Mr. Clement was a silversmith and one day he brought home a violin. Nobody at Mr. Clement’s household knew how to play a violin. But Mr. Clement bought it anyway.
At Mr. Clement’s, Mrs. Clement admitted to be helplessly tone deaf, Clement Jr. was born with a peculiar delayed sense of rhythm; and Mr. Clement himself never learned how to read words and not the least, music. But Mr. Clement bought it anyway.
So, when Mr. Clement got home, he took it upon himself not to tell his wife nor children about the violin because he was afraid that they will plainly laugh at him.
Very quietly, Mr. Clement hid the instrument under his overalls and took it to his adjacent workshop . He pulled out a chair and sat the violin on it. Then he pulled out another chair and sat himself on that one, facing the violin, like two people that were about to have a very serious conversation.
‘What am I going to do with you?’ asked Mr. Clement.
The violin didn’t say anything. It just sat there. And then, for a brief moment, Mr. Clement thought that he saw the violin shrug its tiny curved shoulders. And so did he, because he felt just the same way. ‘Maybe it will come to me.’ Mr. Clement sighed.
The violin didn’t say anything to this either. Perhaps the violin was tired, or perhaps the violin was feeling shy in a strange home, Mr. Clement thought. Truth was, it just felt a little bit sorry for Mr. Clement. Poor old fool, it thought.
And so, Mr. Clement hid the violin among his tools in the privacy of his workshop , and every morning before the commencement of his daily chores, he would bring it out, sit it on the chair and look at it.
Usually it was just Mr. Clement talking to himself. Sometimes Mr. Clement would just stare at it, and then his gaze would whisk him somewhere far away, where he could see himself as an eloquent fiddler, audaciously winning the crowds of neighbouring villages.
And just like that, sweet notes streamed from the violin’s strings in an achingly beautiful tune moving hearts of maids, knights, kings and queens.
And then, something extraordinary happened. The happiness of all this emotion lifted his body a few inches lighter, with his toes barely touching the ground. Indeed, Mr. Clement was flying of happiness both in his dream and in his workshop. Because without knowing it, he was already playing music.