It's like forgetting the words to your favourite song
You can't believe it, you were always singing along
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember you try to feel the beat
xi
There is only one clue John has ever had that had encouraged his hope of Sherlock being alive. His violin, sitting on the top of the shelves just as he left it even three years later. John had pondered learning to play it but when he climbed up onto a chair he found it was caked so thickly in dust that he had been sneezing almost consistently for days afterwards. All the same, a few days later he looked up there again, wondering if he should put it in a case- though he wasn't sure Sherlock had ever owned such an item of care.
The curious thing, the hopeful thing, was that when he looked that time, the violin had been shaken free of dust. He'd asked Mrs Hudson whether she had cleaned up there but she said she always avoided it.
"It's a right pain for my asthma, dear," she'd said.
That explained why Sherlock had also stashed several packets of cigarettes up there.
Over the months and the years, every time dust settled on the violin John found that it was soon clear of it in a matter of days. Almost as if someone had come in and played it when John was out.
The most chilling and final evidence, was on the night he returned from Wales and sat down to watch telly with Mrs Hudson again. The BBC proms were on, not something John was particularly interested in to be honest but he wasn't paying attention anyway.
"It was lovely to hear you playing yesterday by the way," she said, nodding to the television set.
John frowned. "I wasn't home yester-" he stopped himself.
"Oh, in the morning I mean," Mrs Hudson yawned, too sleepy to remember. "When I came back from my early grocery shopping? I didn't even know you played, to be honest. Reminded me of him."
"I don't play," John said.
Mrs Hudson just laughed. "Oh you're too down on yourself, John!"
John didn't protest any further. He watched the orchestra of violins play on the television, their arms jerking and bows flicking nimbly across the strings. Like how Sherlock used to leap around the flat, how he used to jump over every obstacle like his bow jumped over the strings. The first time he had played in front of John, John had been surprised. He shouldn't have been, Sherlock had told him the first time they'd met that he was partial to the habit. But there was something tender about the intensity with which he played, something so in love with what he was doing. So proud to be playing but careful to do it right.