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She had been glorious. Beautiful, yes, but not in the way most people thought of beauty. She didn’t have the pale skin, luminous hair or blue eyes that were the hallmarks of perfection. She wasn’t tall or willowy. But, oh, oh, she had been perfect. Perfection was complete in her. He remembered the way her eyes looked as she laughed. That night – that one night – at the moon base. Her hair was dark and full and it curled on her shoulders like a mane. Her eyes were glinting at him in humor and love. Her round shoulders and lovely form had filled him with satisfaction. That was the night he’d asked her to marry him. She’d said yes. She’d marry him. He’d had to ship out 2 weeks later, but those two weeks had been heaven, with her in his arms.
He remembered the night he’d had to say goodbye to her. They were down in the moon base inn, eating a meal neither of them wanted to end. In the back ground the jukebox was softly singing:
“. . .like sweet memories
They will return
As will I . . .”
Oh, how he’d hated to leave!
A soft voice broke his reverie. He looked up bewildered, then remembered where he was: In an old fashioned restaurant, having a dinner with Eddie. He said,
“Er . . . what?”
“I said . . . she musta been something.”
“She was . . . but what makes you say that?”
“That song started playing and you got all dreamy eyed. Figured you said goodbye to someone pretty special, once.”
He nodded, taking in Eddie’s young face, the silver implants glinting just above his brow. He wondered if he could understand what it had been like. But now was not the time to think about that. Right now it was time to do a checklist of the ship before they went on their retrieval mission in the morning. He motioned to Eddie, and they left, leaving payment for the meal on the table.
“She was a real beauty.” He said. Caught unawares, Eddie glanced up from the instrument board. “What?”
“She was a real beauty.” Tam Havok repeated. “Oh, she was beautiful all over. But what made her shine was her mind, her intellect, her humor.” A faint smile crossed Havok’s face as he remembered. Eddie watched him silently, seeing love on the older man’s face. Havok went on,
“She had an amazing smile. Such a great laugh . . .the way she’d toss her head back and glance at me out of the corner of her eyes . . .” his voice trailed off and once more he was concentrating on flying the space ship.
It took three days to retrieve the old satellites and bring them in, and now and then Havok would tell Eddie about Eline.
“She was so good with children. They loved her. She knew just what to do to make them smile, what to do to soothe them when they were crying. I was looking forward to her holding our own children in her arms.” He was silent until Eddie asked,
“What happened, sir?” Then he sighed and answered,
“I lost her, Eddie. So long ago . . . I lost her.”
The tablecloth was not as smooth as it looked; there were little snags here and there, betraying its age. It was like the rest of this moonbase restaurant; well taken care of, but a little worn, lived in. That’s why he and Eline liked to come here; it felt like home. The soft lamplight cast rounded shadows on the wall behind Eline, and, glancing up, he thought he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. They’d known each other for a year, been married for 2 weeks now. He, Tam, had to ship out in the morning for a 9 month tour. Right now it felt like he’d be gone for an eternity. He ran his fingers over the tablecloth again, noticing the little tears. A song was softly playing on the antique jukebox. It was a sad song, about leaving, and he felt it fit the situation, though maybe a little too well.
He was brought out of his morose thoughts by Eline’s soft voice.
“There’s no need to look so despairing, Tam.” Her voice was gentle, trying to lift him from his sadness. “I’m faithful to you, you know that. I’ll be faithful to you always. And it’s only 9 months.” He sighed, and she reached for his hands. “It’ll fly by, I promise. It’s not even a full year. Then we’ll be together again.” She smiled at him, and this time he knew he saw tears in her eyes; they mirrored his.
Instead of sitting and staring at each other, they got up and danced in the open space by the jukebox. Tam held Eline almost tightly, never wanting to let her go. He wanted to memorize the feel of her, the weight and warmth of her in his arms. Each step of their dance slowed until they were standing still, in the warm lamplight, feeling the wooden boards beneath their feet, the words of love in each other’s ears.
The next morning saw each other in the too harsh light of the landing dock. Drawn faces, though Eline was still trying to be cheerful for his sake. Oh, what a treasure she was! He longed to turn his back on his duty and rush into her arms. But he couldn’t. He said to her,
“One more kiss, please, Eline, please.” Then, “I’ll come back to you, I promise I will. I’ll be faithful to you too, and I’ll be back.” She nodded and laid a hand on his cheek. “I know you will, Tam, I know you will.”
Six months later, he’d lost her. He got an impersonal message via the subspace com system, and it said,
“Regret to inform you that Eline Havok was in a terrible aircar accident. She was rushed to the hospital, but did not make it through the night.”
Later on, he got more personal messages Eline’s parents, his own parents and his friends. He read them, and wondered how he would get any comfort from them. Slowly, over the years, the pain had faded, or at least, became less demanding of his attention. Now, telling Eddie, the tears slipped down his cheeks again.
“I love her.” He told Eddie. The young cyborg wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite or condescending. Tentatively, he lay his hand on Havok’s shoulder. He said, thinking perhaps this would be okay to say:
“Sometime, sir, if you want, I’d like to hear about her more.” Havok nodded and turned to look at Eddie.
“Sometime, Eddie. Sometime. She was a wonderful girl.”
Then they both settled down to bring the ship into dock, Havok thinking about Eline, and Eddie thinking about what Havok had revealed of himself.
This is an experiment of putting music with a story. Tell me what you think!
I really like the old-style song ~ very classy!, but found it distracting to reading.
Perhaps if you used an instrumental version of a more recognizable song…….but personally, I think even this song without the words (played as it is, above) has a wistful, melancholy of it’s own and would set the mood just fine.
Yeah, the general consensus that I’ve gotten was that words with the music, and having them in the middle was distracting to reading. Ah well. That’s what experiments are for! I’ll move the song to the beginning of the writing. In the future, I think I will use an instrumental piece for this kind of project.
The song is One More Kiss, by Vangelis(I believe?). I remembered that Dad had a tape(a TAPE!) of Vangelis and I used to listen to it; I wanted to see if I could find those same songs elsewhere. While I was looking through some of Vangelis’ soundtracks, I stumbled across that old song, and loved it.