore. His bones ached and his were tired. Tired of all he had done. Tired of all he had seen. In Eve’s young mind he pictured the flames bending to the tune of the violin, there in his passionate tune he realized. God gave him no reason to live, no life, not even a purpose. Smoke billowed in the room burning the world around him, he continued to play as everything he knew burned. There he knew he was a boy born with that of a heart of a fool. Fooled by God and then by the Devil. Flames filled the room engulfing the boy, with his final lash he let out a tune that for the first time he had made. Not God but him, there for one moment he was no puppet or fool but a boy who was scared. Scared of death, scared of what he had done and there in the depths of Hell he laid.