I huddled, shivering, under a thin, colorless blanket. I could feel the cold cobblestones through the worn soles of my shoes. A brick sticking out from the wall that I was curled up against dug into my skinny back.

I was lying in an alley, trying to forget my pain and hunger, trying to give in to sleep. My whole body ached. I hadn’t eaten in weeks. Even when I saw food lying, discarded, on the ground, or sticking out of a garbage can, I was too weak to crawl over to it, let alone get it into my mouth. If only there had been food when I was strong enough to feed myself.
    
I had given up. There was no way I could live. I would die, alone and starved, in this cold, dank alley.
    
But then, a slow loving sound swept through the silent darkness. I lifted my head weakly. The sound flowed between rundown buildings, across the sooty sky, down my alley, and into me. The beautiful music filled me up, wrapped around me, and stroked my thin body. I could feel it in my very bone marrow. It was like a thick, warm blanket, enveloping me.
    
But even as someone drew a bow artfully over strings, even as that someone’s fingers played over those same strings, as they cradled a much-loved violin, I began to drift away. My heartbeat slowed. So did my breathing. My tense, shivering limbs relaxed. The thread of my lifeline didn’t break suddenly, plunging me into eternal darkness. It just fell away, unraveled. My last breath was a contented one. Then, I was still.
    
Long after my life had slipped away, that violin still filled the dark city with mystical music. And because of that music, if anyone had found my small, crumpled body lying there in that alley, I would have been smiling.