Our Song : Track 8

The Musical Interludes of a Last Chance Romantic

The Greatest Discovery - Track 8 of 11

Valerie entered the kitchen wearing just her nightie and walked across to the fridge that was stood by the far wall. Very quietly she pulled the door open, hoping not to cause too much noise that would disturb Reggie or alert him as to her whereabouts. It was likely that he had now noticed her absence having returned to bed from the bathroom.
As she opened the fridge door, a light shone from within, illuminating the various items displayed on the shelf. She took hold of the milk bottle situated in the door and turned around.
Valerie gave a gasp, very nearly dropping the milk bottle onto the floor, as she released her grip with surprise. But instinctively, she managed to catch it again before it managed to slip through her fingers.
In front of Valerie, sat on the work surface and shining in the light of the fridge opposite was Bernie. He sat with a smile across his face, dressed in a fine Italian three piece suit and bow tie.
“What are you..?” Valerie began to ask, trying to keep her voice down in spite of the surprise.
But she was interrupted by Bernie’s smooth, calming gesture as he raised his forefinger to his lips and gently replied. “Shhh.” Bernie then raised himself from the work surface by his arms, and placed his feet silently onto the ground where he held out his arms to embrace her.
Valerie stepped forward and took his outstretched right hand in her left, and then placed his left arm around her waist doing likewise with her right arm. The two then began to sway, and as if listening to music that was only audible within their own heads, began to waltz across the kitchen floor.
At first, the two of them held each other close, Valerie’s head rested on Bernie’s shoulder. Reggie could see with each bar that the tempo was increasing, the temperature between the two dancers rising as their bodies entwined as one, circling the floor with sexual flamboyancy.
They were no longer just swaying side to side, but sliding across the floor. Gazing into one another’s eyes, Reggie could feel the passion between the pair as they stretched the room with their performance like a declaration of desire being carved into the kitchen floor.
The drama was intense, transforming the kitchen tiles into a polished wooden floor, and the couple holding tight in their embrace, swept at speed across the entire square. In perfect unison Valerie and Bernie rose and fell, swung and swayed, spun to the beat of unmitigating passion.
Bernie released her from the hold in his left arm, and Valerie spun to stand side by side, hand in hand, and both extended their alternate arms in the air. And then, in a return spin along his arm, returned to the embrace of her partner where they shared a moment gazing into one another’s eyes.
Valerie looked beautiful and majestic, as the red silk from her dress swept over her soft skin. But Reggie was paralysed, both with rage and embarrassment. He could do nothing but watch the two dancers advance towards him from his seat at the side of the dance floor. His wife and his friend were sharing in an intimacy that he had never experienced in his life, and now he was being forced to watch.
Reggie tried to imagine something else, after all this was his dream, wasn’t it? And if this was his dream, he could surely direct it in whichever manner that he wished. But the involuntary direction of his unconsciousness was too powerful. The immaculate detail of each image that played out before him was as real as any memory he was able to recollect.
“Don’t stop playing.” Valerie pleaded as they passed by where Reggie sat; glancing over at him with a brief look and then passing by just as quickly.
Without complaint, Reggie spun around and found himself sat before a mighty grand piano. His hands automatically positioned over the keyboard and began playing through the notes of a melody he could feel, but couldn’t hear.
With his back to the couple, he could feel the heat emanating from the dance floor, like a blanket he felt it wrapping around his shoulders. And then he could hear the crowd cheering, and looked ahead of him to see rows upon rows of shouting supporters, applauding and chanting for the dancing couple.
Reggie turned his head to see out of the corner of his eyes, as Valerie and Bernie passed by once again. His hands seemed to continue dancing over the keyboard, maintaining the quick paced melody, moving independently from his thoughts.
Bernie raised Valerie up by her hips and begun to spin around and around, faster and faster in time to Reggie’s hands who did likewise quickening the tempo. He couldn’t tell whether it was the intensity of the dancing couple who were raising the tempo of the dance, and he was keeping pace with their performance; or vice versa. Whether the intensifying fury within was expressing itself through his wrists which in turn were raising the tempo of the musical performance in time with the metronome inside his chest.
Whichever it was, Reggie knew that the drama was too much. He could see flames flickering around their legs, and rising to their hips, soon to engulf them both.
Reggie’s wrists stopped from playing, and in the silence rose to his feet and spun on his heels to face the couple. The flames were rising around the two lovers, seemingly unaware of the smoke that was beginning to encompass them both. He ran across to where they continued to spin, but as he did the floor seemed to magically fill with hundreds of dancing couples, all blocking his direct route to his wife.
Where they had come from, Reggie could not tell, as the audience still seemed to be crowded around the outskirts of the dance floor. But the influx of dancing couples was soon to fill the entirety of the wooden floor, blocking Reggie’s direct route in interception of his wife’s infidelity.
Eyes closed and elbows raised in front of his head, Reggie forced his way through the dense foliage of dancing couples. He could feel his forearms being scratched and sliced by the thick layers of razor sharp branches. His head was spinning, sweat was pouring from his head, as his temperature rose racing towards the immense heat ahead of him.
The lack of oxygen inside the depths of the crowd caused a severe hindrance to his progress. His breathing became heavy at the exertion of energy used to break through the human barrier at speed, swinging his arms with force and aggression. He gasped for air as he continued to make progress through the human foliage. Smoke was filtering in through the branches and intoxicating his lungs as he gulped in air that was now being quickly contaminated.
All of a sudden he was free. Reggie bent over and coughed furiously, trying to force out the excess smoke that had begun to invade his lungs. His hands rested on his hips, Reggie managed to force his eyes open peering through the smoke to find himself stood in an open field, the heavy green hedge behind him.
He thought he recognised the place where he was stood. There had been an oak tree stood in the centre of this field at one time but now it was gone. In its place were the blurred images of Valerie and Bernie, spinning on the grass in front of him. Held in a firm embrace, thick wafts of smoke encapsulated them both with ferocious flames now reaching up as high as their waists.
 “Valerie!” Reggie called out but it was no use as she began to disappear beneath the thick tornado of smoke.
There was a sudden blow of wind and the smoke was gone, along with both Valerie and Bernie. There was something small poking up from the circular patch of soil that remained, following the departure of Valerie. Reggie approached it to see a small sapling growing alone in the soil. The short, slender twig, had two tiny green leaves already reaching out on either side catching the light that would help the plant to grow into the strong oak that had once stood proudly there.    
Reggie woke with a start. It was morning, and he found that he had awoken from his slumber with an uneasiness on his mind.
Is that what this is all about Bernie? You’re jealous because I had the guts to ask Valerie out?
There was no answer from the alternative thoughts in his head.
Is all of this punishment because you never had the balls to take the chance when you had it? You knew her far longer than I ever did, but you just bided your time waiting for the opportune moment. But the truth is that the prime opportunity had been looking you right in the face and you ignored it; it passed you by long before I appeared in the picture. Surely you can’t blame me for that. After all, I told you my intentions, why did you never tell me yours?
Following all the previous conversations that had taken place in his head containing such inconsequential and frivolous lines of theoretical nonsense, it was now, of all times, that the voice (that had been previously unidentified) had chosen to remain silent. When Reggie had finally managed to scratch the surface of a wound that had been constantly itching at his relationship with his best friend after all these years, there was only silence. The wound was open, but with no apparent way of healing.
How was I to know? What could I have done if you were too gutless to do anything about it, even tell me? Why wait till now to tell me? Why wait till your dead?!
Silence remained, padding out the room like an air tight bubble, with nothing able to penetrate from the outside.
“You should have taken your chance when you had it. You can’t blame me for that.” This time Reggie spoke out loud to his omnipotent friend, noticeable by his absence.
The room was still dark which meant that Valerie had either returned to bed and was lying beside him, or that she had never returned to him, and that he now lay alone. Anticipating the former set of circumstances he reached over to place his arms around his wife, but he found the other side of the bed cold and empty.
Of course it was just a dream, wasn’t it? There was no sign of Bernie and now Valerie was also missing.
“Maybe it wasn’t a dream, but a premonition, or even an out of body experience.”
But Reggie didn’t believe in those types of things. Besides, Bernie was dead, he had told him that himself. So why hadn’t he remembered that himself? His best friend and he couldn’t even remember the fact he had died, let alone the reason for his passing which still remained a mystery hidden beneath some invisible veil of his subconscious.
“What would Valerie want with a dead man eh? I doubt it would be satisfying for her. Maybe more so than when you were alive though.”
He was trying to rile Bernie, or rather Bernie’s spirit, trying to get some angry reaction so that he could be certain that what he witnessed was indeed a dream and nothing more. But the reply he received was the familiar sound of silence.
With no help from his usually vocal compatriot, Reggie would need to figure this one out on his own. He needed a more sensible approach if was to begin to consider the evidence as it stood before him.
Time to discard of the needless emotional distortions and think rationally. What had his dream meant? Reggie had no specific qualifications in dream analysis, but it seemed clear to him that his mind was trying to make sense of something that dwelt deep within.
Was it a sign that it was too late? That the argument he and Valerie had undertaken only a few days ago was the final straw? Had she finally chosen to leave him, with the image of Bernie representing a new freedom and way of life that she had never had whilst married to Reggie?
Of course not, that was impossible. The argument had been a typical married couple spat, over some tedious house hold chore. Sure she had walked out on him, but that wasn’t unusual.
However, the fact she was no longer lying beside him in bed was highly unusual. That alone was enough to analyse what had happened recently that may have been more impactive than he had realised.
“It was something to do with dirty washing wasn’t it?”
Why Bernie would know the answer or even attempt an answer when he had remained silent to much more poignant enquiries, Reggie had no idea, and yet he still announced the question out loud. Maybe it was to break the uncomfortable silence of the bedroom that only served as a reminder that his wife was missing with no explanation as to her whereabouts.
“Was it just a couple of days ago? Seems like a lot longer than that now. Amazing how time passes by without you realising it.”
With a feeling of the unknown, Reggie looked over at the clock to see that the time was already twenty minutes past five, which only heightened Reggie’s paranoia. Where was Valerie at this time in the morning?
He reached over and flicked the switch on the bedside light, and then glanced along the length of the bed to the dresser where the card he had placed for Valerie remained, exactly as he had left it. Only, in the artificial light of the bedside lamp it looked different; not just colour, but also the size had changed. Reggie had left a smallish A6 size white envelope, and yet the one now sat on the dresser was red and at least twice the size of the other. Not that size is everything, but certainly Reggie would have to admit that Valerie invested a lot more time, effort and not to mention money, when purchasing a card for such events.
For Reggie, cards were an unnecessary part of proceedings, an additional expense to act as a mere precursor to the actual gift. As a result, he felt little need to over embellish any more than necessary, merely observing the cultural tradition with a gesture. But for Valerie, it was always so much more. She would stare at Reggie with wishful eyes as he read through the (sometimes) pages of text within.
Whereas Reggie would effectively purchase a simple card with a little joke, the one for this Anniversary being no different, Valerie would spend hours reading through an array of greetings cards for the one that adequately detailed the finer points of their relationship in the form of a poem.
Ordinarily, Reggie would have to fain his interest in his receipt of the card, aware that his reaction was being scrutinised by his wife. But this time he was genuinely excited or relieved? Relations between the two had cooled in recent times, and although Reggie couldn’t pin point an exact time, he was more and more coming to realise that this was not a new thing. That in actual fact, their relationship had been heading in a downward spiral for a matter of years.
Maybe that was the reason why he wanted to make this year’s Anniversary special. Maybe it wasn’t just because of the specifics of the occasion, the momentous achievement of reaching thirty years of marriage; perhaps he had come to accept his own failings as a husband, and before it proved to be too late, wanted to show his worthiness with a grand gesture.
Of course, that in itself wouldn’t be enough. Neither would a needlessly large, over indulgent, greetings card made from the tail feathers of a peacock, and laced with rose petals.   
It was most likely that what he had been feeling lately was guilt. His dream had actually been a visual representation of the remorse he was feeling for the inadequacy he had displayed as a poor excuse of a husband. Valerie had deserved better, someone more attentive, someone like Bernie; and it had taken him thirty years to realise it. Just one more day longer could’ve been too late; more than ever he wanted to serenade his wife in the praise and devotion her companionship had long warranted.
Leaping through the air to reach the envelope, Reggie felt like a new man. He lunged across the bed to pick up the envelope and true enough he read his name, hand written by his beloved wife. And then there was a noise from down stairs. At first he had to think about what it was, but as if his tiredness was swept away like a veil being lifted from his brain, it suddenly became clear that the front door had just been shut, Valerie must have risen early to go out and was just returning. Mystery solved.
That is except the minor consideration of what she was doing out at this time in the morning.
Maybe she has an Anniversary surprise arranged? Great minds think alike.
Suddenly the thought of Bernie and Valerie together made complete sense, although he even felt a mild element of guilt for the manner in which his epiphany had taken shape. Clearly the stresses of late had been weighing on his mind.
Without even considering his state of dress, Reggie leapt off the bed, dropping the card on the duvet and made his way down stairs in a hurry. As suspected the entire ground floor appeared vacant of life. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise, but he couldn’t wait a minute longer to hold and caress his beautiful wife.
Valerie was nowhere to be seen, it was possible he had misheard and she was actually leaving as opposed to returning, although all her shoes appeared to be on the shoe rack beside the front door. There didn’t appear to be any unaccounted for, neither had her coat been removed. But then as Reggie examined the long black felt that hung from its peg, he realised he hadn’t checked the wardrobe upstairs where Valerie had been known to keep various outdoor garments, that for some reason did not belong down stairs with the other likewise articles.
It was very possible that she had chosen an alternative form of clothing to attend whatever it was that had called her from bed so early in the morning. Reggie gave a little laugh as he pictured her walking up the hill in just her dressing gown covering her powder blue pyjamas, her large fluffy rabbit shaped slippers on her feet.
The hilarity of the moment caused Reggie to laugh, and also question why he was conducting an in depth investigation into the whereabouts of Valerie’s shoes and clothes. It was clear she had gone out, he had heard the front door open and close, and more importantly she clearly wasn’t down stairs. It was highly unlikely that Valerie had chosen today of all days to partake in her first game of marital hide and seek for thirty years; therefore discounting all other possibilities, there was just one option.
I am seriously over thinking this.
The thought caused Reggie to laugh, which in turn led to an involuntary series of coughs as something reached inside his throat and tickled his tonsils. At fist the coughs were minor expulsions of air, but as the niggling irritation inside his throat grew, Reggie began to force the air out using the strength of his diaphragm to project the force. The added force began to cause a pain to his sides, Reggie’s head was forced forwards and he leant over the coffee table, hand on sides to prevent them from splitting as he unleashed cough after cough.
The irritation on his throat, had now transferred to a deep cutting pain across his stomach, as if he had been sliced across the middle. Reggie’s eyes were barely open, as he strained to withhold the agony. Water began to fill the slim gap between his two eyelids through which he could vaguely make out the coffee table that rested just inches from his bent over physique. 
The dark wooden top contrasted with the thin slit of silver that rested across the surface. Like a sword that had been used to slice through his torso, Reggie drew his tear filled eyes along the blade towards the handle. The blade was paper thin, like that of a samurai, the glint of light shining brilliantly from its razor sharp edge.
Clasping the handle were two dark hands, connected to arms which seemed to be attached to either side of a shadowy torso. The head had no features, nor texture, but merely stood on top of two shadowy, hunched shoulders.
It was only then that it occurred to Reggie that his coughing fit had ceased. The only explanation was as a direct result of his contact with the silhouetted figure in front of him. And then two red lights appeared like eyes beaming down from the centre of the large head like orb.
The scarlet beams shot through Reggie’s shoulders, throwing him back onto the sofa. Such had been the build up of tears in his eyes that the shape of the shadowy figure that stood before him seemed to be constantly wobbling as if Reggie was carrying out his observations from within a gold fish bowl.
The figure made no distinct movements, nor did it make any sound. It just stood opposite him, resting the blade of his mighty sword across the table, pointing directly towards Reggie’s centre. And resting on the tip of the blade was a small scrap of note paper.
Reggie stared at the small piece of paper, the torn perforations of the top edge, and scribbled hand writing across the various lines. The figure made no movement, like a statute he held the sword across the table with perfect stillness.
Reggie gave a sudden cough, clearing his throat of the remaining irritation. He looked for any sign of movement from the shadow, but not a single flinch. It was as if he was made of some sort of stone. Of course he had no way of actually knowing for sure whether this was the case or not; for some reason he sensed that the being before him was indeed made of softer stuff, but there was no way of confirming that theory based on the dark featureless exterior alone.
Finally, he plucked up the courage to lean forward slightly, and with his right arm slowly reached out toward the piece of note paper. Once he had approximately ascertained in his mind whereabouts the paper was with respect to his arm, his eyes returned to the two red beams of light shining over him from the top of the figure. With every faint movement of his own, he looked for a counter reaction within his counterpart, but each time was met with nothing.
Reggie could feel sweat beginning to form on the palms of his hands as he drew closer to where he believed the piece of paper would be, not for a second wanting to take his eyes from those of the strange being in case he should react aggressively. Reggie’s finger tips slowly moved through the air, knowing that should he move too quickly, he could not only spark an unwanted reaction from the shadow, but he was also liable to slice his own fingers on a blade, infamous for its sharpness.
He reached further and further forward until; it was the smallest finger of his right hand that first felt the cold, hard touch of wood on its tip. Slowly he placed each finger tip, one by one, onto the table top. Finally his forefinger pressed down on the softer contours of the note paper. He could feel the indentations of the writing over the surface.
With one finger in place, the others slowly moved around to grip the corner of the note. His eyes dropped to see the paper in his hand, just for a second, but when he looked back up, the Samurai was gone, evaporated into thin air.
Reggie looked back to his hand, and in particular the note paper that now rested between his finger tips and thumb. Across the table was a thin slit of light, like an arrow pointing towards his hand. Reggie looked up and saw ahead, a thin crack of light between the curtains, the rising sun from outside breaking through the fabric and laying down its trail across the table to the note left for him by his wife.
Reggie knew it was from Valerie immediately. He had already anticipated as such, because it was not unusual for her to leave him such notes, usually containing some form of instruction of chores required to be completed prior to her return. But also, the hand writing was unmistakably Valerie’s; the large round letters, and circles that dotted the lower case i, she still wrote with the positiveness of a hopelessly optimistic and giddy school girl.
There were only a small number of lines, but each neglected to follow the ruled lines as the paper was designed, scrawled over the surface as if to cover as much as possible. But despite the non conformist method of writing, it still remained neatly composed, and the lines were evenly spaced from one another. The note read:
 
My Darling Husband,
 
Happy Anniversary, hope you liked your card.
 
I have had to pop out, but will be back soon.
 
Didn’t want to wake you.
 
Love you forever.
 
Val
                               
What? No instructions to put on the washing machine, clean the house or put out the rubbish? The old girl must have been in a hurry.
Reggie skimmed through the note again to ensure he hadn’t missed something then smiled, and the thought occurred to him.
My card?! I didn’t open my card.
Reggie patted his naked chest and legs down, as if he might have some hidden pocket within his skin. Unsurprisingly the card wasn’t there, which led to the more realistic possibility of it being inside his shorts. This also led to a negative result, therefore the only logical solution was that he had left it upstairs on the dresser. Whilst he was upstairs, Reggie also decided that he would grab his dressing gown, as he was beginning to feel the chill of the morning creeping in from outside.  
The number of stairs seemed to have doubled on his ascendance from when he made his way down just a few minutes earlier. Maybe it was just his age, after all, walking uphill was much harder these days than down.
Thud! Crack!
“Ooowwwww!!!”
There were two distinct sounds. A thumping noise of two objects colliding, followed almost immediately by the noise of one of those objects snapping in two. Reggie gave out an embarrassed yelp. He instantly halted his approach and looked down to his right where he had inadvertently stubbed his big toe head on with the approaching step, much to his own discomfort - the stair seemingly felt little of the impact.
Suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, for just a brief moment, before silence once more prevailed over the stairway. And then a second ring, as disorientating as before, Reggie felt himself start to sway as he attempted to rest most of his weight on his one uninjured foot.
The ringing stopped again, but like before for just a short time, possibly a second or two at most. Reggie couldn’t just hear the bells, he could practically feel them jingling inside his mind, and once again the pain returned to the top of his head. It felt like a red poker striking against his skull causing a horrendous ringing through his skeleton.
With each strike of the poker, thick smoke seemed to fill his head, until he could see nothing with his own eyes. His thoughts were of nothing but the incessant ringing of his skull, caused from the continuous striking of the poker in his head.
But then, as suddenly as it began, the ringing ceased. All became clear in an instant. He recalled that he was heading up the stairs to collect his Anniversary card from the bedroom dressing table, left for him by his wife.
The question remained, if this was the case, why was he stood facing down the stairs towards the front door, as opposed to the direction he had been initially heading? It was possible that he had subconsciously spun around in anticipation of falling backwards following the ringing of the bells. Although he remained on his feet, and his head was now clear, Reggie still felt a little uneasy, and his body was swaying.
It was then he remembered the pain in his toe, not as sharp as before, but more like a numbing pain. Either way, standing still on the stairs was not achieving any of the objectives of the day. Reggie turned around and recommenced his ascent.
For the last few steps, he took hold of both banisters and hopped one footed up the remainder of the ascent. There was a throbbing sensation on the end of his foot where his toe had once been, and he almost felt unsure as to whether he really wished to examine the possible damage caused from his collision.
The next moment, he was sat on the bed, clutching his toe in both hands and rubbing at the end with his thumbs, applying pressure to the pained region in the hope to prevent any swelling.
He dared not look, but there was something telling him to take a quick peek. Like looking through a tiny portal into the great abyss, Reggie slid his two thumbs aside very slightly to reveal a faintly reddened patch of skin, then quickly covered it again in an instant.
It’s red, it’s bleeding.
Reggie was not good with blood. But of course it wasn’t bleeding, despite the pressure being applied, if it were bleeding there would surely be some kind of spillage of red liquid dripping from around his thumbs. It took a couple of seconds, but he came to his senses as the pain began to ease, and was instead replaced with an uneasy sense of embarrassment. No one had seen his reaction to such a silly incident, but still he felt humiliated by his own response, one that he would have mocked either of his sons for should they have done similarly in his presence.
Bravely, his mind talked his fingers into separating to allow him a better look at his injured toe. As the fresh air and light hit the injured area, it became apparent that his toe had been bleeding, but had since ceased. In fact, from the look of it, his toe had ceased from bleeding some time earlier and a tidy red scab had already formed across the tip where the collision had taken place.
You old fool, how many times have I told you to put your slippers on or you’ll do yourself an injury?
“Val?” Reggie raised his head to the door expecting to see his wife stood looking in from the landing and laughing. But there was no one. The voice must have come from his head, a recollection of a previous conversation.
He looked down, almost in disappointment and then across to the dressing table for the red envelope he had seen earlier, but it was no longer there. He stood up and looked around the bed, but it was still nowhere to be seen. He lifted the duvet, and scanned beneath it across the mattress, but again there was no sign of it.
Placing the duvet back on the bed, he spread it across the mattress flattening it down with the palms of his hands and feeling for any sign of the Anniversary card. But there was nothing.
I’m sure I didn’t take it downstairs, did I?
Reggie couldn’t remember what he had done with the card. He certainly picked it up from its place on the dressing table where he had found it when he woke up. But now it had completely disappeared and he had no recollection of what he did with it last. He placed both hands in his dressing gown pockets to check it hadn’t been put in either of those, but he knew that would be a fruitless search, because he had checked there whilst down stairs. Or at least he thought he had. But then again, he also thought he’d left the card upstairs, which he evidently hadn’t.
And besides he had only just put his dressing gown on hadn’t he?
Reggie looked around the floor of the bed in case it had fallen down, he crouched on his knees, taking a quick look underneath the bed and noticed his plain brown slippers. Heeding the advice of his wife, and not wishing to suffer a repeat experience, Reggie lifted the footwear and slipped them onto his feet, carefully slipping the right shoe over his big toe.
“I don’t want to aggravate it any more, in case it’s broken.”
“If you think it’s broken you want to see a doctor about it.”
“Nah, it’s alright. I’ll just walk it off.”
“Okay, but I don’t want to hear you complaining about it like some martyr.”
It was Valerie’s voice without a doubt. Reggie looked over to the door again thinking that Valerie had crept in quietly and was witnessing his tentative approach to putting his slippers on. But again he was greeted with disappointment, and the darkness of an empty doorway leading onto the landing.
There was clearly no where else it could be, he must have taken the card down stairs without realising it. Reggie took one final cursory check around the room before walking back out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
On his arrival in the lounge, Reggie flicked on the light switch revealing all the colours of the room from their previous blackened state. It was when he glanced at the piano that he spotted the Anniversary card he had been looking for; it was sat on top of the piano fanned open so that it stood upright beside a framed photograph of his three children in their younger years. He didn’t recall opening the envelope, let alone placing the card on the piano, but there was pretty undeniable evidence that both had taken place, as it now stood pride of place before his eyes, overlooking the room.
Reggie pulled the piano stool out to make room for himself, and then flicking the tails of his dressing gown behind like an internationally renowned pianist, sat down facing the keyboard. He lifted the lid and gazed at the keys. This was to be his final practice session before Valerie returned home, it had to be perfect. But as he gazed at the various keys of white and black, they all seemed to merge into one.
His eyes scanned up and down the heavily populated keyboard, and suddenly all the keys seemed a mystery. His hands raised in the air, Reggie had no idea which ones to hit, as if faced with a book in a foreign language, it was like a brain freeze of the highest order. He hadn’t just forgotten how to play the particular piece he had been practising, but anything and everything he had learned of the piano over the past few weeks seemed to have escaped from his head.
Reggie looked at the keyboard blankly.
What are these keys?
There was a row of black keys spaced out randomly amongst the longer white keys.
Reggie tapped his finger onto one of the piano keys. He had no idea which it was, and paid little attention to the keys around it. The note was chosen purely on the fact that his forefinger had rested on that particular key.
Dun! Dun!
The sound seemed to cause something to happen within his brain. The sleepy haze that was overcoming his mind vanished in an instant. Reggie tapped his finger over the same key again, this time with a deliberate rhythm.
Dun! Dun!
In his head he could hear the continuation of the opening bars to a particular song, Dun, de-dun, de-dun!
Reggie closed his eyes; he passed through the entrance hall inside the oak tree and sat on the piano stool in the circular room, with Bernie stood behind him. The noise around him was the piano playing, he felt dizzy as the images span around inside his head. He could make out Bernie’s face in protest at something said, and then from the darkness came a car hurtling towards him and swerving into a tree to the side of the road, and with it the entire scene blew up into one huge ball of flames.
In the middle of the flames was a beautiful 21 year old Valerie, she was naked, from head to toe and calling him towards her into the fire that flickered around her. And the heavy sounds of the piano seemed to play in time to the back beat of the crackling flames.
There was a black puff of smoke, the piano stopped and all was silent. Reggie opened his eyes.
His fingers were now spread across the keyboard, each individual digit gently resting over an elected key. And without thinking as to why or how, he commenced playing. With the commencement he closed his eyes once more, and in his mind’s eye pictured himself sat on the sofa. He was watching Valerie who was stood only a matter of feet away from him and cuddled in her arms against her chest was a small baby. The baby girl was dressed in a pink all-in-one bodysuit, resting her head on Valerie’s shoulder, who was gently swaying to the rhythm of the piano. And then as the intro moved into the first verse, she began to sing, lifting Louise up into the air as she did so and smiling with every word.
Reggie could see the smile on Louise’s face as she looked down at her mother, mouth wide open and making a gurgling sound as if trying to join in with the singing. The two of them spun in the relatively small confides of the lounge, dancing around the open space in the centre of the room.
The song ended and Reggie opened his eyes. He had done it; he had managed to play the entire song without any interruptions or mistakes. He looked down at the keyboard where his fingers were now situated, though slightly shaken.
Of course he still hadn’t managed the entire song whilst also singing, but that was mostly a formality. He felt that he knew all of the words, not that he spent much time reading through them, but something told him that all the numerous times he had been forced to listen to the song by Valerie had somehow filed the lyrics into a segment of his brain, and for some reason whatever necessary stimulus was required, had enabled that particular section of his mind to become accessible. Besides, the words seemed so appropriate to the situation it would be hard not to remember them.
As for his voice, that was the one issue from which there was no escaping. He was certainly no soul singer, but as the purpose of the song was to demonstrate the love he had for his wife, using means that best suited Valerie’s personality, she would oversee a minor issue of his voice, providing he wasn’t horribly out of key. After all, it was likely that once he started, Valerie would take over the vocals; she, having a far more acceptable singing voice than his own.
There was a sound that came from the door of metal scraping against metal, and the click of driver pins being displaced. Reggie stopped in his tracks. Had Valerie arrived home? His ears had been tuned to listen out for any sign of Valerie’s return, his heart began beating frantically. This was it, this was the moment he had been waiting for. He had only been practising for a week, and yet, it felt like years ago that he first embarked on such a project. And now the moment had finally arrived.
Reggie gently pulled down the lid of the piano keyboard, and as the two pieces of wood made contact, he heard the turning of the key in the Yale lock mechanism and the door swinging inwards.
And from outside, as Reggie watched through the lounge doorway, he saw the flat black shoe of his wife step onto the door mat, attached to her slender leg in dark silk fabric. Valerie stepped into the hallway. Reggie spun around and rose to his feet to greet his wife as she entered the house from the cold outside.

To be continued...
Track 9 - The Cage