The Foreboding Feeling!!
Title: The Foreboding Feeling
Challenge: Josh and Raya - Joshua Spier
Media: Original Fiction
Notes/Warnings: Character death and loss. Hello everyone. I know this is the first time I've written here in like two weeks, but I hope that I am back. My life's been crazy and time and energy have been limited, but I hope that is behind me now. I wrote this for a weekly music prompt at storytellersong.
The Foreboding Feeling
Is it possible for me to still hear the piano play that sad melody even though it has been years since I heard the tinkling made by his fingers as they caressed the ivory like the times he had caressed my skin?
The room is dusty and dark, but somehow I still fill his presence there. If it’s only the memory that clouds my thoughts and brings a tear to my eyes, he is still there with me.
I brush my hand over the top of the cherry wood that encases the piano keys and strings. They are just inanimate objects, but when he touched them, they came to life and the entire room was filled with his spirit through the sounds he made on the piano.
How I wish for those days to return as I look at the dust, thick and gray on my finger tips and as I blow it away, I close my eyes and think back to the last time I saw him, the last time I was in this room.
I had walked in and found him deep in thought as he played that piece-the piece he had written for me and wanted to surprise me with for the anniversary, the mark of six months since we had met.
The melody was captivating and I could feel every ounce of love he had put into it, but I also felt a foreboding feeling grip me in the heart as the piano became almost silent and then became louder again during the melody.
I knew, somehow I knew, that this would be our last day together, but I didn’t tell him. I just listened and watched as his handsome form bent over the keys and he poured his heart and soul out to me-for me.
When he had finished there was a faint smile of accomplishment that crept across his lips and spread into his eyes. That’s when he saw me, standing in the corner of the room. He stood and came to me saying he had wanted the song to be a surprise.
I slid my arms around his neck and whispered that hearing it this way, without him knowing was even more special because I knew it was truly from his heart. He bent down and kissed me gently, drawing me closer to him in a warm, firm embrace.
And there, as the candles flickered and the gentle breeze blew into the room from the garden, he told me how much he loved me and asked me to marry him. My only hesitation however, was the strange feeling that I had just had moments earlier. But even that did not stop me from declaring my love to him as well and I agreed, as tears slipped away, leaving their salty trail along my skin.
We stayed up that night, making our plans for our wedding. He played the song for me again just before dawn, and when it was time for me to go, I kissed his cheek once more. I knew in my heart that this was the last time I would smell his fragrance near me and the last time I would feel his touch.
When I returned home, I had no more gotten my clothing changed and was about to lie down for a few hours, when I heard a knock at the door. The housemaid came to my room and with a countenance of sorrow asked me to come to the foyer because a messenger awaited me there.
It was then that I learned of my love’s death only minutes after I left his side. He had gone out to peruse the jewelry establishment down the street from his home to pick out a ring for our engagement, when he was struck by a runaway carriage and died.
My heart was crushed and it hurt so much to think of him dying there in the street alone with only strangers around him. That was the beginning of my mourning process. I went through the motions of preparing for his interment, but I was not really there. My mind was still in this very room with him and we were together and happy.
Today was the first time I have allowed myself the come back here in months, since that night. But I felt it was time to say my proper farewell. I opened the lid to the piano and felt a sharp pain in my heart, just above my rib cage as I peered on at the score he had written with his own hand. The song he had written for me.
I touched the keys, and closed my eyes, letting what remained of him seep into my every pore. Then I opened my eyes and began playing the song that had haunted me every night since he left me. It was the sound I went to sleep by and the sound that woke me as I screamed in the night.
It was easy to play. It felt like it was not my hands playing but his, so I just let if flow through me and when I reached the part-the part that had given me the foreboding feeling, I paused a bit longer than one usually would before I continued and finished the piece.
This was my way of letting him go. I knew I had to do this so that I could go on with my life. This what he would have wanted. This is what I needed. And as I finished the song, I closed the piano again and stood to leave the room, looking around one last time. He was no longer here for me, he was now tucked away in my memories which is where he would remain for all time.