Virtuoso
By Kaitlyn Grissom

It was a dark and stormy night. The rain clouds rolled in like a great grey flood spilled across the white November sky. Achilles Nikolaiovich shut the door of his log cabin and pulled the hood of his windbreaker tight about his stubble covered face. He stepped out into the lashing rain. Over his bony shoulder was slung a golden harp as he made his way toward the creek.
The steep driveway was made almost river-like by the relentless torrents of water. He stumbled and slipped down the hill and, coming at last to the brush-ridden cove, he sat down.
The storm raged on. Achilles sat in the mud and filth on the bank, his boots sloshing in the creek. He began to play. The notes from the harp, which had reverberated cool and crystalline against the marble walls of so many a royal palace, now fell unheard with a soft "ping" in the tempest. Lost now was the melody that told of a past full of pearls and terrible cities, ruled by terrible kings and ornamented with every glittering gem that money could buy.
It was an immeasurably sad song, underwritten with memories of better times and the smell of fine champagne. He played like a man who had seen the very highest of high society, women in dresses like brightly colored flowers floating across a ball room floor and men who alone had more power than any army could hope to obtain. Every chord echoed in the rain with the sweet lucidity that could only come from a virtuoso.
But those days were over now. The mighty palaces had become even mightier fortresses. The terrible cities fell to terrible armies and the gems that were left somehow lost their luster. The line of the czars was broken. The men went to war; the women plunged into hopeless poverty. Such pretty things as music were no longer needed. Now it was lost on the toads and mosquitoes of the riverside.
Achilles reclined, letting his haggard body fall on the muddy bank. The scene replayed in his head for the millionth time:

Two ragged figures dashed over the moonlit hill. Their dirty faces were lit with ecstasy. Their silhouettes were visible against the thick and distant lights of the burning city.
"There it is, Anita! The border! We are free!"
They were free. The country and the war were behind them. They crumpled to the ground in joy. They had made it. They were free.
He had watched her, those last few seconds as she lifted her hands to the heavens in exaltation. He had laughed and stretched out his legs on the cool ground. The gunshots came without warning. She covered her ears and reflexively dropped to the grass. Achilles had no sooner stood up to look around but he was knocked down. He remembered pain shooting through his hands like a hot knife as he laid face-down in the dirt, and then running. He ran as the gun sounded behind him, he ran while the dogs barked and the guard screamed, he ran from the grassy hill and into the pallid darkness. Anita did not.

His hands were shaking when he awoke. It was dawn. Rain dripped from the tree leaves down onto the bank where he lay. He trudged up the hill and back home without looking back, leaving his harp standing lonely by the creek.
Now, sliding tiredly down onto the kitchen floor, he took another aspirin and chugged a glass of cold water from the tap. The crudely healed fractures in his hands were aching again, as if to remind him of a life lost to cruel nearly spilled his drink when someone knocked on the door. No one ever came to visit him.
Cursing, he swung the door wide open and leaned sarcastically against the frame. The man standing outside startled at his gruesome, unkempt appearance. He was an impressive figure, cut stark and black in an expensive-looking suit. His massive shoulders threatened to burst the silken seams. The man paused as though embarrassed and offered Achilles his hand.
"Niko Romanovski."
Achilles made no movement. Awkwardly withdrawing his hand, the man folded his arms behind his back and began. His English was fluent but accented.
"Eh, you see, I had heard course, there may not be anything to it, I mean, people talk, but I just wanted to see if maybe-"
"What?" Achilles interrupted with an impatient tone.
"Are you, by any chance, Achilles Nikolaiovich? He was a famous harp player back home- a virtuoso, if you will, and I wanted to meet him before- "
Achilles interrupted yet again, this time not impatiently, but solemnly growling three heavy syllables into the man's flapping face: "He is dead."
Niko hung his head momentarily. He sniffed. "Oh."
Before he could close with the appropriate courtesies, the cabin door was slammed shut in his face. He turned and walked slowly and dejectedly across the gravel driveway and to his BMW sparkling at the crest of the hill.
Achilles Nikolaiovich had been his hero as a boy; always his father had forced him to practice the harp long hours into the night, never getting any better, and always this man's hands had flown over the strings so effortlessly that he was consumed with envy and awe. He would go to concert in the royal palace with his parents. This was before the war. He had been drafted to border patrol. Gone were the concerts and any hope of seeing his idol perform one last time.
And then, time had unleashed one last flooding torrent just when it seemed he was stuck in the same year over and over, and at last he was released from duty. He had immediately sought to find his old hero. Long hours had passed in a white room overflowing with file cabinets and indexes, until at last his scrolling eyes had come to rest on the familiar name: Achilles Nikolaiovich. An address was listed. Clear and concise. The paper was in his glove box still. Here was the place where he was supposed to be and all the records and all the matter in his brain told him that. And the door had been slammed in his face. Oh, what had he done to deserve this?
Sliding into the plush leather seat of his car, he gunned the engine and took a last glance at the cabin. In the window, a face appeared. Watching him. It was painfully lean and marked with tired shadow, looked nothing like the furtive glare that watched his fingers dancing across the harpstrings. And yet, in some other less accessible way, this character seemed terribly familiar.
Niko nearly hurled on the steering wheel.
It was not so much the face he remember as the back of the head, lying on the cool hillside, the crooked hands breaking and bleeding beneath the butt of his rifle, the gravely voice screaming in agony and that horribly wretched body, running, a shining harp slung over the bony shoulder.
No. It was not true. Achilles Nikolaiovich was dead, the man had said so. It was not true.
Without any real conscious decision, he found himself stumbling down the steep driveway towards the creek. His head was swimming. Surely he had not destroyed a life worth saving, had not broken the hands of a mighty virtuoso.
On the opposite bank sat a glittering harp, wet and golden in the morning sun. Somewhere among the empty halls of a fallen empire, he heard the horrifying absence of the virtuoso's music.