The Cellist of Sarajevo

by Steven Galloway

She realizes that for no particular reason she stumbled into the core of what it is to be human. It’s a rare gift to understand that your life is wondrous, and that it won’t last forever.

And he doesn’t know what things will look like when and if it does end. How do you build it all up again?

This is how she now believes life happens. One small thing at a time. A series of inconsequential junctions, any or none of which can lead to salvation or disaster. There are no grand moments where a person does or does not perform the act that defines their humanity. There are only moments that appear, briefly, to be this way.

She tries not to get caught up in wondering if there’s a difference or not. If there is, she will know. If there isn’t, thinking about it isn’t going to make it so. The temptation to second-guess is great, but she doesn’t succumb.

But perhaps the only thing that will stop it from getting worse is people doing the things they know how to do.

So she can’t even answer the question of when her questions ceased having answers.

Do the men on the hills hate her? Or do they hate the idea of her, because she’s different from them, and that in this difference there might be some sort of inferiority or superiority that is hers or theirs, that in the end threatens the potential happiness of everyone?

It makes her sad. A heavy, slow kind of sad, the sort that does not bring you to tears but makes you feel like crying. It is, she thinks, the worst feeling there could be.

It’s a small measure of control over an uncontrollable situation.

There is no way to tell which version of a lie is the truth.

Because civilization isn’t a thing that you build and then there it is, you have it forever. It needs to be built constantly, re-created daily. It vanishes far more quickly than he ever would have thought possible. And if he wishes to live, he must do what he can to prevent the world he wants to live in from fading away. As long as there’s war, life is a preventative measure.

Perhaps the people watching him will think he’s snapped, that he’s gone catatonic and doesn’t care anymore whether he lives or dies. They’d be wrong. He cares now more than ever.

The music demanded that she remember this, that she know to a certainty that the world still held the capacity for goodness. The notes were proof of that.