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<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'">It started with a song. Always the same song, same notes sometimes played at new tempos, different rhythms. Arabella was still searching out the right one, the one that fit. When she found it, maybe the world would feel right. Maybe she'd be enough. She played it disjointed now cut up in sharp tones, rambling cacophony of strings competing with a saxophone. The saxophone didn’t fit, didn’t serve the song inside her head but this wasn’t her performance it was his- the boy with dark hair and bright eyes. She was only supposed to be an accompanist. He glanced at her when her playing seemed to slow, shoulders curving more dramatically around the stringed instrument that took up most of her body to the point she had to wrap herself around it like hugging a tree just to play it. <br/>
<br/>
Another minute of dissonant freeform sounds and the song was over and there was a slow wave of snaps and claps over the mumbled noise of conversations in a bar. She barely registered it, didn’t even bother to bow when the boy did. She just dropped the bow away from the cello strings and stood, chair legs scraped against scuffed wood floor. She was still until the noise died down, staring blankly into a shadowed crowd, then she was looking for her instrument case. The high of these performances was losing its kick. Maybe she needed to stop accompanying, or was it just the arrangement that had gone stale? She wasn't sure she could place it but she felt a lack of something she needed like an ache in her chest. It had been there for as long as she could remember but recently it was worse. <br/>
<br/>
“You ok? You seem…. Off?” The boy asked, now pulling his instrument apart. Hands twisting and dismantling it starting from the top <br/>
“I’m fine Henri- Session was just a bitch today,” Arabella answered, drawing her attention away from inspecting the fibers of her bow and to his face. She didn’t know why she thought of him as a boy. He was at least her age but he had one of those youthful kinds of faces unworn by the kind of stress their path came with. He showed up to clubs every night looking fresh and chipper, meanwhile all she felt was tired. All his energy and enthusiasm made her feel old and a little annoyed by how easy he made everything feel. Still, despite it, she was fond of him.<br/>
<br/>
“Allard?” He asked and she nodded. <br/>
“He said my fingering was too sloppy, I lack ‘<i>finesse’” </i>The word repeated in a thick french accent and Henri laughed. <br/>
“Yeah, well Allard is a dick. I think your fingering is just the right amount of sloppy.” He grinned all teeth. <br/>
Arabella rolled her eyes and flipped the clasps of the black instrument case she was kneeling next to closed and it gave a satisfying click. “I need a drink” <br/>
“Don’t you always?” <br/>
<br/>
She didn’t say anything more, just left the instruments with him while a trio of other musicians took their places on the small stage. There was a cry of a clarinet and then another mess of noise broke out in the crowded room, almost too loud now to think. She weaved a path in and out of clouds of smoke. God, she wanted a cigarette but when she felt the pockets on the black minidress she wore she found them empty. She was supposed to be trying to quit she remembered then. Well, not quit exactly- no one quit smoking in Paris- she was just supposed to torture herself with the withdrawal.  Allard said the nerves would make her play better, give her the motivation she needed to push herself over the edge. <i><b>“Fuck Allard,</b></i><b>” </b>she thought.  Maybe she could bum one off Henri when she got back to him, she considered as she squeezed herself into an open section of the bar. <br/>
<br/>
Waiting for a bartender, she idly tapped her finger on its surface, ghosting the finger positions for the notes in her head. It was the same song, always the same song. It never left her mind. She Imagined it now without Henri’s Saxophone confusing the melody. Imagined what it would sound like played tenderly, slow and methodical. She hummed it without thinking, but it was indecipherable under so much noise to anyone but her. She could hear it with or without the noise or voice to hum it. She heard it then and frowned.  It was missing something, always it was missing something. It needed a harmony.</span><br/>
<br/>
<div style="text-align: center">~<br/>
<b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'">: Returned to Sender :</span></b>​</div><br/>
<span style="font-family: 'Lobster Two'"><i>London: November 11, 1854<br/>
<br/>
My love,<br/>
<br/>
Are you there? You’ve not written to me in weeks. I am beginning to fear the worst. I had a strange dream the other night. I dreamt I met you in another life- one far older than this. We had new names but looked the same. I dreamt you taught me a song, the one I hum but cannot ever place. I can almost remember it all. It felt so real. Please come back.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Yours eternally,</i></span><br/>
<i><span style="font-family: 'Lobster Two'">Adelaide </span></i></div>