It is a trope of these sorts of stories that one never learns the tragic past of a character until he is at the very moment of dying, so as to drag the suspense out for longer. This makes little sense in terms of plot, for surely you would develop greater attraction to a character if you heard his tragic backstory earlier. This applies even more if his tragic backstory was dismantled and incorporated into many smaller scenes, which also reduces the likelihood of you skipping over it. It is, however, tradition, and as I am nothing if not traditional you shall have to suffer.

Claireholm started life as a normal youth. His parents-

“Yes yes, you can skip all that,” the Editor grumbled, rolling catnip into a bundle.

His troubles first started in elementary school. He always had his head high in the clouds, in ethereal realms-

“You can skip that too,” the Editor said, one of his paws flicking, a tiny flame appearing on the end of his claw. He lit the bundle of catnip on fire and began to smoke it.

Then in college he met her-

“You know as well as I do that none of this has the slightest to do with why Claireholm became the man he is today, and why he does the things he does. You’re just padding your word count,” the Editor said, his voice accusatory as he downed a shot of milk. (He needed something strong to put up with the Author’s nonsense.)

Our story begins after the tumultuous years of his youth, when Claireholm Dundas - now an apprentice conductor - fell under the vocational sway of the great Snobinsky. Like all arts students he was desperately in need of money, but unlike other arts students he was willing to work to get it. And so he apprenticed under a man unspeakably vile, as monstrous in character as in appearance - a cynic.

The great Snobinsky did not believe in love. He did not believe in honesty, or honour, or innocence. He did believe in calculations, and he held that music would reach its apogee when it was made completely mechanical.

Claireholm did not exactly disagree. Due to tragic circumstances in his youth, tragic circumstances whose nature my truncated word count obliged me to circumscribe-

“He was dumped,” the Editor said, puffing out a circle of catnip smoke.

Yes, due to tragic (and highly romantic) circumstances in his youth, he no longer believed in love. It was best, he felt, to keep working, and maybe sooner or later he would attain some measure of success, and be able to craft a work of beauty to light up this utterly mediocre world. But love, of that there would be none, and if there was honesty it was only between a man and his soul.

This tragic state could have continued until his death (thereby depriving our lovable Lovecraftian horror of the symphony orchestra needed to fight the demonic sect) had he not been fortunate enough to be invited to a party by Snobinsky one day. This was the Christmas Ball of the City of Tombstones, and it was in the third year of the current mayor’s reign: he had been invited as Snobinsky’s plus one, for Snobinsky did not believe in love either.

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His views did not change, I am sad to say, because of the mayor’s excellent taste in ballroom design. At present Claireholm was too deeply enraptured in himself to notice such things. No, what changed Claireholm was his bearing witness to an entirely singular conversation.

“Of course I never use metaphors,” the great Snobinsky was sniffing to his admiring critics. “They’re entirely irrational. The true artist not only has no need for them; he wouldn’t use them, even if he did feel a need. Just think about the sort of harebrained idiot who looks at a girl and says she’s ‘as pretty as a flower,’ or what is worse, ‘as pretty as a picture.’ As if women waltz around with petals for hair! Unless a man seriously desires to have sex with Van Gogh’s A Starry Night, he should avoid such frippery.”

Snobinsky’s admirers fawned a little, but Claireholm blinked. Even he couldn't say what changed in him - perhaps he had some realisation, or perhaps it was the last straw - but whatever it was, it caused the floodgates to open.

“Poppycock!”

“Yes, it is poppycock-” Snobinsky started, but Claireholm wasn't finished.

“It's all poppycock, the only difference is they know it and you don't.”

“I beg your pardon?” Snobinsky asked, incredulously.

“Well if it's all absurd no matter what you do, then why prefer one form of nonsense over another? Why care for calculation and precision over, say, searching for fairies in the garden?”

(This is incorrect: in a fundamentally nonsensical universe, nonsense itself is fundamental. Claireholm’s alternative was, in fact, more right than he knew.)

“And another thing,” he cried, warming to his theme, “why shouldn't that harebrained idiot compare the love of his life to a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby? Is not the lack of any rational basis for his comparison precisely the point? Is he not trying to say that there is something - something indescribable, beyond any mere reason - which he finds lovely about her? Does not the very lack of any superficial qualities linking the two imply that what he finds so lovely about her is not superficial, but numinous? And what is so wrong about that?”

“What is wrong is that it is wrong; love is superficial.” Snobinsky cut in. “As to your other point: no one can make money without making calculations. But who's ever heard of someone who got rich searching for fairies?”

Claireholm's face was grave as he considered this, finally replying: “perhaps the search for fairies is another sort of riches.”

Snobinsky leaned forward, his body stretched taut. “Are you prepared to defend those words?”

Claireholm didn't have much, but he had his honour. His voice was firm as he delivered his reply. “I am.”

“Oh? Then why don't you go searching for fairies - and tell me how that other sort of riches compares.”

And he held out his hand. Claireholm did not falter, wrapping it in his own. The two shook, once, and turned on their way: Snobinsky back to his fans, and Claireholm down the road that would lead him to the founding of the Miracle Street Symphony Orchestra, to his meeting with the Christmas Elf, and to what happened next on that cold, corpse-ridden street.