Demon Stories

Saya: Violin Melody on Whispered Wind of Sweet Memory, 1672, France

Saya

Violin Melody on a Whispered Wind of Sweet Memory

1672, France

Your sweet violin fills my ears like melting honey in my mouth. The sweet flavor filling me up and urging me to wake up. 

You practice every day, usually in the morning, when you don't want to disturb me. But why think you are disturbing me? Yet the pattern continues every day. I enter the small yet spacious room, and there you are, unclothed but for some pants which I lovingly washed for you. Last night, my hands were all over your creamy bare skin. My heart causes my legs to go weak in the memory for a small moment, but I am strong. 

You know I am here in the doorway, but you continue on. Your small body flows with the music of the strings, swaying side to side as if dancing. You are as if a painting which moves. A painting come to life, how perfect and beautiful you are. 

I do wonder though, as I watch you there, where your precious violin came from. No matter where we go, you must bring your violin with you. It is your only possession, and you cried when you thought it was gone forever. It was there I knew how this violin must mean so much to you, beyond musician and instrument relationship. You won't tell me the story, it is one of your many mysteries, but I can guess. 

This violin of your's, did you love its creator? Or maybe the musician who played it? Was he handsome and talented? Is he now that violin to you, the only object of his you have left? 

Or maybe this is a prize from a murder, a wonderful murder. You have told me of those of us who take such prizes. But you do not seem like the kind who would take a prize. It is too cruel and heartless of an act for you. 

This must mean it is something you could not part with when he left you. But how did he leave? I can not imagine you killing him, taking his life. I see the way you look at me, and one with such love can not take the life of his lover. It would destroy your heart. 

Yet, there are times, sometimes, when you are outside in the garden, staring at the sky. You look so cold and empty then. A sort of sadness surrounds you like a cloud of frozen Winter dew. This is another early morning practice you do when you think I can not see you. What are you thinking of? At those times, I want to jump out the window to get to you, so sad you look. It breaks my heart. 

This violin of your's, when I first met you, it did not look so old. How long had it been since you loved him when you met me? Was his love an influence for you to have become attached to me? Were you lonely? You seemed lonely. Your eyes looked a little sad, far off. 

Long ago when we first met, on the samisen you played simple melodies for me which I had never heard before when we were alone. I asked you about them, and you smiled to me. I re-examine your face now as a demon would have back then, and now I can tell how dead your eyes looked when I asked you about those melodies. But you smiled all the same, and with an air of pleasantness you pulled out the violin from your things. I had never seen one before, and you let me touch it and examine it. I now know how much trust in me you had even so early on. Just what caused you to trust me so much? It brings a gathering choke in my throat to think about it.

When I was satisfied with touching and looking at it, you took it back and put it under your chin. Then, as the thin bow touched the strange strings, the most entrancing and high buzzing kind of sound came out of that instrument and I sat there utterly enamored with this sound. It was as if it was another voice. Your second voice. 

The way you played, sweeping the melodies together, I watched your body. Your elegant body moved back and forth with such passion over the course of the music. And your face. Your beautiful face. I shall never forget how your eyes like an artist's brush strokes looked at that moment, half closed and caught in an emotion I could not touch. How grief filled they looked, as if you could cry at that very moment. But I could not understand why. It is only after all of these years have I begun to understand why. And yet my heart tells me I still can not begin to fathom.

Afterwards, you smiled to me, and offered me the violin. "Play," you smiled. I was overjoyed, taking the violin into my eager hands. Shakily, I rose the bow up and you giggled. All I could do was laugh with you because I was caught in your love spell. With the grace and gentle touches of a lady, you touched my skin which starved for you and arranged my arms and fingers for the violin and bow. "Now play," you smiled again, and laid your chin on my shoulder and wrapped your willowy arms around me from behind. 

Wanting to impress you, I dragged the bow across the strings and they screamed in protest. Sounded like an angry duck! Here you started laughing and laughing, gone were the girl overtones in your laugh and out came such a masculine laugh! Your true laugh! I was shocked. I knew you were a man, but this laugh! It was the first time I felt such a weird thing, and I shall never forget. It was the first time I ever became in lust for you because of your masculine charms. How stricken my heart was, for you to trust me this much as to show me your masculine way. I put down the violin gently in my enraptured shock, and then grabbed you and kissed you so passionately. It was led from these events how I became a demon and therefore got to be with you like this. So for this to the violin I am forever thankful. But I still can not forget the violin's true meaning.

It is as if the violin haunts me in a dream, each note a different painful mystery color of your heart. 

The way you play, with your eyes closed to everything and how you are in your own world, as I watch you, it is as if you are dancing with it. With the one who loved you before me, almost. I am convinced over these many gathered mornings in the bare light. His music embraces you, and you want it to continue so badly you keep playing. Your music extends his life and his love, your love. 

I can not help, leaning against the doorway every morning, but be jealous of the violin. It is as if I am not your only lover, and it rips my heart apart. 

My beauty, why do you still love him? Am I not enough? 

I want to take the violin away and stare into your beautiful sparkling green eyes. I want to tell you I am your new song, because you are playing me already. You have been for fifty years. I want to tell you it is time to forget. I want to make you forget, with warm touches and endless soft kisses. I wish for my words of love to erase his song and for it to be not even a beautiful memory. I want for your memories to be of only me.

But as I watch you play, I can tell how selfish that would be. How I must let you have these memories. I must realize you had a life before me. This I must deal with, and I can't stand it. How I wish I had met you before, impossibly before.

These thoughts I think always as I watch you at the doorway. These thoughts, as tears tumble past my cheeks, I cry for. The melody swirls them in my mind like a powerful whirlpool in the ocean, getting faster and deeper. And before the melody stops, I must walk away, to make our morning tea, a morning practice which calms me as this one calms you. 

The only thing I can hope for is as this tea enters your body, is that it ebbs away the hold on your heart which the melody has, and replaces it with a strong warmth around your soul. A flavorful warmth which reminds you of me with every drop as each morning comes and goes, so that you may impossibly forget him. Maybe this new flavor can be your new melody. Maybe, I beg.