Self-Review – The Escape Violinist

Let’s Look at The Escape Violinist

The Escape Violinist is an exceptionally odd story. But reading it again in 2025, after leaving it fallow since maybe 2018, showed me how sweet and surprising it is.

I wrote this story during the first quarter of 2017.

Background

This story comes, at least in part, from a dream. Although I can’t exactly recall the sum and substance of the dream. But at the time, it had to have been compelling enough for me to go ahead and write a complete short story.

Plot for The Escape Violinist

Dying in a hospital bed, the narrator sees a violinist, a strange man she has never seen before. He plays some familiar music, and she is whisked away.

In the next locale, they’re in a car plunging off a cliff, when the violinist plays a different song, and then the scene shifts to a bar. Just before the narrator can be hit on the head with a beer bottle, the violinist plays again.

The cycle repeats itself: recognizable violin music, a scene right before what will apparently be someone’s demise, and then a shift to another place, but right after another song.

But the only experience that really stands out is Gloria, a young mother, who sacrifices herself.

Characters

The characters are the narrator, the original violinist, Gloria, Miguel, and various other people at the ends of their lives.

Memorable Quotes

I don’t know where he came from, and I don’t even know if he has a name.

But that’s all right.

Here; I’ll start from the beginning.

The truth is, the beginning is a little fuzzy, and it gets blurrier all the time. The main thing I recall is that I was in a hospital bed. It was the old Hollywood cliché of a bunch of wires and tubes. I was alone; I know that much. I think.

It was one of those rooms that doesn’t really have a door. So rude! You know what I’m saying? I mean, seriously, how’s a gal supposed to go to the bathroom in peace? It wasn’t too far from the nurses’ station. So they had to have seen him. And when he started playing, they had to have heard him, right? I mean, am I right?

He was just standing in the front part, where there’s a curtain on rollers and he had a violin and bow and he started playing. I suppose he was aware that I haven’t got a classical bone in my body and my tastes tend toward the pedestrian. So he played me the opening fiddle part of Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ ‘Come on Eileen’..

Yes, I have always been a Philistine.

Rating for The Escape Violinist

The story has a K rating. I definitely wrote this one before I got really prolific in 2018, so in some ways I think that gives it a fighting chance of being a better story. That is, I wasn’t wracking my brains half the time, trying to come up with something original every single day.

Takeaways

It’s a wacky kind of a story. But I think with some work, it could really be something good. Hmm. This one may very well be worth dusting off and polishing a bit.

What if there’s some true potential under all that pop music?

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Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

Short Stories

Finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.