By Steven R. Kraaijeveld
In the city’s busiest square, street artists compete for the pockets of passersby. Day in, day out, the artists go about their business, working hard to amuse ephemeral masses. While none is blessed with extraordinary talent, they make a decent living.
One Sunday morning, as autumn is just beginning, a young woman walks across the square toward the massive statue of Z—. She is inconspicuously dressed in worn but tidy clothes. Even at this hour, the sun plays with the square’s singular statue; as if in a private game. Sunbeams flicker and leap across the uneven bronze. The young woman carries a faded leather case, which she places gently against the statue’s base.
Groups of people are already scattered around the square, eager to make the most of their free time. No one pays attention to the young woman, who slowly pulls a varnished, hickory brown violin out of the case. Then a frail-looking bow of a much lighter color. In one fluent movement, she tucks the violin’s loose chin rest under her left jaw, cradles it between her neck and shoulder, and proceeds to caress the taut strings with the spindly bow.
Faces turn to the violinist—and stay. As the crowd listens, it seems to become a single organism. She plays with delicacy and grace. The piece is tragic; the melody is charged with a lingering melancholy. The violinist’s bow, guided by a slim but forceful wrist, seems to scrape across their hearts. An elderly woman prevents a tear from reaching her freshly made-up cheek. A little boy clings with both arms to his mother’s thigh.
The sound emanating from the instrument reaches an agonizing pathos. The violinist is no longer on the square. There is no audience, either—only longing. It sweeps through the square like an obscure cloud. Thick, stifling. The violin’s sound carries not only beauty, love, and death, but their very possibility. Breath through music—they inhale with a newborn’s zealousness.
A sudden movement in the crowd breaks the spell. A policeman emerges and grabs the scroll of the violin.
Where are your papers? Well, then you cannot play. Not here. You are spoiling the atmosphere. People come here to be happy.
The violinist has no reply. She returns the instrument to the faded leather case and leaves the statue to tentative applause.
A man dressed as a robot eventually takes her place.
Steven R. Kraaijeveld is a Dutch philosopher, ethicist, and writer who grew up in Czechia, China, and the Philippines. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Epiphany, L’Esprit Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, Maudlin House, and MoonPark Review. He was a finalist in Fugue‘s 2025 Prose Contest. Find out more about him on Instagram @esarkaye or through his website: stevenrkraaijeveld.com.
MoonPark Review 