This story was inspired by the enchanting music from the upcoming film industry release, “Piano and Strings Edition“, a collaborative album created by brilliant composers Michael Maas, Martin Hasseldam, David Christiansen, Sandro Schmidt and Stefano Fasce.

For details on how to contribute your own music-driven tale to the Illumination collaborative flash-fiction challenge, click HERE!

Listen to the featured track, Ages by Michael Maasin the sidebar music player.

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The world is slowly slipping into a silence that is deafening in its finality.

Life has cast its final show, the last of its players scattered, their voices fragmented and forgotten. The once vibrant landscape has vanished into the hungry mouth of devastation.

Even I grow weary of the emptiness.

I find my melancholy alarming, an affliction that gains ground with every lost sound. Every life collected pulls this land deeper into desolation. When humanity began its descent into oblivion, the music followed. The remnants of strings and keys lay discarded, their melodies abandoned.

I would surrender a thousand souls if it would bring the music back…

Yet another light dims before me. A young boy, his body battered and broken in the sugary sand, his hand still holding fast the handle of a long weathered case. I can hear the erratic rhythm of his heart as its futile beats are stolen by the greedy wind. What is it he holds so dear, that in his final moments, the last of his strength is spent on this stubborn grip.

Curious, I snap open the locks that anchor his soul.

I have not seen this particular treasure in ages.

It is an instrument of hope.

I can still hear the echoes of its past–the stale breath of its notes hovering in the oppressive air. When the boy’s shell severs its spirit, the magic in this case will cease to exist. It will become yet another trinket of a dying breed.

That is reason enough to change the boy’s fate.

I refuse to take another spirit that promises an end to the stillness. And so I surrender my claim on his life.

He will live and he will play and he will fill the void with melodies long buried…he will become an instrument of change.

It has been ages, but Death has not forgotten the power of music.

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© 2013 Samantha Redstreake Geary

This story was inspired by the enchanting music from the upcoming film industry release, “Piano and Strings Edition“, a collaborative album created by brilliant composers Michael Maas, Martin Hasseldam, David Christiansen, Sandro Schmidt and Stefano Fasce.

For details on how to contribute your own music-driven tale to the Illumination collaborative flash-fiction challenge, click HERE!

Listen to the featured track, Remember me (feat. David Christiansen) in the sidebar music player.

Written for my husband, capturing the moment we first met…

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A web of luminous strands pulsate in a riot of vibrant color, a thing of beauty only I can see. I weave in between the connections, each one a different shade of love, a different song resonating in its core.

The restaurant is alive with the sounds of a hundred conversations, plates scraping, glasses clinking, laughter and music. Not the music that trickles from the ceiling, but the songs that spill from their hearts, flowing through the threads that tie them to another, a thing of beauty only I can hear…

In a corner booth, a frustrated mother endures yet another battle of wills, the sticky strings binding her soul to her children burning the brilliant white of unconditional love. A choir of children’s voices can be heard playing along the web of a families’ deep-rooted affection.

Friends, laughing over sips of plum wine are wrapped in the glistening gold of understanding and camaraderie, their comfortable song an inviting guitar being plucked and pulled to match their banter.

An elderly couple sitting at the bar shares a plate of sushi, their iridescent blue cord humming with the steady wisdom of piano strings and a steadfast bond that time cannot touch.

Young lovers embracing near the window exude a fiery passion that glows in ruby tendrils, licking at their hearts with the intensity of a violin.

Behind the scarlet flames sits a pair I almost miss, the subtle sounds of their heartbeats slipping into silence, the drumming pulse of their connection fading. Like the yellow flower centered between them, the petals of their song have dropped, one by one, until there’s nothing left but the stem–a wilting memory of the music they once shared.

They have forgotten me…

A crackle of energy pulls me to yet another table. I watch, entranced as I’m drawn to a pair meeting for the first time. The woman’s mane of auburn curls cascade down her back in ribbons of anticipation, her crimson dress matching the flush that floods her cheeks. The young man’s chiseled jaw restlessly works to calm his nerves, his striking cerulean eyes dart from her eyes to the menu, his leg tapping a nervous rhythm underneath the ebony table.

I edge closer.

Their eyes meet. The man smiles.

The smile steals her breath and swallows her heart whole.

In that instant, a flood of silver sparks erupt between them. The music is deafening. An entire orchestra surging with the flame fiercely burning through their hearts.

It is a love they shared long ago. They may not remember the lives they once lived, but they remember me.

I am a thing of beauty anyone can see, anyone can hear. I am the whisper of possibility, the promise of connection, the passion that drives creation.

Remember me.

I am Love.

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© 2013 Samantha Redstreake Geary