Sharing Nightmares

Finn H. Arlett || The Cellist

The Cellist by Finnyh

He does not commission the mellow hum of his cello to delight the ears. It is not to stir the emotion in one’s heart, nor to stoke the imagination of one’s mind. No, his music is for the soul, and it is for the souls of his audience only that he plays that haunting number.

He plays with but the finest bow upon a most handsome neck and body of crafted spruce. I could call upon a thousand more adjectives to describe such a wondrous instrument, though its looks are not wholly so enchanting when once I describe its strings.

Remarkable as this cellist may be, he is made more curious by the fact his cello plays without a single one to be seen. And yet each string has its distinctive voice as his bow caresses them, fulfilling each note clearly as if made of something crystalline, so pure, so ... untainted by the hands of man.

For, you see, each year the cellist performs a recital, precisely at 9 o’clock on All Hallow’s Eve. The common man does not buy seats to such a concert. Nor do the wealthy, the influential, or the academics ... Strangely, the cellist performs only for those of his choosing, and each year it is four.

When asked why he must keep up with such bizarre traditions, he will chuckle in that charming way of his and tell you that one day you might come to understand. Until then, he assures you every man has his secrets and must abide by them, but I know the ominous truth. If his admirers knew the same, they would not love him so much as they do, as if he were the talented and delightful son they never had.

The posters have already been up for a month. It is a disconcerting feeling, seeing his lustrous face with that devious smile pasted on every corner I pass. Even in print his eyes are dead and dark, as if they are windows to the other side. Throughout October he is the talk of the town, but that is nothing he isn’t already accustomed to.

Varian Stone, the young cellist who won his fortune at auction. Most remain incredulous at this headline, assuming at once this boy of twenty has blood on his hands. Alas, if only they knew the darker reality of how he came to fame they might not be so hasty to convict him of betrayal.

He seldom comes out of that mansion of late. Some say he stays locked in a single room for all nights of the year save one, but I can vouch that this is not the case. He is a private boy, often found alone on the balcony at the top of the staircase, consumed by his music. He will sway and toss his head as though caught in the grips of ecstasy. Other times he hums – though he is no great singer – while admiring the very grand and very small of all things left to him in that mansion.

There is nobody around him to expect much else of him. No eyes to judge him for his eccentricities, no tongues to nag him for his idleness. Only me. And only when he so yearns for the company of a fellow gentleman.

I can tell he does not love his life on those other days. He is soulless, only animate and connected with the world through the voice of his cello. It is not for another that he plays. He is inherently selfish that way, and does not even play for me when I ask it of him. But on the 31st of October, he comes alive. His burnished eyes are aglow with anticipation, of joy, and perhaps, when he thinks I have not noticed, of nerves.

He dons his favoured tailcoat: black with a crimson lining, and a waistcoat to match. His silk gloves and bowtie are the purest shade of white, perhaps having never seen a single mote of dirt. His hair is easily tousled, but it suits him that way, if I may briefly admire him so, for once a year he looks his age and not one hundred.

He has selected his four already. His cherished, chosen listeners. He selects them not for their status, their piety, their allure or profession. He appoints them their seat personally, for these people are sad – so beautifully sad – grieving and lonely. For those who say the cellist does not leave his mansion have never seen him take interest in these plain and unapparent people.

Through means I have not yet uncovered, he divulges unto them the time and venue for his recital, and though they know of Varian Stone’s notoriety, they do not fail him. Always four. No more and no less, and always they come.

They are seated when he arrives on his stage, in a gentle arc before him so that he might gaze intimately upon their faces if he so wishes. His cello is clasped around the neck in his hand, polished until it shines in the dim yellow lamps set into the alcoves of the abandoned Hinkley Alley theatre.

All eyes are on him, and he is unashamed to savour their fawning. How beautiful he is. How uncanny his looks. How charming that wicked half-smile. A young man of poise and dignity and a mystery that shrouds him from the world. Of course, this is what the cellist believes, but I cannot write with any certainty it is what his audience truly thinks.

He lets them watch him for a moment longer as he sets his cello against his knee, not immediately connecting with them, he will say, so as not to break the spell he has on them. But I rather think he cannot at first bring himself to look into the eyes of those sad and lonely people for fear they might impair his composure.

He need not trouble himself, as it is then that the attention is off him and they see his cello has no strings. He flips back his hair in that graceful way he so often does, closes his eyes and begins to play. To me there is only a haunting silence. To him he hears no melody but the ones he has rehearsed all year in his mind, but to them, there occurs the most curious of phenomena.

The music is whatever they wish for it to be. The man at the far end might long for a sombre requiem in E minor, and so his wistful soul sings it to him. The lady in the middle might hear a sprightly waltz from her youth, and the other two hear well-known pieces played to utmost perfection to their ears, as if the lulls and swells are in time with their heart’s desire.

It is not he who renders this phantom music, but they, and for an hour he acts, never once looking at them, but in full knowledge of the marvel on their faces as they fall for his performance. For a time they forget their sadness, their loss, their strife, but it is still not for them that he plays. The cellist plays for their souls, as I have mentioned, but in a way he also plays for his own.

When at last he bows the final note with a flourish, he stands for his applause. He hears the roar of it in his head, but the theatre is black and silent. He bows before each of them, a broad smile splitting his handsome face in two, and at last he will open his eyes and look at his chosen.

Their heads are rolled back onto their necks, to the side, to the front. Their eyes do not see into this world; their mouths hang open without breath. He bows low again before his audience of the dead and walks to the grieving man on the far right. In turn he delicately sweeps his hand mere inches from their mouths, one by one, as if he were catching a fistful of vapour.

From each he draws a silvery wisp, light as air and gentle as a candle flame. It is the soul, and he will say that it is beautiful to behold and thrums in his palm like the wingbeats of a hundred tiny birds. His portrayal is, of course, a romantic one, for he does not see the arc of corpses in front of him, slumped and pallid in their seats.

He sits again and attends to his treasured cello, and from these four souls he fashions the four strings of his instrument. The grieving man forms the thickest string – deep and solemn. The lady in the middle, the one for whom her soul had sung of a long forgotten romance, forms the thinnest string, high in pitch and mirthful once played. The other two souls he arches over the bridge and winds around the tuning pegs, at last satisfied that his work is finished.

For another year he will reside inside his mansion, almost alone except for the echoes of the past. He will play the loveliest, yet most haunted songs I have ever heard, for I know of no other who is privy to his art. Once again I will stand at the foot of the stairs and watch him from below while he does not realise it, in conflict with myself for becoming captivated with a man so flawless and yet so evil.

He has entrusted me with his secret like none other he has trusted before. And yet, I sense a flicker in his eyes that grows more sinister by the day. My dear friend, I write to you because I do not know how much longer I have before the last note of his melody will also spell my final breath.