Far before memories begin, you used to come visiting. You never knocked. We were that close. Sweet the sound of rain, whom you brought along. She danced a magical dance, and her feet hardly touched the ground. Mesmerized, I watch as lighting comes with a tone of surprise. He brings the tension along with him and 1,2,3… I start to count with my palm firm on the wooden armrest. Then comes in the special guest, behold the mighty thunder they say. All my windows clatter in fear as thunder roars, and the lights go off. I sit in the faint candlelight and wish to get back the heartbeat thunder stole from me.

Day after day, thunder came, stole a heartbeat or two. Alas, I didn’t know what to do. But one day, when thunder roared, I closed my eyes and tuned out the candlelight. That was the day I met oblivion for the first time. “Whatever happens, I’ll be here,” he said, “trust me.” And trust him, I did. Thunder roared but someplace far away. He had left for the day. Glad, I trot to the door and stumble on something. There on the doorstep, in a shabby package, lies the heartbeats thunder stole from me.

Years flew, and our bittersweet relation died away. We used to meet a lot since then, and yet we turned our heads aside and walked away as strangers. Rain was a good friend still, but thunder, I dared not care.

The past week as you came visiting, I roll in my bed, the longing for home alive in my head. On my window sill, rain began to dance on a sad note. Yet it filled my heart. That’s when I noticed the purple light my curtain hurled into my room. Alarmed, I look around, for thunder could be lurking. To be truthful, his memories had never really stopped haunting me. And there he comes, I think, and get ready to tune into oblivion as he roars. But I hold on for a second since his voice sounds gentler although fierce, and I listen to his song for the first time ever. My eyes fill with tears as I hear him sing a lullaby, a piece of when he found a little girl in a magical place, clutching onto a wooden armrest, demanding him to give her heartbeat back. In the arms of his music, I fall asleep as his fierceness lies like a blanket over me.

<Originally published at Muffled>