Author notes

BURNING GAZE, Page 13

alschroeder

on May 31, 2013

What sort of music would an unaging, immortal man play? One who's seen everything from The Sepoy Mutiny to the horrors of the 20th century?

Obviously, the blues.

Vigilant is over a century and a half old.  He's seen many things, employed many aliases. He's gone through a lot of hardship.  Immortality doesn't mean forgetting…it can just keep grieving alive…

The idea of someone hailing from India being a jazz trumpeteer, playing the blues, was just quirky enough that it worked for me.  It humanizes Vigilant, giving him much more depth than he had before.  Like Beastbeauty being a director of indie art films, it makes him much more interesting.

No, Ram Deol isn't his real name.  It's just his current alias. (Well, "Ram" is correct. More later.) 

It's an interlude, but I think a necessary one.