The Moonlight Riviera

    She walked into the room to the voice of the piano. The warm deep tone was vaguely familiar. Wasn’t that Jack playing? He played it often and you could always tell it was him from the way every note trickled down his fingertips as if Jack’s fingers were the piano itself. She tiptoed from behind from where Jack was sitting on his Piano stool. She didn’t dare to walk towards the sliding glass door and shut it close in case he sensed it and stopped playing. In fact she didn’t even want to. The cool breeze was swaying to the tune making it feel more heavenly than it would have felt without it. The breeze blew her long black hair which blended well with the darkness around. The silvery moonlight painted a silvery outline of her, of Jack and of the piano. The Moonlight Riviera was blossoming through Jack’s fingers.

    She couldn’t help it any longer. She stole her way and sat beside him still scared that even a slight interlude in the air might wake him up. After all, he wrote this music especially for her and she was there just like she was now, when he had played it to her the first ever time.

    The familiar mellow tones were playfully tossing between E-Major and A-Major. She had wrapped her delicate arms around him and she was glad that he had not stopped playing. She quietly laid down her head onto his shoulders and the breeze tousled her hair over his shoulder and neck, the way Jack always loved.

    She was smiling like she had never smiled before but a few chilly teardrops also trickled down her cheeks and she had realized that the music had turned painful. This wasn’t familiar at all. This wasn’t what Jack had written for her. Did he change it? The change was so supple that she didn’t notice.

    She jerked her head towards Jack who kept playing with his head down. The silvery moonlight chalked Jack’s tears too and she stared with a proportion of shock and inquest. But Jack didn’t look at her. He kept playing making the music sink its teeth into her beautifully toned skin making it more painful for her to survive. She too sank her grip to Jack’s arm but Jack kept playing like he didn’t feel a thing. The music which seemed to have stopped time was now hard to bear for the woman. She wanted him to stop but didn’t want to leave either. She cried out aloud but Jack didn’t stop.

    After what seemed like hours, when Jack had finally stopped playing, her eyes were sore and her beautiful skin was shivering with cold when Jack spoke for the first time, in a voice too excruciating to listen to –

    “Why did you have to leave?”

    She raised her head to look up at Jack.

    But she had never left! What was Jack talking about? Bewilderment had suddenly engulfed her and her heart was pounding with the fear of losing him due to some silly misconception.

    “Haven’t you wondered how I was all the year?”

She kept staring at him with her lips trembling and she wrapping herself all over him.

    “Do you think heaven is a better place? Why didn’t you take me too?”