This was also intended to be an entry into a short story competition with the theme 'ghost stories', but was completed three days after the due date.
This is the unrevised version. Enjoy!
Playback
At seven thirty a timed power source ticks over and the room is filled with the hum of speakers turned up too loud. It fills the room in moments, a silence louder than silence punctuated by minor faults in the recording. It is in this environment that he wakes to her breathing. It is faint but slowly growing louder as more automation comes to life. The blinds creep silently up by mechanical hand and his eyes flick open. He smiles.
"Good morning."
He doesn't turn to look at her. To move would betray the moment, to rouse her a sacrilege. He hears her stir and gets up before she can. Speakers come to life across the house. He hears their soundless hum with satisfaction.
-
"Speakers, wired throughout the house?" She asked him. He grinned.
"Sound is life," he said. "Think about it. Choruses and symphonies, the ideas of men and women dead for hundreds of years, they can all be heard today. These creators are still alive in the music that they produced, their hearts and souls permeating the world. Now, we can surround ourselves with life."
"My husband, the maestro of eternity."
She smiled at him. The chorus swelled. He couldn't be happier.
-
His room is a mess, but in his eyes all is well. The clutter is a carefully maintained facade and as he gathers together the clothes of the day he takes care to avoid the scattered ones at his feet. They belong to her and she will collect them in her own time. As he dresses he hears the door creak open and light footfalls echo through the hallway. He hears the shower start. He will not join her today; he knows how much she enjoys those moments alone.
Instead he makes his way to the kitchen. He ignores the dishes beginning to stack in the sink, remnants of a late night together, and instead sets to work at the stove. Soon the air is full of the sound of the eggs in the pan and he hardly registers the sound of the shower turning off. A moment later he realises that he cannot hear her. He stiffens, his knuckles whiten as his grip on the pan begins to turn painful. He starts to shake, the world begins to turn grey and it isn't until her footsteps approach the kitchen that he relaxes again. Everything is fine.
-
"I feel ridiculous, it's only for a month."
She slapped his hand away. He retreated. The microphone was in place on her lapel.
"This is weird, even for you." She told him.
"I know, love. Bear with me. Please?"
He handed her the mic box. She tucked it into a pocket and offered a grimace.
"Remember what I said?" He asked. "About sound being life? I wasn't joking around. I love you, and I need you to be here. Even if it's only in playback."
She placed her hand against his head.
"So in lieu of being in your home, I'll be in your eardrums?"
"And in my heart."
-
"You frighten me when you go quiet like that."
She comes in behind him. She doesn't answer. A moment later a chair squeaks against the wooden floor.
"Perhaps some music?"
He flicks a radio beside the stovetop. It crackles as the voice of a radio team comes through. He takes a seat, his eyes focused on the meal. They eat in silence as the Top 40 grinds through their speakers.
-
"You know I can't live like this," She told him at dinner. "I'm sick of staying home, hiding away. Don't you want more than just this?" He frowned into his glass.
"Don't you remember what happened last time?"
"And every day I am forced to. You won't let me forget."
"I don't want to lose you."
She placed her hands upon his. "The doctors said I'm going to get better. You need to stop worrying. I'll always be here."
-
"And here's something new from the meteorology department: A storm warning has been issued for the mid-west, I hope you've remembered your batteries folks cause this one's gonna be a doozy!"
Instantly he rises, and flicks the radio off before taking a moment to look outside. Dark clouds stretched away to the horizon. He could already see lightning flash in the stormfront.
Moments later he gets to his car and starts the engine. He sits, waiting for the stereo to start. She opens the passenger side door and joins him. Everything is fine again.
"Where are we going?"
"The store. I have to get supplies for the storm."
"Oh."
Her response is tinged with sadness. Just like last time. And every time since. He shivers, shakes his head and pulls the car out of the driveway for the dash to the store. Others have the same idea, and he cannot leave her alone for long. He muscles through the crowds. Most step aside. They will not meet his gaze anymore. He begins to panic as he searches desperately for what he came for. An attendant comes to him, but he soon after hurries away in search of someone who could handle the increasingly unstable young man. A small crowd forms around him. His displays are not unheard of. He screams and begs but when the manager arrives she can only offer a sympathetic hand.
"We don't have any generators left. I'm sorry."
He storms out and leaves a trail of bemused shoppers behind him.
-
"Come on, man. I don't want to have to do this to you."
He stared at his brother-in-law. "You're acting as if your sister, my wife, is already dead."
"No, I'm telling you to let her go. Just... be ready if something happens."
"She is everything."
He was haggard, his body torn from sleeplessness and alcoholism. They both were.
"You're becoming obsessed. Please, just try to see someone. She'd want you to be happy."
-
It is not long after and he returns home. She leaves the car. He turns the engine off and waits, catches his breath. He hears the speakers return to life and he rejoins her. The world outside is silent and he hopes that maybe, just maybe, the storm will pass them by. But soon the thunder rumbles overhead and he dismisses that hope.
He makes his way down to the basement to look over his previous preparation. A slab of capacitors dominate the room. All of them hook up into the speakers that run through the house. Good for five minutes, twenty if he kept it to one room. Perhaps the storm won't hit that hard, he thinks. Perhaps it will be all noise and no flash. He hears another rumble above, and the lights flicker. His world turns grey as he hears her repeat herself mid-sentence upstairs.
He hurriedly sets out candles. He can hear her in the den, muttering as she reads semi-aloud. He turns off everything non-essential. The blinds go down, the television off. All that is left is the sound of her. He makes his way into the room with her. She always lay in the chaise by the window. Like always he lies on the floor and rests his head against it.
"Everything will be fine. You'll see."
She says nothing.
"I'm sure it will be fine."
He jumps. Lightning flashes in silhouette against the blinds. She sighs, and he hears her put the book down.
"Don't get up. Everything will be fine. Just stay here with me."
Nothing. He can hear her breathing slowly. She has fallen asleep. Perhaps that's best. He never wanted her to see him like this.
-
She had fallen asleep. He smiled as he looked up at her.
"You're so beautiful," he said. As if she had heard him she shifted with a faint tinge of pink across her features.
He clutched a note in his left hand. Addressed to her from the hospital. She had read it and left it on the table without a word to him. He gripped her hand tightly.
"I don't want to let you go."
-
He can hear the rain begin to fall, distant at first. He shivers and presses against the chaise. "I don't want to let you go," he says. She doesn't reply.
"Keep sleeping, my love." He climbs to his feet and lights another candle. The head of the chaise conceals where she sleeps in shadow.
"Everything will be fine, I know it, you know it."
His voice is wavering. His pulse pounds. Another flash of lightning and he jumps. The speakers flicker. It sounds like she hurts. He jumps back down to her side and places a hand on the couch. "Be okay. Please be okay."
-
He stared into the hospital room. A doctor pulled him aside, he ached to get back in. "How long do I have left with her?" He hadn't slept. He couldn't. Who could sleep as their everything faded away beside them?
"We can arrange for her to be at home when she passes."
"Thank you."
-
The rain pounds hard against the roof. The impacts almost break through the carefully created defences. He can see water collect at the tips of his soundproofing.
"I had that dream again," he says. She breathes heavily, he can hear a static fault in the speakers. Water was getting into the system.
"Do you remember when we first met? You in your black dress, me so cracked out of my mind I could barely remember that you gave me your number."
"Water..." she whispers. He shakes his head.
"No. No water. Not tonight."
-
She lay in a specially prepared bed. He sat beside her, her hand in his.
"It hurts," she said.
"Can I do something?"
"Loosen your grip."
He chuckled. His knuckles were white.
"I'll never let you go."
She smiled at him. It was faint, her breaths weak.
"Could I get some water?"
He handed her the glass. She drank slowly, barely managing to swallow as he took the glass away again.
"Tonight's the night." She said.
"Tonight?"
"Tonight."
-
The rumble of thunder is getting to him. He rises, begins to pace. "I can't do this, I can't."
He heads to the kitchen. Gropes under the sink. "Maybe I can hear your voice again," he says as he pours one last drink and takes his place under her side.
Anxiety takes him. He shakes. He can hear the fabric in the lounge begin to tear under his grip.
"I don't want let you go," he says, swallows the highball.
Lightning flares overhead. A loud boom comes from the basement. He hears the speakers' hum get louder and louder for a final moment before the speakers, her breathing and the last of his life fall silent.
-
Her brother stood alone at the cemetery. "I'm sorry your husband won't come to see you off. He's... not ready," he said. He took a seat on the grass beside her.
"Watch over him. I worry."
-
Her brother stands beside two stones. He sighs, takes a seat on the grass beside them both.
