Ten years has gone and passed. That which has happened about a decade ago, still burned freshly in my memories. The scene that remains etched in my mind, even if I were to brainwash myself a thousand times. I still remember that faithful day when a life was ripped away from the surface of the Earth. I remembered the agony that flowed in my veins, the horrible feeling in my gut, the wrenching pain that slowly erupted as I gazed upon the still body of the person that I cared about. My own bloodline, my sister, lay dead on the floor, murdered. At that moment, I could not only feel pain.
I felt anger. Frustration boiling inside of me. I recalled the laughter of the murderer as he looked down on me. I can still smell the scent of her blood from the fatal wound he gave her. I remembered hearing a roar of rage released from my mouth. I remembered nothing else after that. When I came to my senses, it was to find the murderer’s blood on my hands and the murderer lying next to me, lifeless. I remembered the sirens of the police car, recalled the yell of agony that came out of me, noticed that I was being handcuffed and finally came back to my original self in jail. For two days and nights, I wept and screamed in frustration.
That was the ordeal at that time. For two years I was in jail, awaiting the death sentence that I knew was bound to be given out. None came. I was acquitted due to the lack of solid evidence. The murderer was dead. My sister was killed. I survived it. Survivor’s guilt was all I had in me. When I was released, I wasted myself in the pub, drinking and getting drunk. That prolonged for a couple of months. I went into depression. I smoked and took drugs to relieve the pain. Part of me knew that all of this was wrong. That it was a stupid irrational thing to do. I shut myself out of reality and entered my own fantasy. Finally, I did the worst thing a human with a life can do.
I decided to commit suicide.
I was lying in bed for the whole day after recovering from a hangover the previous night when the thought came to me. It was better to end my life, I thought. I have nothing else in this world except her. She was my beloved sister, the one I sworn to protect. Now, she was gone. Taken away from me. I held a knife to my wrist. This was how I was going to end my miserable, pathetic life. The knife was mere millimeters from my wrist when I caught sight of a picture of her. I stopped and gazed at the picture of my sister. Her smiling face with my naturally frowning face beside. The knife fell from my hand as the life flooded back into my eyes. With shaking hands, I removed the picture from the frame. I choked as tears welled in my eyes. With the picture pressed on my chest, I uttered a single word before the tears became too much to bear.
“Zoey…,”
No matter what has happened, I had survived the incident. The picture became my source of inspiration. I picked myself up from the ground. I vowed to live so that I was the proof that she had lived. I started a new leaf. I got a job in a musical instruments shop as a cashier. From then on, I learnt to play the piano. Every piano piece I created was in her memory. Zoey loved to play the piano when she lived. The melody of the piano was a usual in our house. I would be beside her as she played the piano, encouraging her but never to play the piano myself.
The shop owner was aware of my predicament and was kind to me. He allowed me time to practice the piano and even thought me himself. I was lucky though I did not really felt that way. Eventually, I rose out of my shell and began to be my past self before the incident. I regained my friends and lived a normal life. The way everything should be.
Now, ten years has passed. I was my normal self again. However, I still smoked once every now and then to relieve the pain of recalling that incident. I became a piano professional, creating piano plays and my own songs but never making it big. The shop owner who had helped me before was always there to aid me. He was like a father to me. Zoey and I stayed by ourselves after our parents met their end in an accident when we were very young. We still managed somehow, thankfully because we had enough money to support us.
Ten years passed after the incident. I was supposed to be meeting a pianist who wanted to collaborate with me on an album. As I sat in the coffee shop which Zoey and I frequent, I could not help remembering the times we used to eat in the shop. Her radiant face as she laughed at my jokes. Her dimpled cheeks as she smiled. Her eyes which practically shone all the time. I smiled as I went on that nostalgic trip. And then, I saw her.
She was around the same height as Zoey was. Her smile was wide and she had dimpled cheeks. She saw me and sat opposite me. My eyes were wide with shock as I gazed at the person opposite me as though I had seen a ghost. She looked questioningly at my stunned face and laughed.
“ Seen a ghost or something scary? You look funny. You must be Andy Chan. Nice to meet you. My name is Zoey Lim, the pianist who wished to collaborate with you.”
The End.
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