A Compliment to the Gods

She looked at her son performing on the stage, her heart overflowing with joyful pride.

She had done well. Look at him. A rare combination of beauty and talent, commanding the stage with his virtuoso solo performance everyone agreed was astonishing for a such a young age.

He stood there so easily and confidently, a young David claiming victory with a violin instead of a slingshot. The spotlights glinted on his inky-black curls and dancing hands. Unlike the current fashion for musicians to emote heavily while playing, dipping, twisting, turning, grimacing and sweating, he stood almost still, genius radiating from his presence.

A true compliment to the gods. She inhaled heavenly music with her soul, transported with ecstasy.

Mothers have to make sacrifices for their children, and she had been no exception. But every sacrifice she had made for him was worth it. All those hours spent praying at the small shrine she had set up in her basement since he was five and displaying talent for music, beseeching the gods for his success.

All the blood.

She had done well to increase the sacrifices as he got older. The competition was getting tougher, and the gods were demanding. In the early years, an annual sacrifice would have sufficed to get him noticed at local musical events.

But now he was on the cusp of manhood, poised to breakthrough and make a name for himself in this tough, vicious world of professional musicianship. Talent wasn’t enough. Connections weren’t enough. Something else was needed for that push.

And she had found it. Blood.

She had known what to do. She had always prayed to her own gods for this and that, but never for something so fiercely as she had prayed for her son. And they had answered. Sacrifice.

She took no pleasure in it. Her victims foolishly believed she did, struggled and swore at her, but they were wrong. She didn’t bother to try explain how the pettiness of their dull lives was worth every second of success for her son. If anything, they should be honoured to give their lives for such a noble cause. She knew. The gods knew.

The last one were twins. She had never done twins before, and she knew that was what was giving her son that extra edge tonight. He was playing as she had never heard him play before. The melody intertwined in her memory from earlier that day- the shrieks of the twins as they struggled to break from their restraints which she had placed on them, binding them on her alter. The difficulty of managing two instead of the usual one had been intense, but oh so worth it. And she had all the tools to help her with disposing bodies neatly, it wasn’t rocket science.

The passage was over. Her son dropped his arms, and slightly inclined his head. There was a moment of pure silence before the audience roared with applause.

So, so worth it.