i. I remember you. You were made of music. Your backbone was a woodwind string and your footsteps kept time. You were there when it all happened. I heard your tune in the sunshine and your rhythm in the rain and your soft percussion in the snake’s hiss before it bit my ankle. I heard you on my way down and in the timbre of that sad goddess’ voice when she spoke our names. I swear I did. I swear you were there. I wouldn’t forget this sort of thing. ii. I woke up on the riverbank and was told to follow you. I couldn’t see your face, so I looked at the water instead. I tried to catch my reflection in its glassy surface, but the image slipped through my grasp and I lost it in the blackened current.
You didn’t turn around when I called out your name. For the first time, I couldn’t remember if I had said the right one. I didn’t let it bother me. I could still read the line of your shoulders and they said everything was going to be okay. Your shoulders told me to trust you, so of course I did. I just wish you would have talked to me instead of letting the lyre speak for you. I told you that too. You still didn’t turn around, but I think the story might have changed when your shoulders slumped the way they did. iii. I kept calling out for you because I couldn’t hear myself over the river, and so I could never remember hearing my voice after I spoke. The only response you ever gave was the sound of brightly picked strings, but the river was so loud it silenced everything until I couldn’t remember how to read the song-notes you were leaving me. When you didn’t turn around, I kept time with my footsteps. I chanted One and Two and One and Two and One to your back, hoping you’d remember to look behind for me. Then I realized that there is no tempo in the way water flows, so I lost my count. You kept playing, though. You held that lyre so kindly, I wished my spine could be its strings. iv. I can’t recall when you looked back, exactly. I know it was sometime after that snake’s percussive hiss and all your raindrop rhythms. I could see the sun, I think, peeking out from behind your body just a ways ahead of us. At any rate, it was definitely before we reached those sunshine tunes your music had told me about during our long walk. I don’t remember what I said that finally made you turn around. Sometimes I wish I did. v. I met a man the other day. He spoke in hymns and his bones cracked like they were used to producing a different sound entirely. Later, when he forgot all his tunes, he held my hand and plucked my fingers like they were strings. I tried to introduce myself, but I couldn’t remember how my name sounded out loud. In fact, I couldn’t remember my name at all. Eventually he wandered off. He looked so sad, the way those shoulders sloped, I was almost glad he didn’t look back before he disappeared. I thought I heard him by the fields awhile back. Or was it the river? I’m not sure anymore, although I could have sworn I was. I could have sworn he was there. I promise I met him though. I wouldn’t forget that sort of thing.
The Death of Eurydice (Told in Five Movements) || Emma-Lee M.
