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Piano Keys

A Short Story

By lexus toyePublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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The darkest day of my life happened many years ago, back when I was merely 19 years old. When I was young, I fell in love with a very talented musician. His name was Michael, and he truly did light up my ever-lonely world. We often sat in his living room playing his mother's grand piano, whilst we both furthered our studies. I was going to be a nurse. He made me want to save the whole wide world... then came the day we learned that people were needed to enlist for the war. Being the man he was, my Michael signed up that Monday even when his mama begged him to stay. I simply couldn't bear to see him leave me behind, so I decided to join the Red Cross. Together, we were both deployed into the same war-stricken battleground. As most of our friends slowly stopped returning, it became harder and harder for me to let go of his hand on those frosty November days. One morning, it seemed to be exceptionally cold. It was as if the world around us knew that something terrible was bound to happen that day... and I felt my heart sink into my ocean of a chest when his hand let go of mine. For the rest of the day my stomach churned, he'd ventured into the old abandoned town... less than a mile away from our camp. I couldn't help myself, I ventured after him. As I stumbled through the bright green forest, I began to hear a rather peculiar noise from the direction I seemed to be traveling in. When I got closer, I realized it was our song playing somewhere. I stepped out from the trees, and into this beautiful green clearing, to see Michael standing alone at an abandoned piano. Watching as his hands seamlessly flew over the worn keys, my stomach relaxed and I could breathe again. The ocean of fear I'd enveloped myself into seemed to dissipate before my very eyes. Everything seemed to be perfect for a moment, that is until he turned around. As it turns out, he'd been shot upon entering the clearing. Suddenly, I realized that the red stains on his hands were the product of his own blood. He smiled softly as he met my gaze, "Now darling, don't you worry about me. All I really wanted was to see you again, play our song with me?"

That was when I realized he knew that he was dying, so I stood by his side and played our song on that beautiful old piano one last time. Michael could barely stand by the last note, so I helped him to lie down on the dewy grass. He took my hand in his, and we talked about our future until he looked up at me with tear stained eyes and pulled a ring out of his tiny uniform pocket. "I... I didn't want to give it to you like this, but you've seen my mothers ring. Forever and always, until we meet again, I love you," he barely got the words out as my heart seemed to shatter like a baseball through a window. He slipped the ring onto my shaking finger as a looked at him in wonder.

"F-forever a-and always, until someday we meet again, I love you too Michael," I stumbled over my own words, barely able to understand what had happened. The next thing I knew his hand had fallen limp in mine. I've worn that ring everyday since, and I've never loved another man the way I loved Michael... forever and always.

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