About Meg Giry

I've known her all her life.
She belongs to the opera as much as I do, or perhaps even more, for unlike me she was born there. Unlike me she has known no life without it.
I have known her all her life, and she never deserved my attention.

I suppose she could dance.
No, it would not be fair to deny her the one talent she has. She can dance. She should be able to with such a mother and the upbringing she received. She would perhaps be charming in a silent role.
But her voice… her voice was made for the choir, to blend in the background: not bad, but never good. Never the brilliance needed to lead.
And even in dance Christine's talent surpassed hers.

I would perhaps never have noticed her if she had not been Christine's best friend. If she had not disturbed my lessons frequently by bursting in with unimportant distractions. With her silly talk of love. Perhaps.. if not for her, I would have had Christine.
Oh, how she laughed when Christine told her of her 'angel of music.' How often she told her 'there was no such thing as an invisible voice teaching you.' Infuriating! Insulting! Surely the growth of Christine's talent could not be denied! And to be laughed at! To be ridiculed!

How often I thought of closing the rope around her neck. Of making her the star of the show, just for once. It was but the dept I owned her mother that stopped my hand.
When she encouraged Christine to fall for Raoul... when Christine did… No dept, not a single emotion was important.
They saw me as a monster… a phantom, and I would become what they had made me.

I would have ended it then. Her. Raoul, Christine.. to hell with the traitors, my own private hell, designed for them especially. For a brilliant demon such as myself it would not be hard to create one that would surpass the devil's own.

It was not supposed to be.
God's irony made it impossible for me even to become what I was born to be.
Not a monster I was then. Not the devil's child. Not anything.

Without Christine… even my music was nothing but empty chords without meaning. Without brilliance. To hear it be sung by a voice like Carlotta's would be a faith worse than death.
And then she was there. She found me when I did want not be found. She looked as if she knew the things I wanted to keep secrets, saw what I did not want to be seen and touched me where I did not want to be touched.

And I found she has a talent after all.
A talent so strange I could not recognize, but stronger than anything I'd known.
A talent for love that surpassed that even of her mother's, far beyond that of Christine.
I cannot sharpen that talent. I am a talentless student myself.

But I have a theory.
I have a theory that if I can teach her to sing one song, just one.. if I can teach her to sing it, it must be possible for her to teach me to love.

And so I am writing again, the music has returned to my head. It is a challenge, for the song will be different from all I've composed before.
It has to be a simple song. Unlike Christine's her voice is capable of but one emotion at the time.

A song of hope without despair.
A song like Meg herself.

A song of love.
Just love.

In all it's simple beauty.