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All my life, I'd wanted to make a violin sing. I did not touch one, not even fleetingly, until my illness was well-advanced. Even then, when I played it was not beautiful. I went to my grave heartbroken. So heartbroken, in fact, I did not stay.

I couldn't, how could I stay there? I had wandered all my days, time never having been a factor. I had wandered through life, to hell with stopping now. Why should I ever stop? Who could make me?

I had never felt this invincible in life, and only this beautiful in death. I suppose, though, that it's supposed to be some cosmic joke. What could I do, but laugh?

I did, of course. I threw up my hands and I danced wildy, laughing, an undead thing in the night. Was my mad dance accompanied? Of course.

That, it seems to me now [many years later, I might add], is the most beautiful part of living and dying and lingering the way I did. I have music. I will have it forever.

I have have it forever, in truth. I danced to Vivaldi in the womb, sat entraced while Mozart's sweet symphonies floated through our house, and in my teenage years I curled up with Beethoven, hoping for something. I was never sure what, and now hope escapes me entirely.

My mother joked that the music had been to stimulate me, that she had never meant for it to captivate me so entirely. What else could it do?

Though not beautiful myself, I am appreciative of beautiful things. Despite that, I had lived plainly all my life, with only music to inspire me. It was supposed to, I had thought.

It didn't, tragically. I never married, nor did I give birth to children. I could not write, sew, paint, or play a blessed note. Blessed? The music I made, if you can call it that, was ghastly. Awful, screaming notes. Shrills to break the silence, but of course, that thought doesn't make me feel any better.