Title: Harmonica
Written: 1/31/03
Author: Lady Russell Holmes
The blues will always send chills down my spine now. That boy, that man, I don't know which to call him. He thanked me, in the end, for killing him. How do I live with that? I released him, but I killed him. He was a child. No, not a child, but it was a child's face. I put a bullet between a child's eyes. He shot me, I shot him, I hunted him down and I killed him. A child. Not a child. Someone's son. Someone's murderer. Many people's murderer. I killed a killer. Put down a rapid dog. But a dog wouldn't have known better. How, in all his life, did that man, child never learn how to live with himself? What did they do to him, when they found out that he was an ancient child? He played it, played it into his music that night that I met him. Played it into my dreams. How could they do those things to a child? He's not a clockwork toy, take it apart to see how it works, make a million more and we all live forever. No, he was a boy, and then a youth, and then a man, and nothing changed. He had to hide, make a mask. I know masks. They change you, not for the better. His mask twisted his soul. He made puppets for masks, poor men. Poor man. Poor boy. He died a man.
I can never listen to the blues again, but the harmonica he left behind plays itself. I play it, and regret.