Serenity in a Serenade
By Ria
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She stood holding the doorframe. Music floated around the room before her, the tide of sound ebbing and flowing delicately. Large strong hands stroked out gently timid notes next to powerful bursts of sound. If he was aware of her presence it certainly didn't show on his face. His eyes were closed to the music sheets he knew off by heart, his fingers stroking out notes on a keyboard he knew every inch of. His face was a portrait of peace, of contentment. As if his whole life came down to the few notes he was feeling out, and that was all he wanted.
Loathe to break the spell, she stood as still as he sat, alternating between watching fingers dancing delicately over keys, to a face that was breathtaking in its serenity.
She knew it was an illusion. That what she saw on his face was not a reflection on what he was seeing behind his closed lids. Because as she closed her eyes she saw a dead body on a steel table. She saw tears running down a mother's face. She saw the anger from a father who had been robbed of his life blood.
And yet, as she allowed the individual notes to break through so the sadness of the images began to breakdown. As she sunk further and further into the music flowing around her, the replacing image was a mental one of him, at the keyboard. Of a calm serenity. The mirror of a little girl, lying on a mortician's table, finally at peace. Whilst rage and anger and violence floated all around, the little girl was finally allowed to rest, the calm in the middle of the storm.
The notes picked on the sorrow deep in her heart, felt around guilt she could no longer bear the weight of. The notes carried her away to another place of solitude, leaving behind the bitterness of another fallen victim, to a place of healing, of life. Where she could contemplate going on instead of going back.
It took her some time to realise that the music had gone, that the room was suddenly in silence.
The illusion was shattered. He sat there, tired and drawn, staring at her in silence because neither had the words any longer to express the hate of their job or to convince the other that everything would be ok.
Instead he beckoned her over, shifting on the stool to make room for her to sit down. As soon as she was sat, he began picking out notes again, playing hesitantly at first, soon becoming more forceful in the pattern he played, the music he chose, as if demanding the music to carry them both away again.
Her head found his chest to lean against, breathing in the warmth and familiarity. Both of them with closed eyes, the music once again enshrouded them and Sara allowed herself to believe that maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right. This time the place she sought wasn't of solitude. She'd tried being alone. This time she sought him out. Allowed the serenity of the serenade to once against lift them together from this place.
