Lament Sonata

A figure stood slumped against the wall, the room dark except for the moonlight filtering in through the window. An almost-empty bottle of wine sat next to her. Her knees were pressed against her chest with arms wrapped around them. Mascara flowed freely down her face, her eyes a black mess, and Anita’s usually tidy dark hair lay in clumps against her shoulders and down her back.

Her hand reaches down to the bottle beside her, taking a swig that finishes the rest of the bottle. She stares at the ceiling for a moment before her head falls onto her knees, body racking with sobs. The bottle hung loosely in her hands, slowly slipping onto the floor.

His soft feathery hair, charming smile, warm eyes… wiped away just like that. She raises her head and hurls the bottle at the other wall, a scream escaping her lips. The glass shattered at instant contact, pieces of it flying everywhere. Her head lowers again onto her knees, her fingers twirling around her hair and pulling on it.

She couldn’t believe it when they called from the hospital to say he was in an accident. She had never experienced time to be so slow. Seconds as minutes, minutes as hours. She had ran all the way to the emergency room once out of her car. She burst through the doors and ran to his side. He opened his eyes in her presence, his alluring smile spreading. He grasped her hand and put a scrap of paper in her hands, closing her fingers around it. And just like that he was gone, his skin growing cold and the machine next to him beeping at a rapid pace. The doctors tore Anita away from his side. She didn’t really remember what happened then, but the world felt so frigid.

She looked down at the piece of crumpled paper in her hand. She sniffed and unraveled the paper slowly. There in her hands was her husband's wedding ring and a note; Don’t stop your Music -Love, Max. She let the words soak in before curling the piece of paper in her hands and launched it across the room. She stood and walked over to her stack of staff paper, “Music,” She mutters before using her hands to send the papers flying.

She collapses onto the floor, her body shaking in her silent cry. She stays that way for a while before her hands reach for the staff papers and a pen. There she let the notes carry her, through her anger, the sorrow and grief, and to the despair she felt. She worked well into the night, until she finally fell asleep in the midst of her papers.