frederic chopin is definitely not a vampire

The statue of Chopin stands high-collared, bronze-dipped. With one foot forward

he steps, villainous, heel raised mid-motion. Below the symmetry of a widow’s peak,

one hand is raised to his throat for the cough that choked him, or to hide something.

Fiendish in the way those blank eyes scan the concourse, the flick of a cape

does nothing to dissuade my inklings. But of course, Frédéric Chopin was not

actually a vampire, at least from my personal understanding of the great composers.

Only... his pale skin was said to draw the attention of his students, and he admitted

misgivings at the thought of being buried. Plus, he was partial to a nocturne.

If his music is timeless, who’s to say he isn’t too? Perhaps he is comfortable

residing in Chocholow where his stature commands a cautious respect, and

the children refer to him as “sir” when he receives the morning news. We will agree

not to speak of the increase to the bat population in the area; their sharp-toothed sonata

heard at dusk is surely just a coincidence. The locals still address him with a reverence,

despite reports of all the unexplained deaths occurring lately. Or maybe music still gnaws

at him with a thirst that can’t be satisfied by pseudonyms and midweek tutoring.

So when the streetlights close their solitary eyes on the village, Chopin rises,

and claims the night. Glimpse him through the window, a cursive clef shadow

arranging his latest creation, an exsanguination of piano to page. See him

scrawling over sheet music, scribbling compositions in the margins of the missing

person section of the paper, alive with the waltzes of his Warsaw days.