Moonlit Nocturne

There was blood on my hands when I played the piano for you that day.

It was the same street piano on the corner of the park that we used to play in, outracing the butterflies that gathered around the roses that grew there. We used to pretend we could fly like them, dancing from petal to petal, free from the world's cruelties. So happy. So naive.

A skid of a wheel had changed all that.

That day, your butterfly wings had been torn out of their sockets. They joined a long list that had been stuffed into jars over the centuries, to be ogled over by Death, the sadistic collector who never failed when it was our turn to submit. You were captured too early, too soon, but there was nothing I could do. I was on the piano, playing your nocturne, when you crossed the busy road. Blood sprayed, horns screamed and I turned to see you flung over a windscreen, unmoving.

There was a funeral, of course. There were tears, but none slid down my face that day.

I saved it for the piano.

You should have seen it, Sarah. It never looked so beautiful under moonlight. Mahogany and silver, the two colours you said made up the colours of my heart. The mahogany for the warmth I provided during our darkest days, and the silver that melted with the kindness you said I possessed. Those colours had long faded, falling prey to the chill of your dying memory.

A dark shadow descended across the piano, blocking out the moonlight. My head jerked up to see black clouds drifting across the sky, obscuring the moon. Suddenly, the silence of the night was broken: cars crunched by, spraying grit on the seat, and I heard footsteps echo down the sidewalk.

They stopped.

Puzzled, I turned around. There was an old man standing a few metres away, leaning against the fence of the park. His hair seemed to glow like silver pennies in the weak light that illuminated us and there was a sad, almost sympathetic smile on his face.

Forgetting myself, I yelled. "What are you looking at?"

The old man straightened himself, leaning on a walking stick for support. "It's been a while."

For a few seconds, we stared at each other. A part of me struggled to tell him to go away; another part of me wanted him to stay. The seconds stretched into minutes. Every moment now was characterised by the white puffs of our breaths, drifting towards the sky.  

"Who are you?" I said finally.

The old man bowed his head. "I was there when it happened."

My heart lurched, my throat jammed; I could not believe what I was hearing. "What are you talking about?"

The old man ploughed on, "I was there when your girlfriend died."

Crash. My arms had fallen onto the piano, denting the beautiful black and white keys. The leaves above them shook with the impact, some detaching from the branches completely. They fell in a spiral, joining the tears that had suddenly sprung from my eyes and shattered the barrier I had built all evening.  

"She helped me feed the birds that morning, just before she crossed the road. She loved doves, she told me. So white in feather, so pure and innocent by heart. Just like the boy who always played her favourite Chopin Nocturnes on the street piano across the road. It's rare to see young people today who embrace the concept as whole-heartedly as she did that day, even in her last moments, when the car struck her down."

"Please..." It was all coming back to me now. The sudden screech of tires, the muffled thump and the screams as she was found, lying on the windscreen, with the horrified owner staring at her as though she had come from nowhere. I had pushed people aside to grab her shoulders, to shake her awake, but you could never wake a butterfly whose wings had just been ripped.

"...such a beautiful girl, such a tragedy. I'm sorry for you, boy. I'm really sorry."

"What are you sorry about?" I stood up from the piano, kicking the chair aside. The clunk travelled down the street, an empty call of anguish. "You don't know what it feels like. You don't understand."

"Son--"

"You're just an old man!"

"I was a young man once."

I slumped against the side of the piano, lost for words. Sarah came flitting into my mind then, her happy face recalling memories that were too painful to remember. Instead, they were swept away by the stricken face of the driver, the face of a murderer. An inexplicable jolt of anger took hold of me and I slashed at the piano.

"He deserved to die! The driver...he killed her! He should have died too..."

The old man jerked on his feet, his eyes wide with surprise. But I did not see him anymore; I could only see the face of the man who had killed Sarah, and the boy who saw her dead was not the gentle dove anymore.

"Sarah was right about me. I was only a dove, an innocent bird who knew nothing. I thought it was so easy for both of us to live together forever, to fly away from the world to chase our dreams. I was wrong. I was so wrong."

"Son--"

"Sarah loved me when everyone else would reject me for being the loser I was. She was there when I needed her. While I was with her, I never had any cause to hate anyone who dared to stand in our way. We would just smile and move on. But now...she's moved on. Now, there isn't anything left."

Tears started falling again, puddling onto the pavement below. I did not care that an old man was watching. You could not hide grief forever.

"Son," The old man shuffled forward until his gnarled hand touched me on the shoulder, "I only meant well when I spoke of her. She was a beautiful soul, someone special. You were very lucky to have met each other."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked him. I looked at him, his world-wearied eyes and bent body, and wondered why he cared for a boy far below his years.

The sigh escaped from his body in a plume of smoke. "I had a wife called Sarah too. Like your Sarah, she was beautiful, and gone too soon."

Nothing in the world could have prepared me for that.

It was only after a stream of cars had passed that we both came to our senses, away from our memories. I dropped back to the piano, my fingers automatically placed on the keys as they had done for so many years. This time, there was something lying on top of them.

"A gift, from someone who understands," said a quiet voice.

I picked it up and held it under the moonlight. A white rose. Even though it must have been a few days since it had been plucked from its garden bed, the stem still stood proud, and the flower glowed with a life that could not be quenched so easily. One of its kind, and definitely costing more than the regular rose.

I turned around, my mouth opening in thanks, but he merely pointed to the piano.

"Play something."

Just for tonight, I played her nocturne.

When the final note hung in the air, only to be spirited away by the wind, I turned to see the old man shuffling past me. Our eyes met and he nodded once, a smile on his face. Then he was gone, turning down the next street, his breaths puffing like a train's funnel.

I never saw him again.

Standing up from the piano, I closed the lid for the last time. Tomorrow, it would be removed, and in its place would be the ghost of memories that I will never forget. Clutching the white rose, I looked over the fence of the park, where the butterflies roamed.

"Our wings will never be clipped as long as you live in my memory."