Y’all, it’s 2023 already! I’m starting to feel like my grandparents… “time goes so fast…”
BUT - it’s that time again! Time for me to share free flash fiction from around the world. I hope you enjoy my story and please scroll to the bottom for the links for other stories.
Fiddle of Gold
The first time I tried to sell the devil’s fiddle of gold, I was broke and desperate.
You see, being the best durned fiddle player alive isn’t worth much if everyone knows you’ve sold your soul, and they see through the lie that you haven’t because you can’t get pregnant and, worse than that, your hair doesn’t go gray and you move like a girl when you ought to be an old lady.
So I left that small town with the little I’d saved and traveled as far as I could go and when the money ran out and no one knew my name, I sold that fiddle for a meal and a place to sleep.
And during the night, the two-bedroom shack burned to the ground and the man who’d taken the fiddle cursed at me standing there in the blaze without burning, and threw the fiddle at me so hard it bruised me where it hit.
And I ran away until my legs gave out and I cursed the devil and his fiddle and my own pride.
The second time I tried to sell the devil’s fiddle of gold, I was rich and famous and living under a different name in a big city and still looking as young as I had a century before.
You see, I thought being a big city girl would protect me this time and I fell in love and thought maybe if I got rid of that fiddle I could finally grow old with my beloved.
So I took it to the most powerful man in the city and offered it to him for a dollar and then watched the greed take him. He hit me and took the fiddle from my fingers and threw me out into the street, and then he fell down after me and broke his neck and they accused me of killing him.
So I took my fiddle and the clothes I had on and the money I had in my underthings and ran away again as fast as my feet and a good horse could take me, and they accused me of stealing that horse too, though I bought it fair and square. And I had to start all over again with a damned fiddle and another name, and I cursed myself more than I cursed the devil that time, but I still cursed my own pride worst of all, and for a long time after.
The third time I was smarter—I didn’t try to sell the fiddle of gold, nor show it off to the wrong person. I heard of a boy named Johnny who thought he was the best fiddle player in the world, and I made my way to Georgia to challenge him for the title.
But I left my rosin behind, and I walked on foot instead of taking my fancy, new-fangled automobile, and I didn’t sleep more than an hour at a time, and I didn’t eat at all, because I meant to challenge Johnny to play better than me, and I meant to lose.
So my guts cramped and my knees shook and ghosts haunted me by the time I stepped up on the porch at Johnny’s house in the far end of the holler, and I challenged Johnny to play better than me and promised him the fiddle if he did, and still when it was my turn to play, my foolish pride made me play as best I could, sore and hungry and delirious, and I almost won him anyway.
But he sicked his blue-tick hound on me partway through, and that gave me just enough reason to drop my bow, then pick it up, and finish playing.
I didn’t much complain.
I gave him the fiddle made of gold and I walked away, feeling the tattered bits of my soul wrap around me for the first time since I’d made my own wager with the devil. And I’d never given him my true name so I went home and lived the life I wanted while he called me a devil and told everyone he was the best that had ever been.