A Chance
A good story tends to start with every event in place, every understanding of the places that are described memorized. Not this one. Some stories begin near the end. Some only go through the middle. Most stories are never told.
Which is why this story, being told to you right now, is a luxury. I won't lie, it's confusing, some people might never entirely understand it. But the fact that this story reaches your ears, well... Almost enough to make you smile.
What's defined as the middle, what's defined as the beginning, that's a confusing tidbit to some people. It's all up to the storyteller. So why not begin at the end?
A girl stood along a cliff, looking out into the valley infront of her. A beautiful, elegant instrument, standing tall with strings like silver hairs, glinted in that dying sunlight, the last time I remember the sunlight. A tune hummed around in her head, formless, unstructured, begging to be put together.
Over time, as the valley fell into a pit unlike any other, a pit that reached the ends of the earth, as the sun retreated behind clouds as thick and black as smog, that tune flowed through her mind. Her fingers, delicate yet quick, glided across the strings, her head lost in the melody, brought alive by the music.
Over time, as pain dug its way into her heart, as solitude became her companion along with the music, she began smiling less and less. Until that chance, those memories of the valley, turned to nostalgia and child-like dreams. A cataclysm through her world ended everything.
Until there came a kid.
A man, swirling along the marble floor with his blushing bride. Beautiful, imaginative, loving. The man lost himself in the music, in the embrace of the woman he loved. As the night progressed, as he drank from wine of which there was no finer, as he dined upon cakes and pastries, he felt nothing but joy.
As the night went on, among his friends, among those he couldn't live without, his mind never left that floor, the face of his wife imprinted in his memory. A beauty that wasn't easily definable, for there were woman far more luscious than her, there were woman far more energetic, her beauty rose in his chest, filled his being, until nothing else took that man's eyes.
Looking back, that was the worst way it could have ended.
In the morning, those around him stood petrified to their spots, slick, frozen in their last moment of fear. He alone stood alive, that man in search of his bride, panic radiating from him. His agony flowing through his veins, alien, a sensation of pure fear.
Until he found her. His blushing bride, his wife, the woman he loved. Her skin of ashes falling away in clumps, as his screams flew through the air around him, as he felt his heart collapse in on itself. As he stared into the sky, unthinking, unfeeling, broken beyond repair. Trapped inside his own body. A cataclysm through his world ended everything.
Until there came a kid.
The ring of hammers. The smell of dirt, uprooted, fresh, filling the air. Sweat, smiles among those around him. Laughter.
All except for a kid.
He stood away from the others, hammering the trail, his clothes drenched in sweat. Serious, his cheeks hollow from bad food. His arms lean and muscular. His back hunched, from years hammering, from years working. His hair white as snow.
The sun hung under halfway through the horizon, casting the earth in shadow, bringing and end to a long day. The kid shouldered his hammer and moved on from the fields, back to his home on the wall. His room of a single bedsheet, a place to hang his hammer, a desk and a single chair, rarely ever used. Impersonal, empty. The kid liked it that way.
When he woke in the morning, a cataclysm through his world ended everything. Only problem was, everything had ended for him a long time ago.
What did he do? That kid rose from his bedsheet, the earth falling around him, the sun lost from the sky, and grabbed his hammer, running across plates floating through the sky, meeting a man, a girl, and an old friend. Another who liked stories. A man I remember fondly.
Heh. Looking back on it, I wasn't that bright. But lord knows I was full of heart.
A proper story goes from the beginning, with every event memorized, its design known. Not this one. Not when you're telling it to yourself. But I gotta tell it.
Until my mouth stops moving, that man, that girl, that old friend, remain a part of me. I wouldn't have it any other way.