Until the moment you disappeared
I kept waving my hand from far behind.
Nothing seemed to have
happened before yesterday...
Nikki sucked on the end of her pencil. It was never usually a problem for the talented singer to write songs, but now that she was writing about her personal life, it was hard.
She couldn't forget. Stephen. High school sweethearts, they were. Now, seven years on, Nikki was riding the wave of popstar success.
Laughing so hard we thought we would cry,
when we held hands and gazed into each other's eyes,
as always, (your) fragrance would (ever so faintly)
tug at my heart-strings.
Nikki smiled at the memories. Happy picnics, idyllic evenings...
She frowned. If it was to really be a story, there would need to be conflict. So the truth of their break-up would have to be told...
So indulgent was I,
as I quarrelled over trifling things.
I never even imagined the day
when we couldn't be together any more...
And it was true, Nikki found. She had never thought forward, taking easy subjects at school while the dark, serious Stephen studied the likes of Calculus and Physics. They had been forced to break up on the day Stephen's admission to the university had been announced, as the top-scoring student in Australia... caught up by the memories, words formed in Nikki's mind and she scribbled them down.
Trying to return to that day,
I should be honest to all I felt.
The wind and sky still remember the time
when we embraced... alone.
And that was true, too. The wind had sung around the as the sky blazed with colours. Nikki spent most of her dreams on that last day, but no matter how hard she tried, she could never stop him from leaving the next morning. She had never been able to hold onto a boyfriend since then, too caught up in happy memories. The men she had seen soon got tired of her thoughts and dreams about Stephen, and whether they should have been together forever.
But she had to keep it happy. This was a pop song.
When I think about tomorrow
my feelings face forward just a little
Surely (we will) walk along (this small)
path, which leads us... somewhere.
Nikki shook her head. No. She didn't care about pop conventions anymore. She was writing the song to get over him—not to forget, heavens no! but to move on. She sucked on her pencil for a while, then wrote:
Now all my lines
about the nights when I'm alone
but want to see you
won't reach you anymore...
Nikki gasped at what she had written. It was getting personal, more like poetry than the song it was intended to be.
But she didn't care now. Damn it all. Maybe he was out there somewhere, maybe he had been pining for her for the last three-quarters of a decade. Maybe he would hear it, and know how much she had lost.
That day, we held each other.
Don't ever forget that happiness.
I fell so in love with you...
Let's stay as we were back then.
Nikki paused, her eyes filling with tears. She hadn't meant it to dig so deep into her feelings, but she forced herself to write on.
That day, I had a dream...
I will not forget the look in your eyes.
The wind and sky... surely...
will blow away all my pain.
Nikki stared at those last two lines, then put her notebook away carefully. She met in secret with her orchestral band, who were all for her idea, and at her request they kept it from her manager.
That day, we held each other.
Don't ever forget that happiness.
I fell so in love with you...
Let's stay as we were back then.
At her concert, Nikki waved aside her backup dancers and picked up her microphone again.
"What is she *doing?*" her manager hissed. His assistant could only shrug.
"I have a new song for you all," Nikki's amplified voice echoed through the auditorium. "And I'm singing for every one of you girls who had to let your loved one go, because you loved him so much." She paused. "I know how you feel."
That day, I had a dream...
I will never forget the look in your eyes.
The wind and sky... surely...
...will blow away all of my pain.
Nikki relaxed in style. Her impromptu single, dubbed "The Wind and Sky, Always," had hit multi-platinum sales, making her the most successful pop artist of all time. She had sung her heart out at the concert, and that had led to a new facet for her career. Her last two CD's had drifted away from poppy, dancey beats towards ballads and blues.
A knock on her door caught her attention. Who could it be at this hour? She pulled on a filmy dressing gown and answered the knock.
A tall man in a sharp suit and shades stood there.
"Nikki."
The singer's breath caught in her throat.
"Stephen."
"Doctor Stephen, now," he corrected her gently. "Technically Doctor, *Doctor* Stephen. You haven't done too badly for yourself either."
Nikki smiled, but she had to know. "Did you think of me?" she blurted as he walked past her into the room.
"Pardon?"
"All these years. You've never come before. Did you ever think of me?"
Stephen smiled, and handed her a rose. "The wind and sky," he told her.
Nikki frowned. Then her brow cleared and she laughed like a teenager. She had figured it out and received the best answer she could have hoped for.
The wind and sky... always.