The prompt for this was: Music

He loved music, every type. In fact, he insisted that there was no such thing as bad music, it just needed to find its proper place. And oh so wise as he was, he knew the place for every type of music. Latin Rock for his car, Jazz for his apartment, mix stations for the office. Always a mix station on for him. His philosophy with those was "you know that old song that you know isn't cool anymore, but you still rock out too every time that you hear it? Well, that's why there are mix stations, gives music lovers like me hope" Hope. Ha. May I say now that I forever hate Latin rock thanks to him? It's not that I didn't enjoy the music: it was more the way he looked at me when we drove together. I used to always say "Can you change the station, if you're going to sing along and look at me like that I'd prefer you at least do it in a language I could understand" and he'd reply "its music, it all sounds the same, just eight beats. If you can't tell what a song is saying in eight beats, it's not real music" and then he'd lean over, kiss me on the cheek and say: "Besides, if you knew half the things I was singing you'd slap me silly."

Eight beats. He did truly believe that, that every song had eight beats. When I told him that I didn't believe him, he just sighed and said: "Everything has eight beats, be it a song, a story, or a grocery list, everything has eight beats Kitten" I'd never admit it to him, but he was right. Everything has eight beats. Every story happens in eight beats.

It happened in eight beats.

Beat one:

Its happy, the Latin rock he always played in his car as he drops me off at work. Him smiling and kissing me on the cheek as he tells me he just has a meeting, and he'll be back once it's over. "We'll go out for coffee when I get back" I rolled my eyes at this nonchalant comment, of course we will.

Beat two:

It sounds like a phone ringing, quiet whispers "We should tell her," "We should bring her there" it sounds like the last peace of mind I had for a good long time

Beat three:

It's the sound of traffic, a rusty old car that belongs to my boss. The car clanged horribly, sputtered like it was about to die. The sound of opera music coming from his radio. The Italian lyrics sounded similar enough to the Spanish ones I had grown used to, but the feeling was all wrong. It unsettled me even more, I just kept a death grip on my wrist and withheld my need to punch someone.

Beat four:

It's like "urban" music. You can't really understand all the words, but you can pick out a few. "Poison" "Coma" "Vegetable" me trying desperately to get clearance to see him, even if it was just his body. The hum of the machines he's been hooked up to. It's in beat four when I am no longer in my body, I'm a you.

Beat five:

Is in a whole other language. Its quick paced and I can't catch any of it. His siblings, his little brother who looks just like him, try to translate it for me. They try to help at first, but they're too caught up in their own grief to worry about mine. The chorus around me is the same "La novia" "La novia" "La novia" "La novia" "La novia" the girlfriend. My name is gone; I am now "the girlfriend"

Beat six:

Beat six is the encouraging words of doctors, there's a chance, he'll get better, his body still has life in it. It's the sympathetic nurses who think it's cute to call you "La novia" and tell you that your "novio" is doing better, the same, worse. It's the cold silence of watching his hair go grey. It's the decrescendo. The loud crowded room has become you. Silent you.

Beat seven:

It starts off in the silence. Then a small cymbal of the clattering of keys. A door turning. Then silence, the silence of being in the eerie apartment where you had spent so much of the past year. You decide that you can't stand the silence anymore, that its wrong, so you turn up his expensive stereo system, high, on jazz. Then you turn on his ipod dock and blast the Latin rock. Then you turn on the radio in his home office to the mix station he loved, and you just sit in the blaring numbing music. It crescendos louder and louder until there is a knock on the door. "Mr. Armando, please turn it down" and you do, you turn it all off. Back into the silence.

Beat eight:

It's in beat eight when you regain a piece of yourself. I climb into his stupidly soft and overpriced sheets, burry my head under the pillow and drown myself in silence. I grab a shirt off of his bathroom floor, trying to remember what he smells like. I grab the most horrendously bitter blend of coffee from his cabinet and try to remember what he tastes like. I lie back in his bed, and its silence. I regain myself from carrying him.

It happened in eight beats. Happy music, to sad silence. Progression of a story, progression of music. Those eight beats are that song stuck in my head, the one that I can't get out. It's like that old band you know is over, but you still listen to their cd's. Except not, bands can come and go, but he will get better. He will come back. Just like that old song that you suddenly hear on the radio.

FIN

Okay so it was originally a monologue I wrote (in which the boyfriend died in a car crash) but I decided that it was very close to Ace Attorney, so I changed it a bit and posted it here…

I'm on a roll, I haven't written this much fanfiction in a good long time.