Work Text:
Morning always claimed the Marionette Workshop earlier than the rest of the world.
Sunlight filtered through the towering windows, bleeding onto the hardwood floors in slivers as thin and fragile as silk. Dust motes danced in the air, suspended like shards of gold leaf. The faint, rhythmic clinking of metal against metal served as the room’s only heartbeat.
Sandrone had been awake for a lifetime, it seemed.
She sat perched at her workbench, hair pulled back into a severe knot. With a screwdriver in hand, she adjusted the screws with a precision that bordered on the mechanical. But to those who truly knew her, each turn was more than mere labor; it was a ritual of patience—a quiet, desperate attempt to force the world into a semblance of order.
Behind her, the door gave a ghostly creak.
Footsteps followed, light as falling feathers. No greeting was offered, only the drifting scent of jasmine tea before a slender hand set a porcelain cup beside her elbow.
"You forgot breakfast. Again."
The voice was soft, muffled as if heard through a veil of silk.
Sandrone didn't turn—not yet. She finished the final rotation, the metal yielding to her will, before finally setting the tool down. When she shifted, the usual steel in her gaze softened into something agonizingly tender.
Columbina stood there, her long hair cascading over her shoulders like light catching on the surface of deep water. She wore a simple white dress, the faint aroma of tea still clinging to her skin.
"Have you been watching me again?" Sandrone asked, her voice raspy from silence.
"No. I simply knew." Columbina tilted her head, a small soft smile playing on her lips. "It’s been ten years, after all."
Ten years.
The words fell between them like a stone dropped into a still lake. No violent splash, only ripples that distorted the reflection of their shared reality.
Sandrone took a sip. It was hot. Exactly the temperature she needed to feel alive.
"Do you remember the day we met?" Columbina stepped closer, leaning her hip against the edge of the workbench. "Back at school. I was the new transfer, and you... you were the girl notorious for having a heart of ice."
"The first time we spoke, you looked at me as if you wanted to tear me apart." Columbina teased, her voice as light as a passing breeze.
Sandrone arched an eyebrow, the ghost of a memory flickering in her eyes.
"I only wanted to get to know you," Columbina whispered. "You looked so... utterly alone."
A heavy silence stretched between them. Sandrone reached out, her fingers trembling slightly as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind Columbina’s ear.
"I wasn't alone."
"I know," Columbina breathed. "Not anymore."
Outside, a stray wind caught the curtains, making them shiver. The workshop was never a place for noise; it was a sanctuary of clicking gears, rustling blueprints, and Columbina’s phantom hums.
Columbina moved behind her, arms winding around Sandrone’s waist in a fragile embrace. She rested her chin on Sandrone's shoulder, a warmth that felt almost too much to bear.
"Did you work through the night? Did you sleep at all?"
"Enough."
"Define enough."
"Four hours."
A soft sigh escaped Columbina’s lips—a sound of weary devotion. "You and your self-destructive habits. I don't know what to do with you."
Sandrone placed her hand over the ones holding her. The contrast was visceral: the cold, calloused hands of a creator buried under the warmth of the only person who made her feel human.
"Don't worry," Sandrone murmured. "My body is used to this rhythm."
"Your body won't hold out forever, Sandrone," Columbina whispered into the crook of her neck, the words carrying a weight that felt like a goodbye they weren't ready to say. "Eventually, even machines break."
The room surrendered to silence for a long moment.
They were not the kind of people who indulged in the frequent exchange of honeyed words. Their affection was more akin to the morning tea—unassuming, devoid of cloying sweetness, yet its absence would leave the day feeling hollow, an echoing void in the chest.
Columbina uncurled her arms, stepping around to face her.
"Shall we go out for a while?" she asked. "The sky is heartbreakingly clear today."
Sandrone’s gaze flickered to the skeletal remains of her unfinished blueprints, then back to Columbina.
"How long will we be?"
"An hour."
"Thirty minutes."
"Forty-five."
"Forty."
A soft, melodic laugh broke from Columbina’s throat. "Always so meticulous. It’s only a breath of fresh air, Sandrone."
"Everything requires its proper arrangement. That is the only way to maintain equilibrium."
Columbina stared at her, her expression clouding with a quiet, lingering disagreement. "Then perhaps you should arrange a proper place for sleep in that schedule of yours."
Sandrone remained still, a mute statue of a woman, offering only a sharp nod of compromise.
Eventually, they stepped out.
The cobblestone path before the house was draped in a thin shroud of sunlight. The air tasted of damp grass and seasoned wood. They walked slower than usual, their pace a conscious effort to stretch the seconds until they frayed at the edges.
"Do you ever think about truly resting?" Columbina asked, her voice drifting.
"I am resting now."
"Not just for a moment." Columbina turned, her eyes searching Sandrone’s. "Resting for more. Working less. Being with me... more."
Sandrone’s brow knit in a subtle frown. "I am with you."
"I know." Columbina’s smile was a fragile thing. "But I’ve grown greedy."
Sandrone came to a halt.
"Greedy?"
"I want more time than the world is willing to give," Columbina said, her gaze crystalline yet unfathomably deep. "I want to see us grow old, still loving each other just like this. Only with more silver in our hair."
"Only love is eternal."
Sandrone looked into those eyes—the only place where she felt anchored, even as the rest of the world blurred into a meaningless hum.
"I am not gifted in the art of distant promises," Sandrone murmured, her voice barely a thread.
"I don't need a promise," Columbina replied. "I only need you not to leave."
A stray breeze swept past, carrying the distant, ghostly chime of a wind bell. Columbina reached out, her fingers weaving through Sandrone’s.
Sandrone’s hand was a sliver of ice.
"You forgot your gloves again," Columbina fussed under her breath.
"I'm not cold."
Columbina didn't argue. She simply tightened her grip, trying to pour her own warmth into the chill of the other’s skin.
They drifted past low-roofed houses and windows blooming with flowers, passing neighbors whose faces had become the backdrop of their decade together. A greeting here, a nod there. Ten years—long enough to become a fixture of the scenery, yet not long enough to feel like forever.
By the lake's edge, they slowed to a stop.
The water was a mirror of glass, reflecting a sky bled pale by the sun.
Columbina sank onto the stone steps, pulling Sandrone down beside her. She let her head fall onto the other’s shoulder, a heavy, familiar weight.
"You know," she whispered, her voice trembling with a secret. "I used to be afraid."
"Of what?"
"I feared that one day, you would simply grow weary of me."
Sandrone turned to her, her features hardening into a mask of solemnity. "Whatever possessed you to think such a thing?"
"Because your world is so vast, Sandrone. Machines. Blueprints. Infinite ideas. And I…" Columbina offered a fragile, self-deprecating laugh. "I am merely a distraction."
Sandrone reached out, her fingers hooking firmly beneath Columbina’s chin, forcing their gazes to collide.
"Then you underestimate yourself hauntingly so."
Columbina blinked, her lashes fluttering like trapped moths.
"You are the only force capable of making me stop," Sandrone said, each word measured and heavy. "The only person who makes me feel as though there is a home to return to."
It wasn't spoken as a confession. It was delivered as an irrefutable law of her universe.
Columbina felt her heart constrict, a sharp, sweet ache.
"Then don't ever leave me," she whispered, the plea escaping her lips before she could catch it.
Sandrone’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. "I have never harbored such an intention. Nor will I ever."
Columbina smiled, but a ghost of something brittle flickered in her eyes. She buried her face into Sandrone’s shoulder, inhaling the familiar, grounding scent of tea.
They sat like that for an eternity.
A void of words.
Only the rhythmic lap of the water and the synchronized pull of their lungs filled the space between them.
Until Sandrone coughed.
A brief, sharp sound that fractured the quiet.
Columbina pulled back instantly, her eyes searching. "What is it? Are you alright?"
"It’s nothing." Sandrone looked away, shielding her mouth with her hand. "I’m not sure why that slipped out."
Columbina watched her for a lingering moment before nodding slowly. "Let’s go back. I’ll make us something to eat."
"It isn't time yet."
"It’s enough. I’m starting to feel the chill."
A ghost of a chuckle escaped Sandrone—a soft, huffing sound.
As they stood, Columbina refused to relinquish her hand. She held on as if a single heartbeat of separation would cause the woman before her to dissolve into the ether.
On the walk back, Sandrone watched her lover’s profile in the periphery of her vision. Ten years had left Columbina largely untouched. The same gaze, the same tilt of her smile.
Yet, deep within Sandrone, a foreign sensation stirred. It was vague and ghostly—like the dissonant grind of metal teeth failing to catch.
She gave Columbina’s hand a small, reassuring squeeze.
"Yes?" Columbina asked.
"Nothing," Sandrone replied.
Then she added, her voice so low it was almost a secret kept from herself.
"I am simply… glad that I found you."
Columbina smiled, letting the silence hold the answer.
The morning drifted away in that fashion.
Peaceful.
Sweet.
And so excruciatingly fragile that a single harsh touch might shatter it like a pane of thin glass under the relentless sun.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In the days that followed, the cough began to echo through the house.
At first, it was merely a missed beat—a stray glitch in the middle of their quiet, golden mornings.
It began as a faint sound, a mere catch in the back of her throat—as if a stray gear had slipped its track.
Sandrone always turned away with a practiced speed the moment a cough threatened to break, her spine snapping into a rigid line, her hand shielding her mouth in a motion so precise it felt pre-programmed.
Columbina noticed every single one.
But she didn't speak of it—not at first.
Instead, she began brewing ginger tea instead of the jasmine they both adored.
She began leaving an extra handkerchief at the edge of the workbench.
She only asked, "Are you alright?" in a voice so light it barely disturbed the air.
"Fine." Sandrone would reply, her attention already retreating back into the safety of her blueprints.
---------------
One afternoon, the sky finally broke.
The workshop grew heavy with dampness. The air thickened, the scent of cold metal bleeding into the smell of rain. Sandrone was hunched over a massive machine when the cough seized her without warning.
It wasn't the brief, sharp staccato of before.
This was prolonged.
Raw.
Vicious.
Her throat felt as if it were clogging with silt.
She gripped the edge of the table to steady herself, her knuckles white. Her chest constricted, a phantom hand squeezing the breath from her lungs. Air became a luxury she couldn't afford; every attempt to inhale was met with a more violent convulsion of her ribs.
The handkerchief.
She fumbled with her coat pocket, pressing the cloth to her lips.
When the spasm finally ebbed, she looked down.
A smear of crimson.
Not much.
But enough to render any pretense impossible.
Sandrone stared at the stain for a heartbeat too long.
Then, she folded the cloth with agonizing care, making sure the pristine side faced outward.
The door groaned open.
"You forgot to eat ag—"
Columbina’s voice died in the air.
Sandrone had turned her back. Too fast. Much too fast.
"Leave it on the table. I'll get to it later," Sandrone said, her tone so steady it bordered on glacial.
"Alright." Columbina stepped closer, her presence a weight behind Sandrone. "That cough sounded… heavy."
"It’s just the weather," Sandrone countered. "The humidity is playing havoc with the atmosphere. My body simply hasn't adjusted."
Columbina stood directly behind her now, her hand coming to rest lightly against Sandrone’s back.
"You’re trembling."
"I'm cold."
Columbina didn't pull away. Through the fabric of the coat, she could feel Sandrone’s breathing. It wasn't fast; it was strangled. Each breath seemed to be severed halfway, a jagged, incomplete rhythm.
"Let’s see a doctor," Columbina murmured.
"There is no need."
"Sandrone, listen to me—"
"No need," Sandrone repeated, her voice hardening into iron.
The room fell into a silence that tasted of copper and rain.
The drumming of rain against the corrugated metal roof grew deafening, filling the hollows of the silence.
Columbina moved to stand before her. There was no anger in her eyes—only a profound, aching sorrow, a gaze heavy with the weight of unspoken fears.
"You’ve been coughing for nearly two months, Sandrone."
"It’s the metal dust," Sandrone countered, her voice thin. "If I were meant to fall ill, I would have succumbed years ago."
"That is no excuse to refuse a doctor."
Sandrone looked down, shuffling her blueprints with practiced indifference, as if the conversation were merely a distraction to be filed away. "I don’t have the time."
Columbina’s hand shot out, her fingers locking around Sandrone’s wrist.
"You do. Please, Sandrone. Just this once."
Sandrone looked up.
Their gazes collided, and for the first time, the reflection in Columbina’s eyes had shifted. The pure, unadulterated tenderness was gone, replaced by a film of terror as thin and chilling as morning mist.
"I don't want to know," Sandrone said, her voice dropping an octave, becoming something raw and jagged.
Columbina froze.
"Know what?"
"Know if something is… fundamentally broken." Sandrone averted her eyes. "As long as I can still work, as long as I can move, then there is nothing worth discussing."
"You’re hiding, Sandrone."
"I’m fine, Columbina."
"You’re just pretending to be."
The final sentence fell between them like a lead weight, sinking into the floorboards.
Sandrone’s grip tightened on her own hand. "Do you truly think I am so fragile that I fear a mere piece of paper? A diagnosis?"
"I think," Columbina whispered, "that you fear the reality that comes after it."
Neither spoke.
The rain continued its relentless assault on the world outside.
Sandrone pulled her wrist free, the movement sharp and final. "This conversation ends here."
-------------------------
That night, the cough returned.
It was heavier this time, a dark, suffocating thing.
Columbina drifted awake to the sound of labored, frantic gasps.
She sat up to find Sandrone perched on the edge of the bed, her spine hunched, her fingers clawing into her knees as if trying to anchor herself to the earth.
"Sandrone—"
"Don’t turn on the lamp," Sandrone rasped, her voice a ghost of its former self.
But Columbina flicked the switch anyway.
The light was unforgiving. It exposed a face paler than parchment, a bead of cold sweat tracing the hollow of her temple, and lips bled of all color.
"Can’t breathe?" Columbina asked, her own voice trembling.
Sandrone didn't answer immediately. She tried to drag air into her lungs. It wasn't enough. It was never enough.
"Just… a bit of heaviness in the chest."
Columbina knelt on the floor before her, cupping Sandrone’s face in her palms. Her skin felt like cooling marble.
"We’re going to the hospital."
"No."
"You are breaking, Sandrone. You’re not fine."
"I’m fine, I tell you."
"But it’s getting worse. It’s rotting from within."
Sandrone looked at her.
For a flicker of a second—so brief it could have been an illusion—her eyes betrayed the one thing she spent a lifetime concealing: stark, raw panic.
Then, it vanished behind the shutters.
"I don't want to go to that place," Sandrone said, her voice dropping into a slow, deliberate cadence. "I don't want the stench of antiseptic. I don't want to hear them talk about me in terms of probabilities of survival."
Columbina’s grip tightened, her knuckles straining.
"I don't care about the numbers, Sandrone. I only need you—"
"I care."
The words cut through the air like a razor-thin blade.
Columbina fell silent, the air in her throat turning to lead.
"I don't want you to look at me differently," Sandrone continued, her voice trembling with a suppressed frailty. "I don't want to watch you start counting the days."
"You’ll be fine."
"I refuse to offer a guarantee I cannot keep."
Sandrone’s voice wasn't raised. It wasn't harsh. But each syllable was placed down with the chilling finality of a coffin nail.
Columbina bowed her head, pressing her forehead against Sandrone’s.
"I would rather count the days than pretend they aren't numbered," she whispered into the sliver of space between them.
Sandrone closed her eyes.
She could feel Columbina’s heartbeat so close to her own. Steady. Warm. A solid, undeniable truth.
While inside her own chest, every breath was a labor—an agonizing feat of engineering.
"Give me a little more time," Sandrone pleaded.
"How much?"
"Until I can no longer stand on my own."
Columbina recoiled slightly, her eyes searching Sandrone’s hollowed face. "Do you honestly think I can accept that?"
"It is the absolute limit of what I can endure."
Silence reclaimed the room, heavy and suffocating.
Finally, Columbina exhaled—a slow, defeated shudder.
"Fine," she breathed. "But I will be with you. Every waking second."
Sandrone offered a ghostly nod.
When the light flickered out and darkness swallowed the room, Columbina did not drift back to sleep. She lay there, tethered to the sound of Sandrone’s breathing.
Short.
Shallow.
Interrupted by the occasional, muffled ghost of a cough.
Columbina reached out, resting her palm over Sandrone’s sternum.
As if by simply holding her there, she could stop the world from slipping away.
In the crushing dark, Sandrone kept her eyes open.
She knew her body was committing treason.
She knew each cough was digging deeper, each breath becoming a narrower hallway.
But to seek a diagnosis was to make the nightmare real.
And once the truth was spoken aloud, there would be no path leading back.
She did not fear the pain.
What she feared was the reflection of that pain in Columbina’s eyes.
The rain had finally ceased its assault.
Only the sound of breathing remained.
One steady, rhythmic pulse.
One jagged, fractured gasping.
And between them, something was festering in the silence, like a hairline fracture spreading across a sheet of pristine glass.
=================================================
That morning began with the sound of something breaking.
It wasn't glass.
It wasn't the clatter of any household object.
It was the sound of the world fracturing when Columbina heard Sandrone cough from the bathroom.
This sound was different from all the others.
No longer a dry rattle. No longer a brief noise to be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
It was prolonged. Tearing. Echoing.
And there was something... thick, something obstructive at the end of it.
Columbina reached the door in a blur, her fist hammering against the wood.
"Sandrone?"
No answer.
Only the relentless rush of water and the sound of breath being torn apart.
She stopped knocking. She threw the door open.
Sandrone was doubled over the sink, her white-knuckled hands gripping the porcelain rim for dear life. Her shoulders heaved with every spasm. Her hair fell in disarray, veiling half her face.
In the basin, the water swirled in a dilute, sickening shade of pale pink.
But the cloth in her hand told a darker story.
Deep crimson.
A red so visceral, so absolute, that Columbina felt the blood in her own veins turn to ice.
"Sandrone?" Her voice wasn't loud. It wasn't even trembling. It was simply... thin. Paper-thin.
Sandrone looked up. Her lips were bled of color. Her gaze was calm—an eerie, terrifying kind of calm.
"Don't overthink this."
Columbina took a step forward. She forced herself not to look at the sink. She looked only at her.
"We are going to the hospital."
"No."
"Now."
"I told you—"
"NOW."
The word tore through the air, striking the tiled walls and echoing back into the small room like a physical blow.
Sandrone froze.
Columbina had never shouted.
In ten years of building a life together, she had never once raised her voice at Sandrone. Not once. Never like this.
But in this moment, the tenderness that usually defined Columbina’s eyes had been hollowed out. In its place was a terror too vast to be contained by silence, a visceral agony bleeding out from the very depths of her soul.
"You can hide anything else from me," Columbina said, each word sounding as though it were being ground out from stone. "But not this. Never this."
Sandrone stared at her for a long, agonizing beat.
The silence between them was heavy, pregnant with the weight of ten years and the terrifying uncertainty of the next ten minutes. Sandrone looked for a spark of the old softness, but she found only the jagged edges of a woman terrified of being left behind.
Finally, Sandrone averted her gaze. The tension in her shoulders didn't disappear; it simply collapsed.
"Let me change my shirt first," she murmured.
It was a surrender. Quiet, weary, and draped in the shadow of the inevitable.
=============
The drive to the hospital was silent, a suffocating vacuum that swallowed the sound of the engine.
No music. No idle conversation.
Columbina sat in the driver’s seat, her knuckles strained a ghostly white as she gripped the steering wheel. She refused to glance at Sandrone. She knew that if she did, the fragile dam holding back her composure would burst, leaving her to shatter right then and there.
Sandrone, meanwhile, stared hollowly out of the window.
She had always loathed hospitals.
The sharp, biting scent of antiseptic. The flickering, unforgiving hum of fluorescent lights. The rows of people waiting with eyes that hovered precariously between a sliver of hope and a chasm of despair.
It was a place where people carried questions they weren't sure they possessed the strength to answer.
It was the place where she had watched Alain slip away into the nothingness.
Sandrone closed her eyes, feeling a searing irritation blooming in her chest. God, why does it ache like this?
"Are you angry with me?" Sandrone asked, her voice a desperate attempt to deflect the rising tide of pain.
Columbina didn't answer immediately.
"Don't speak to me," she said finally.
The words were a sudden frost, causing the air inside the car to turn to ice.
===============
The waiting room was more crowded than Sandrone had envisioned.
A child slumbered against their mother’s shoulder. An old man coughed fitfully in a darkened corner. A couple sat nearby, their hands entwined so tightly their knuckles were bloodless.
Sandrone sat with her spine rigid, hands resting on her thighs as if she were presiding over a routine board meeting. Columbina remained anchored to her side, their hands locked in a desperate, subconscious pact of silence.
When the nurse finally called the name, Columbina was on her feet before Sandrone could even blink.
Clinical examination. Pulmonary auscultation. X-rays.
The doctor was middle-aged, his voice a low baritone, his gaze devoid of any unseemly haste.
"How long has this been persistent?" he inquired.
"A few weeks," Sandrone replied.
Columbina turned to her, eyes sharp with a painful truth. "Three months," she corrected.
The doctor nodded, his pen scratching a rhythmic, ominous staccato against the chart. "And the hemoptysis—the coughing of blood? Is that a recent development?"
Sandrone fell silent.
Columbina squeezed her hand, a silent plea for honesty. "Yes," she whispered. "It is."
CT scan. The excruciating wait for results.
Waiting is a uniquely cruel form of torture. It does nothing at all, yet it erodes the heart with the slow, agonizing precision of a falling tide.
Columbina paced the corridor, her footsteps uneven and frantic. Sandrone remained motionless, her eyes tracing the grid-like patterns of the floor tiles.
"What are you thinking about?" Sandrone asked.
"I’m thinking about how stubborn you are."
"I know."
"I’m thinking that I hate you right now."
"I know."
"But I love you."
Sandrone didn’t smile. More accurately, she had forgotten how.
A voice summoned them back. They were ushered into a private room.
The doctor pinned the film against the lightboard. The anatomy of her lungs appeared as a haunting, monochrome landscape. And there, in one lung, was a shadow.
A small, blurry smudge.
It looked insignificant. But it was a trespasser; it was something that did not belong.
"We need a biopsy for confirmation," the doctor said, his voice tempered with professional gravity. "But based on these images... there is a high probability of a malignant tumor."
The world began to hum in Columbina’s ears—a high, piercing white noise.
"What stage?" Sandrone asked.
The doctor looked at the file, then back at the two women. "There are signs of lymphatic involvement. Likely Stage III or IV. We need more tests to be certain."
Silence. A vacuum of sound that swallowed their breath.
"The prognosis?" Sandrone pressed.
Columbina turned, her eyes wide and fractured. "Sandrone, don’t. Don't ask."
But Sandrone’s gaze was fixed on the doctor.
"With advanced lung cancer," the doctor said slowly, "the median survival time can range from six months to a year, depending on how you respond to treatment."
Six months.
One year.
The numbers were pitifully small. Short. Cruel.
It was a death sentence delivered in the clinical shorthand of time.
Columbina felt the world tilt as she sank back into her chair.
"There are treatments," the doctor added, his voice distant. "Chemotherapy. Radiation. Targeted therapy if the markers match. We will run more tests to decide our path."
Sandrone nodded, her expression a mask of cold metal.
"Thank you."
She stood up as if the meeting had simply adjourned.
But Columbina remained seated, her eyes glued to the film on the screen. That small, hazy smudge looked so fragile. So harmless.
How could something so small steal away ten years, twenty years—an entire lifetime so easily?
====================
The hospital corridor stretched longer than it had upon their arrival, a cold, liminal space that seemed to expand with every step.
Columbina walked slowly. Excruciatingly slowly.
When they reached the parking lot, she drifted to a halt, her back to Sandrone.
"Do you know?" she began, her voice barely a whisper.
"I know."
"I was hoping it was just pneumonia."
Sandrone offered no rebuttal. The silence was an admission.
"I was hoping the doctor would laugh and tell us we were overreacting. That we were just fools."
The wind swept through the asphalt, biting deeper than it had that morning.
"I’m sorry," Sandrone said.
Columbina whirled around to face her.
"For what?"
"For the fact that you were right."
The words were a blade, twisting in an open wound.
Columbina lunged forward, seizing Sandrone by the lapels of her coat, pulling her close until their breaths mingled.
"Do you think I’m angry because I was right?" her voice fractured, trembling with a raw, jagged edge. "I’m angry because you wanted to face this alone. Because you tried to shut me out of your own ending."
"I didn't—"
"You always do this!" Columbina broke, the tears finally overflowing, hot and desperate. "You always think you can endure anything if you just turn into iron. You think if you’re silent long enough, the monster will simply disappear."
The tears soaked into the fabric of Sandrone’s coat, heavy and dark.
"I don't need you to be strong," Columbina choked out, her grief finally bared. "I need you to live."
Sandrone stood paralyzed.
She had never seen Columbina like this. Not the gentle sun, not the soft breeze. Just a woman terrified, watching the center of her world disintegrate.
Sandrone finally raised her arms, anchoring Columbina in a tight, desperate embrace.
"I didn't want you to see me like this," she whispered into her hair. "Decrepit. Failing."
"I see you as the person I love. Nothing more. Nothing less."
"And if I… am no longer here?"
Columbina tightened her grip, as if she could fuse their souls together by sheer force of will.
"Don't speak of endings. There will be a way. We will find a path through this. We have to."
No one in the parking lot noticed them—two figures clinging to each other as if the sky were falling. Somewhere, a hospital door hissed open and shut. Life continued its indifferent march.
But for them, a line had been etched in the dirt.
Cancer.
Final stage.
An expiration date.
On the drive home, Columbina did not let go of Sandrone’s hand.
No more secrets. No more denials. Just a truth as heavy as lead sitting between them on the upholstery.
When the car pulled up to the house, Sandrone made no move to get out.
"Do you regret it?" she asked.
"Regret dragging you to the doctor?"
"Yes."
Columbina shook her head, her gaze fixed forward.
"I regret not dragging you there sooner."
There was no accusation in her tone. Only the cold, hard weight of reality.
Sandrone looked at the house before them—the sanctuary where they had spent ten years weaving their lives together. Suddenly, it no longer felt infinite. The time contained within those walls had been measured. It had been weighed.
She inhaled.
It was difficult.
But this time, it wasn't just her lungs. It was the atmosphere itself, heavy with the scent of a coming storm.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
Columbina opened the door, her expression settling into a grim, loving resolve.
"We start by hiding nothing. Not a single breath."
Sandrone offered a faint, ghostly nod.
When they stepped inside, the afternoon light spilled across the floorboards just as it always did. The tea was still there. The workbench was still there. Ten years of memories were still there.
Only one thing had changed.
Now, every passing minute carried a rhythmic tick—a sound they had never heard before, but one that would never leave them again.
####################################################
The room was drowned in the pallid, sickly light of late afternoon. Sunlight filtered through the window like a frayed golden net, but no amount of light was warm enough to dispel the chill creeping through Sandrone’s veins.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her spine a rigid line, though her shoulders betrayed her with a faint, persistent tremor. Her breath was a heavy, labored thing; each lungful felt like dragging jagged glass through her chest. Then came the cough—dry, harsh, and spiteful, as if her own body had turned its back on her in a fit of rage.
The glass on the table slipped.
It shattered.
The sound was as sharp as a jagged accusation echoing in the silence.
"Damn it!" Sandrone spat, her voice a raw, splintered rasp. Her hands shook, fingers clenching until her knuckles were a bloodless white.
She loathed this sensation. She loathed the loss of autonomy, watching her own body commit treason, piece by agonizing piece.
Only a month ago, she could walk without thought, could move, could speak without this suffocating fatigue. Now, merely standing for too long sent the world spinning on a distorted, sickening axis.
She forced herself up, taking a few steps toward her workbench. A sudden wave of vertigo crashed over her, forcing her to claw at the edge of the table for purchase. She gasped, desperate for air that refused to come.
She hated weakness.
In a flash of white-hot frustration, Sandrone swept the files off the desk. Papers scattered like birds shot out of a clear sky, fluttering uselessly to the floor.
"Useless! All of it—useless!"
She slammed her palm against the wood. It ached. But that sharp, external sting was a mercy compared to the dull, gnawing rot inside her lungs. At least the pain on her skin had a name.
The sickness did not.
The sickness was a beast lurking in the shadows, devouring her from the inside out—silent, predatory, and without warning.
The door creaked open.
Columbina stood there.
She had grown accustomed to the sounds of things breaking in this house. Accustomed to the strangled coughs that haunted the dead of night. Accustomed to the way Sandrone’s eyes skittered away whenever she asked, "Are you alright?"
Yet, every single time, her heart constricted as if caught in a vice.
Columbina stepped inside, her movements slow and deliberate, as if she feared that even a heavy footfall might shatter whatever was left of the atmosphere. The ghost of antiseptic still clung to her memory, a lingering scent from the hospital they had fled a month prior.
"Sandrone..." Her voice was as soft as a fraying ribbon of silk, but beneath it, the tide of her worry was surging.
Sandrone whirled around.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"As if I were some fragile, porcelain doll."
The words fell between them like a lead weight. No one moved to pick them up. No one dared.
Columbina drew closer. She sank to her knees before Sandrone, her hand coming to rest lightly—so lightly—on the other woman’s wrist. The pulse beneath the skin was terrifyingly faint.
"You're tired. That's all it is."
"Don't lie to me!" Sandrone wrenched her hand away. "Stop trying to make it all sound so ordinary!"
Her voice fractured at the end. It wasn't anger. it was terror.
The terror that Columbina was right.
The terror that nothing would ever be ordinary again.
She turned to walk away, but her body finally refused its orders. The cough struck like a sandstorm, dragging her into a vortex from which there was no escape. She buckled, her knees hitting the cold floor, her hands bracing against the hardwood.
Columbina was there in an instant, catching her.
"Don't touch me!" Sandrone thrashed feebly, but her strength had evaporated into the air.
"It’s alright," Columbina whispered, her grip firm and unyielding. "I'm right here."
Right here.
Two simple words, yet they carried more weight than a lifetime of vows.
Sandrone gasped for air, her lungs a pair of failing bellows. As the spasm finally ebbed, she let her head fall onto Columbina’s shoulder—not by choice, but because she simply lacked the strength to maintain the distance between them.
"My body..." she whispered, her voice like parched sand. "It’s getting worse every day. I can feel it. The gears are slipping."
Columbina didn't answer. She only tightened her embrace, her arms a frantic sanctuary.
"I wake up in the morning feeling as though I’ve run for miles. My limbs are heavy as lead. My mind... it’s blurring at the edges."
She let out a dry, distorted laugh—a sound that carried no mirth.
"I loathe this dependency. I loathe needing another soul just to help me stand."
"You are not a burden, Sandrone."
"I am becoming one."
Silence reclaimed the room. Outside, the wind rattled the trees, their rustling leaves sounding like the frantic whispers of time running out.
Suddenly, Sandrone shoved Columbina away, stumbling to her feet with a jagged energy. She lurched toward the bookshelf, sweeping several ornaments onto the floor in a blind rage. A picture frame shattered, the shards of glass glistening like petrified tears.
"Get out!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "Stop looking at me with that wretched pity!"
Columbina stood motionless. It wasn't because she wasn't hurt, but because she knew that if she approached now, Sandrone would only feel more cornered, more hunted by her own frailty.
"It isn't pity," Columbina said, her voice barely a thread. "It’s terror."
Sandrone froze, her breath hitching.
"Terror?"
"I’m terrified of losing you."
This time, there was no sound of breaking glass. Only something deep within Sandrone finally snapped.
She turned around, her eyes bloodshot and haunted. "I’m not dead yet."
"No. But you are killing yourself by refusing to acknowledge that you’re human."
The words were a blade—not sharp, perhaps, but jagged enough to leave a long, weeping gash in Sandrone’s mind.
Sandrone clenched her fists until they bled white. "I refuse to be weak."
"Weakness isn't admitting that you’re in pain, Sandrone."
Columbina stepped closer this time, her movements slow, cautious, as if approaching a wounded animal. She picked up a shard of glass from the broken frame, setting it aside so Sandrone wouldn't be cut.
"Weakness is pretending you don't need anyone to hold you up."
Sandrone stood there, her breathing heavy and ragged. She wanted to argue. She wanted to howl. She wanted to scream that she could defy the universe on her own.
But her body committed treason once more. A sudden wave of vertigo turned her vision to ash.
Columbina caught her before she hit the floor.
This time, Sandrone did not pull away.
She began to tremble—not from the chill in the room, but from the sheer weight of her own fear.
"I’m afraid," she finally confessed. The two words were so small they were nearly swallowed by the shadows.
Columbina locked her arms around her, unyielding.
"I know."
"I’m afraid that one day... I won't have the strength to open my eyes. That I won't be able to see you anymore."
"Then every day that you do open them, I will be the first thing you see."
"And if one day I can't?"
Columbina did not answer at once. Instead, she pressed her forehead against Sandrone’s hair, which had grown tragically thin—a ghost of the luster it once held.
Trite reassurances like "Don’t think like that" had long since lost their currency, especially for someone like Sandrone, who stood perched so precariously on the edge of the abyss.
"Then I will still be there," Columbina whispered.
No promises of miracles. No weaving of silver-lined fantasies. Only the brutal, unwavering vow of presence.
Sandrone broke. It wasn't a violent sob, but a silent, torrential shedding of tears that soaked into the fabric of Columbina’s shoulder.
She wept for her failing anatomy. She wept for the remaining days, the length of which remained a cruel mystery. She wept for the suffocating helplessness—the feeling of being entombed within a cage crafted from her own bone and flesh.
Columbina stroked her back, her hand moving in a steady, rhythmic cadence, as if she were shushing a dying storm.
When Sandrone finally succumbed to the grey fog of exhaustion, Columbina laid her gently upon the bed. She tucked the blankets close and adjusted the pillow with a tenderness reserved for things more fragile than spun glass.
Then, Columbina stepped out of the room.
The door clicked shut.
The hallway felt darker, the air leaching of all warmth.
She leaned her back against the wall, burying her face in her palms.
Before, she had been the iron. Before, she had been the anchor.
But now, shielded from sight, the tears breached the dam, hot and uncontrollable.
She bit her lip until it bled to stifle the sobs, her shoulders quaking with every shuddering breath. She slid down the wall until she hit the floor, arms wrapped around herself in a futile attempt to hold her soul together.
She was terrified.
She feared every cough that shattered the silence of the night. She feared the lab results with their clinical, merciless numbers. She feared the day when that room would become terrifyingly, permanently still.
But more than anything, she feared the hollowed-out despair in Sandrone’s eyes.
Columbina wiped her face with the back of her hand. She inhaled sharply. Exhaled.
She could not afford to collapse.
Not yet. Not now.
She stood, reclaiming her composure, and re-entered the room.
Inside, Sandrone slept. Her breathing was uneven, a jagged rhythm, but it was still there.
Columbina sat by the bedside, taking that gaunt, skeletal hand into her own.
She said nothing.
She only sat there, counting every breath.
As if she were counting the final, shimmering coins of a treasure that was fast running dry.
Outside, the night descended—slow, heavy, and utterly remorseless.
Yet in that small room, between the crushing dark and the frail sound of breathing, one thing remained unscattered.
You are still here.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One night, the house grew so preternaturally still that the rhythmic tick-tock of the wall clock sounded like water droplets falling into the abyss of a deep well.
Columbina jolted awake, gripped by a formless, shapeless dread. It wasn't a cough. It wasn't the sound of something breaking. It wasn't even the ghost of a footstep.
It was simply… the silence.
A silence too round, too perfect, as if someone had draped a heavy shroud over every sound in the world.
She sat bolt upright.
The room was hollow of light. But the door to Sandrone’s bedroom stood slightly ajar—a sliver of shadow against the dark.
Sandrone had requested to sleep alone, and Columbina had not refused her. She understood, or tried to, that Sandrone needed the privacy to steady her own crumbling foundations.
Columbina slipped out of bed, her bare feet meeting the biting chill of the floorboards. With every step, her heart hammered a frantic, irregular rhythm against her ribs.
She pushed the door open.
The room was a wash of dim shadows. Moonlight filtered through the curtains, tracing pale, sickly lines across the floor.
Sandrone stood by the window.
Her silhouette was terrifyingly thin. Her shoulders were sharp, her spine held with a rigid stiffness, as if a single touch might cause her to shatter.
On the desk, the bottles of medication were scattered in disarray. They hadn't fallen. They had simply been… pushed aside, huddled into a corner like forgotten relics.
Columbina understood instantly.
Her heart felt as though it were being crushed by an invisible hand.
"Sandrone."
Her voice was a mere breath, fracturing at the end.
Sandrone did not turn. She remained motionless, staring down into the dark void outside. The city slept a restless sleep. The distant streetlights flickered like exhausted eyes.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" Columbina asked, taking a trembling step forward.
"Because I didn't want you to hear."
The answer was calm—a terrifying, blood-chilling kind of calm.
Columbina moved faster now, her trembling hand reaching out to catch Sandrone’s wrist.
Ice.
"What are you doing?" her voice rasped.
Sandrone offered a faint, soundless laugh. A thin, bitter curve of her lips.
"I was just thinking… if everything ended here, perhaps it would be lighter."
Columbina’s grip tightened, her fingers digging into the skin.
"Don't say that."
"I am tired."
The three words were not a lament. They fell between them like stones.
"I am tired of waking up every day and feeling my body wither a little more. Tired of watching you force yourself to be strong. Tired of the charade—of pretending I still have any control."
Sandrone’s voice softened, but it did not waver.
"There are mornings when I don't want to open my eyes. Not because I fear the pain. But because I don't want to watch you suffer through me anymore."
Columbina shook her head, tears already blurring her vision.
"Don't speak like this, Sandrone. You have never—"
"Been a burden?" Sandrone turned, finally meeting her gaze. "I feel it in the way you hold me. In the way you count my every breath. You are waiting for the day I simply stop."
Sandrone had lost her mind. She was speaking in riddles of madness.
"No!" Columbina nearly screamed. "I am not waiting for that!"
"Aren't you?"
"No! I am terrified—I am terrified to the point of madness!" Columbina broke, the sobs finally crashing through. "I am so afraid that every time you sleep too long, I have to stand guard, just to make sure you are still breathing."
The confession made Sandrone freeze, the air turning to lead in her lungs.
Columbina drew closer, her grip unyielding, as if she could anchor Sandrone to the world by sheer force of will.
"Your disappearance will not make me fear less. It will destroy me."
Sandrone averted her gaze, her profile etched in the cold, unforgiving moonlight.
"I don't want you to be forced to watch me wither, piece by agonizing piece."
"So you would rather I witness you annihilate yourself in a single night?"
The air between them froze—a solid, suffocating block of ice.
Sandrone bit her lip, her hands clenching into fists before finally going limp, the fight draining out of her marrow.
"I only… wanted silence. No more pain. No more coughing. No more seeing that wretched pity in the eyes of everyone I meet."
"Then you haven't been looking closely enough," Columbina choked out, her voice a ragged sob. "That isn't pity. That is love."
The word struck like lightning, shearing through the heavy, stagnant gloom.
Sandrone began to tremble, a fine, violent shaking of her bones.
"Love cannot save me."
"But it holds you here."
Columbina lunged, pulling her into a crushing embrace. It wasn't the gentle, fragile hold of their past; it was frantic, bordering on a state of pure, unadulterated panic.
"Don't leave me like this. Don't make a choice I am powerless to stop."
Sandrone struggled feebly, her strength a ghost of what it once was.
"Let me go. I am begging you," her voice splintered into a thousand jagged shards. "I cannot continue like this. Every day is a war, and I am losing. Every single time."
Columbina shook her head, burying her face into the crook of Sandrone’s neck, her grip tightening until it was almost painful.
"If you lose, then we lose together. You aren't allowed to decide for both of us."
"I am not strong enough anymore!"
"It doesn't matter!"
Columbina broke. No more masks of composure. No more forced gentleness.
Her sobs echoed through the darkened room, raw and visceral, like a gaping wound being torn wider.
"I don't need you to be strong. I just need you to be here."
Sandrone went rigid.
This sound—it was nothing like the muffled weeping she had overheard behind closed doors. This was naked. Unfiltered. Helpless.
Columbina clung to her as a drowning soul clings to a final, splintering piece of wreckage.
"I am terrified every day. I fear every lab result. I fear every breath you take that sounds like a rattle. But nothing—nothing—scares me as much as the thought of you choosing to leave."
The dam finally burst. Sandrone’s own tears began to fall, hot and silent.
"I thought… if I disappeared early, it would spare you the worst of the ache."
"You are deciding for me," Columbina gasped through her tears. "Do you truly believe I want a world that doesn't contain you?"
The question hung suspended between them, a heavy, airless thing.
Sandrone looked into that face—shattered, soaked in salt and sorrow. Columbina’s eyes were bloodshot, drowning in a sea of desperation.
This was not the gaze of someone offering pity.
This was the gaze of someone being ripped apart from the inside.
A thought began to dawn in the recesses of Sandrone’s mind—a faint, flickering light through a crack in a door.
What have I done?
She had convinced herself she was granting them both an escape.
But in truth, she was hurling Columbina into a chasm far deeper and darker than any terminal illness.
"I..." her voice trembled, a jagged thing. "I was selfish."
Columbina shook her head with a violent desperation.
"No. You were in pain. When the agony becomes too much, the soul only wants the world to stop turning."
Sandrone looked down at her hands. Hands that had once crafted the impossible, that had commanded every gear and spring with a precision measured in millimeters. Now, they were merely leaves caught in a gale, shivering and spent.
"I thought I was lucid enough to choose."
"You don't need to choose anything tonight," Columbina whispered. "We only need to survive until morning."
The statement was so simple it bordered on the absurd.
Just survive the night.
Not a lifetime. Not a victory over the rot in her lungs. Not a display of grand courage.
Just... stay.
Sandrone finally broke, a raw sob tearing from her throat. The mask of iron was gone. The fortress had fallen.
"I’m terrified of the pain. I’m terrified of dying. I’m terrified of living," she choked out. "I don’t even know which fear is supposed to be the master of the others."
Columbina stroked her hair, her own tears continuing their silent trek.
"Then we will be afraid together. But you are not allowed to leave the room before I do."
"Please."
Sandrone clung to Columbina’s shirt, like a child anchoring themselves to the only stable thing in the middle of a hurricane.
"I’m sorry."
"It’s alright."
"I... I frightened you."
"You are still here," Columbina said, her voice shaking but forged in steel. "That is enough. That is everything."
They remained there for an eternity. Neither was willing to be the first to let go, as if the contact itself was the only thing keeping the universe from unravelling.
Finally, Sandrone allowed herself to be drawn away from the window. She let Columbina pull her down onto the floor, where they sat huddled against one another.
The bottles of medicine remained on the desk, silent witnesses to a tragedy that had almost been written.
Sandrone looked at them, then slowly averted her eyes.
"I don’t want to die," she said, her voice a fragile sliver. "I just don’t want it to hurt anymore."
"Then we will find a way to soften the edge," Columbina replied. "The doctors. The medicine. Anything and everything. But not by disappearing."
Sandrone nodded, a weak, defeated motion.
The night was still long, but it no longer felt like a solid block of ink.
Columbina guided her back to bed—to their bed. Sandrone lay down, her head resting against Columbina’s chest, listening to the steady, rhythmic thrumming of a living heart.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
The sound offered no grand promises, only the singular, absolute truth of presence.
Sandrone closed her eyes, her breathing finally evening out.
"I almost did something that could never be undone."
"But you didn't," Columbina breathed into the dark.
"Because you wept."
Columbina offered a weary, melancholic smile.
"If it’s what’s required, I will weep every single day."
"Don't," Sandrone said softly, her voice a fragile thread. "I never want to see you like that again."
"Then stay."
A gentle, aching lull settled over them.
Outside, the sky began to bleed into a pale, translucent grey. Dawn arrived slowly—a guest uninvited, yet patiently knocking at the door with light that offered no apologies.
Sandrone opened her eyes as the first sliver of morning spilled into the room.
She was still here.
Columbina’s arms were still anchored around her.
The body was still failing. The lungs still burned. The future remained a dense, impenetrable fog.
But something fundamental had shifted in the clockwork.
The desire to unilaterally dictate her own end had withered away.
She turned her head, watching Columbina, who had finally succumbed to the grey sleep of absolute exhaustion. Dried tear tracks remained like silver scars upon her cheeks.
A wave of remorse surged within Sandrone—not the self-destructive kind that fed on shadows, but a cold, crystalline realization.
She had nearly turned the person she loved into a survivor of a wound that would never, through all of time, truly heal.
Sandrone reached out, her fingers grazing Columbina’s cheek with the lightness of a ghost.
"I won't do it again," she whispered to the quiet. "At the very least, I will not decide from the hollow of despair."
Columbina stirred slightly, a soft murmur escaping her, but she did not wake.
Outside, the city began its restless awakening.
In the small room, two souls remained entwined amidst the psychological wreckage of a night of horrors.
There were no miracles. There were no hollow promises of recovery.
Only a decision—fragile, yet undeniably real.
To stay.
And if the darkness ever encroached again, they would remember the sobbing in the dark. They would remember the embrace that had tethered a life back from the edge of the abyss.
Sometimes, the thing that saves us is not a brilliant, blinding light.
It is a trembling person holding us tight, whispering through their tears:
"Don't go."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After that night on the precipice, the world did not suddenly ignite with brilliance. There were no triumphant fanfares, no radiant miracles to sweep away the encroaching shadows.
There were only mornings.
Mornings where Sandrone opened her eyes, drew in a breath that tasted of sharp needles, and thought: I am still here.
She began to watch time the way one watches the final drops of water in a cracked glass vial. Each passing day was no longer a blur; it had weight. It had sound. It had footprints.
Her body remained fragile. The cough still arrived like an unbidden, unwelcome guest. But something else had taken root inside her, quiet and resilient.
Consciousness.
The realization that if she had to depart one day, she did not want to leave this world with hollow hands and a heart composed entirely of regrets.
One afternoon, while Columbina was out collecting prescriptions, Sandrone sat in her workshop. Sunlight spilled across the workbench, coating her mechanical tools in a layer of gold as thick and sweet as honey.
She let her fingers ghost over them.
Small pliers. A soldering iron. Tiny, intricate gears. Wires as fine as a strand of hair. These things had once been extensions of her very soul.
"At least," she murmured to the empty room, "I still have my hands."
The idea did not arrive with a roar. It didn't flash like lightning. It was a seed falling into the earth, silently taking root.
A music box.
But not a simple trinket that played a few tinny notes on a wind-up spring. She wanted to build something transcendent. A music box equipped with an internal amplifier, a speaker, and an exquisite mechanical core. An artifact that stood at the intersection of the classical and the modern.
Something for Columbina.
"The final project," Sandrone whispered.
It sounded like a manifesto. It sounded like a goodbye.
She began to sketch.
The pencil glided over the parchment, tracing the soft curves of the wooden casing, the meticulously calculated gears, and a rotating spindle mechanism integrated with a compact amplification circuit. She designed a hidden speaker chamber beneath the lid, veiled by intricate carvings so the sound could escape without betraying the machinery within.
Though her hands shook with a persistent, maddening tremor, she did not falter.
This was not merely a music box. It was the sum of her heart, translated into brass and wood.
Whenever the cough seized her, she was forced to stop. The pain sheared through her chest like a serrated blade. But instead of hurling her pen in frustration as she once would have, she simply waited for the agony to ebb, and then she continued.
Time was no longer an abstract enemy. It was raw material.
She worked while Columbina slept. She worked while Columbina was away. She hid the blueprints beneath a mountain of old documents at the bottom of a drawer to evade those watchful, loving eyes.
Once, Columbina opened the door without warning.
Sandrone snapped the lid of her component box shut instantly, feigning an interest in old paperwork.
"You shouldn't be working so hard," Columbina murmured, her brow furrowing.
"I’m just reviewing some old archives," Sandrone shrugged, her voice steady. "Sitting idle all day is a fate worse than death."
Columbina did not press. Or perhaps she suspected, but chose the mercy of silence.
In the days that followed, the workshop began to hum with familiar ghosts.
The rhythmic clink of metal. The soft hiss of the solder. The faint whir of gears being tested. These sounds had once been Sandrone’s life-pulse. Now, they became a second heartbeat.
She chose dark pine for the casing—deep, warm, and unpretentious. She wanted Columbina to feel a sense of solidity when she touched it, a reflection of the strength Columbina had once found in her.
The carving was the most grueling labor.
Her hands were no longer the precision instruments they once were. Once, the blade slipped, leaving an unintended gouge in the wood. She stared at the scar for a long time.
Then, she chose not to fix it.
She decided to keep it.
"Nothing is perfect," she whispered to herself, her voice a ghostly rasp. "Let this scar be my witness. Let it be the proof that I was here, and that my hands were once steady."
The device sat upon the workbench, an artifact that seemed to have stepped out of a late-century afternoon. Its wooden chassis had been buffed to a dull, soulful luster—a deep brown warmth like aged honey. Rising from it, the brass gramophone horn flared outward, curving with the grace of a metallic blossom in mid-bloom, poised to capture and release the melodies sleeping within the small, circular disc.
As her hand slowly turned the crank on the side, the springs and gears buried within the wooden heart began to rouse. The mainspring coiled tight, storing potential energy like a mechanical heartbeat, then slowly surrendered its strength, driving the platter in a smooth, rhythmic rotation. The vinyl disc turned with a deliberate grace, its surface dark and obsidian like a still pond, yet etched with infinite spiral grooves—tiny labyrinthine paths designed to guide the sound home.
A slender needle descended, finding its place within the groove. As the disc spun, the minute undulations of the track forced the needle to vibrate—a frantic, delicate shivering against the microscopic waves engraved long ago. These infinitesimal tremors traveled through the diaphragm of the soundbox, transmuting mechanical motion into the fragile ghost of a song.
Then, the sound flowed into the yawning cavern of the brass horn. Within that metallic hollow, every vibration was amplified, expanding and blossoming into a full-bodied melody. And so, from a tiny needle touching a track as thin as a strand of hair, the entire room was suddenly saturated with music.
No wires. No flashing lights of modern artifice. Only wood, metal, springs, and a revolving disc. Yet, when all these parts moved in concert, the small machine possessed the power to awaken songs that had slumbered for decades, letting them drift out of the horn like memories finally finding their voice.
Sandrone stared at her creation. It was halfway to completion, but the core of the gift was now alive. There was still one final component to finish.
A sudden cough seized her. It was violent. Relentless.
She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white, her body bowing under the weight of the spasm. When the fit finally ebbed, her palms were slick with cold sweat.
Her body was a cruel clock, reminding her that her time was not infinite.
Yet, instead of falling into the abyss of despair, she worked faster. Her movements possessed a frantic, purposeful clarity.
She took a small engraving tool and etched a single line of text into the lower left corner of the music box, right where the eye would naturally fall.
“For my greatest love.”
No signature. There was no need for one.
Now… for the final piece.
In the days that followed, Columbina began to notice a subtle shift in the atmosphere surrounding Sandrone.
She was still frail. Still plagued by an exhausting fatigue. But the hollowness in her eyes—that terrifying, empty void—had vanished.
Once, Columbina found her sitting by the window, staring out at the world with a strange, piercing intensity.
"What are you thinking about?" Columbina asked softly.
Sandrone smiled. It was a faint thing, but genuine.
"That I don't want to waste another single day."
Columbina didn't fully grasp the weight behind those words, but she felt the tension in her own chest loosen just a fraction.
In the sanctuary of her secret labor, the music box reached its finished state.
On the final day of its completion, Sandrone placed it in the center of the table and simply watched it.
It wasn't overly large. It didn't glitter. It was not ostentatious.
But it contained everything she had left to give.
Her time. Her focus. Her love.
Sandrone let her fingertips linger on the smooth, polished grain of the wood.
"I hope you’ll hear me." she whispered, her voice barely a ripple in the quiet of the workshop.
She meant it in the truest sense of the word—not through a digital recording, but through the raw, physical vibration of a needle against a groove. The most authentic sound in all the world.
Beyond the heavy oak door, she could hear the domestic symphony of Columbina preparing dinner—the soft clatter of porcelain, the gentle hum of a song. Columbina remained entirely unaware that within this room, a warmth had been crafted specifically for her, waiting to be discovered.
And this time, Sandrone had not built it as a final curtain call.
She had built it as a testament—a defiance. To prove that even as her body withered, she still possessed the power to forge something that would outlive her. Something that would breathe when she no longer could.
A gramophone.
A gift.
A tender, indelible mark left behind in the slipstream of time, which was now rushing past her like sand through desperate fingers.
============================================
That afternoon, the sky offered neither sun nor rain. A pale, translucent grey stretched across the city like a sheet of unwritten parchment. The wind prowled through the narrow alleyways, carrying the scent of cold iron and the dust of passing time.
Sandrone stood before the workshop mirror, adjusting her collar.
It was a minute movement, yet she had to pause halfway just to draw breath. her cheeks had hollowed out significantly, her eyes sunken into deeper shadows, but the gaze within them had shifted.
No more evasion. No more frantic panic. Only a lucidity that bordered on the glacial.
The gramophone sat on the workbench, shrouded in a layer of dark velvet. From the outside, it appeared unremarkable—a compact object, small enough to be cradled between two hands.
But Sandrone knew exactly how much it weighed. She picked it up, her arms vibrating with a faint, persistent tremor.
"It's time," she murmured to the empty room.
Columbina was in the living room, immersed in a book. The moment Sandrone stepped out, she looked up, her internal compass snapping toward her instantly.
"Where are you going?"
"Out for a while. To meet Arlecchino."
Columbina’s brow furrowed, a shadow of protest forming. "You don't need to—"
"I want to," Sandrone interrupted with a ghost of a smile. "Just a conversation."
"Let me go with you—"
"No need. I’ve already called for a carriage."
Columbina’s gaze lingered on her face, searching for a hidden motive, weighing the risks. Finally, she offered a reluctant nod.
"Don't stay out long."
"I know my limits."
The phrase sounded like a grim joke, and they both knew it wasn't one.
Arlecchino was waiting at the old café at the end of the cobblestone street. The establishment was sparse. Amber light spilled onto the wooden tables, creating warm islands of gold amidst the grey afternoon.
Arlecchino sat with a rigid, military posture, her hands interlaced. When she saw Sandrone enter, she stood immediately.
Her sharp gaze swept over Sandrone’s thinned frame, noting the labored rhythm of her breathing. A flicker of pain crossed her features—there and gone in a heartbeat—replaced by her customary stoicism.
"You made it," Arlecchino said.
"I’m not so frail that I can't walk," Sandrone countered, her voice dry but devoid of its usual bite.
They sat opposite each other.
A fragile silence stretched between them for a few heartbeats. Not for a lack of words, but because they both understood this was not the kind of meeting that could be initiated with pleasantries.
Sandrone placed the velvet-wrapped bundle on the table.
"Arlecchino."
The way she spoke the name commanded instant attention. No sarcasm. No mockery. Only a blunt, terrifying earnestness.
"You are aware of my situation."
Arlecchino didn't answer immediately. Her heterochromatic eyes remained unreadable. "I know enough not to ask useless questions."
Sandrone nodded.
"I don't want Columbina to know about this conversation."
Arlecchino’s brow quirked ever so slightly.
"What exactly are you planning?"
Sandrone slowly unfurled the velvet.
The gramophone revealed itself under the warm lamplight. Dark pine, polished to a mirror-like finish. Intricate carvings spiraled along the edges of the lid—subtle, yet clearly the labor of someone who had poured their entire being into every detail.
Arlecchino stared at it for a long time.
"You built this?"
"The final project."
The air between them grew heavy, saturated with the weight of an unspoken conclusion.
"Don't speak in such tones," Arlecchino’s voice dropped, vibrating with a low, dangerous warning.
"I am not speaking to incite tragedy," Sandrone countered, her composure terrifying in its stillness. "I speak because it is the truth. I no longer have the luxury of wasting what little time remains."
Arlecchino’s hand tightened beneath the table, her leather gloves creaking faintly.
Sandrone slid the box across the polished wood toward her.
"I want you to keep it."
"Keep it?"
"And deliver it to Columbina… only after I am gone."
The sentence wasn't shouted. It wasn't whispered with a Tremor. It was laid upon the table like a small, sharpened blade.
Arlecchino stared at her, her gaze piercing. "You’re asking me to simply wait for that day to arrive?"
"I’m asking you to ensure that when it does, she has this."
Arlecchino let out a short, mirthless hèn. A sound devoid of any joy. "You truly believe I possess the callousness to hand over a gift like this in the immediate wake of losing you?"
Sandrone met her eyes directly, unflinching. "That is precisely why I chose you."
It wasn't because Arlecchino was soft. Quite the opposite. It was because she was the only one capable of standing upright when everyone else collapsed.
Arlecchino looked down at the gramophone. Then, she watched as Sandrone pulled a leather portfolio from her bag and placed it beside the machine.
She opened it.
The contents caused even the "Knave" to freeze. Her gaze softened—a rare, almost spectral occurrence.
"This…"
"A good idea, isn't it?" Sandrone said. "I think, with this in her possession, she might feel a little less adrift. A little less alone."
Arlecchino closed the portfolio, her fingertips lingering on the edge. "You truly don't intend to give these to her yourself?"
Sandrone shook her head. "If I give them to her while I am still drawing breath, they become a goodbye. A finality."
"And afterward, they aren't?"
"Afterward… they are a testament," Sandrone replied, her eyes unfathomable. "A proof of just how much I loved her."
Arlecchino studied her, those dark, hollow eyes searching for the exact percentage of despair hidden within that statement.
"Have you considered… continuing the fight?"
"I am fighting," Sandrone coughed, a sharp spasm that forced her to pause for several agonizing seconds. "But fighting does not mean denying the possibility of a loss."
Arlecchino leaned forward, her presence heavy and demanding. "I loathe the way you speak of death as if it were merely another project to be finalized."
"I am not preparing to die," Sandrone corrected her softly. "It is simply… a necessary arrangement."
A long, suffocating silence followed. Outside the glass, the wind rattled the hanging sign of the café, a rhythmic, lonely sound in the grey afternoon.
Arlecchino let her hand rest upon the leather portfolio, the weight of it seeming to seep into her very bones.
"How heavy this is," she remarked, her voice low and strained.
Sandrone offered a smile—weary, frayed at the edges, yet entirely sincere.
"I am entrusting you with a mission."
"A 'mission' sounds far more dignified than a burden."
"Because it is."
Arlecchino’s gaze drifted back to the carvings on the gramophone. She noticed the imperfections—the lines that weren't quite straight, the gouges that bit a little too deep into the wood.
She saw them.
And in those flaws, she understood the struggle: the labored breaths, the agonizing focus, the sheer, exhausting willpower required to force a dying body to create something this precious.
Her eyes caught the inscription etched on the side, and she let out a breath so faint it was almost a ghost of a sigh.
What a tragic waste.
"When did you find the time to do this?"
"While Columbina slept. Or while she was out," Sandrone replied. "I couldn't let her know. Not yet."
"Why me, Sandrone?"
"I think you already know the answer to that."
Arlecchino inhaled sharply, the scent of cold coffee and old wood filling her lungs.
"You trust me this much?"
"I trust you enough to hand over the most important thing I possess."
The statement forced Arlecchino to look away for a brief moment.
She was not a woman prone to displays of emotion. Yet now, she felt a sudden, sharp constriction in her throat.
"You make me feel like the keeper of the keys to a room that is about to be locked forever."
Sandrone turned her gaze toward the window, watching the grey light fade.
"I hope that room stays open much longer than we anticipate."
A hollow silence followed. Then, Sandrone spoke, her voice barely more than a whisper:
"I am not as afraid of death as I am of leaving her alone."
Arlecchino’s response was immediate, cutting through the gloom.
"Then don't leave."
"There are some mechanisms I cannot control," Sandrone shrugged, a faint, brittle gesture. "But I can control this."
She gestured toward the two objects sitting between them.
"Don't give them to her immediately. Wait until after the funeral. Wait until the dust has settled—until she is ready to accept what they mean."
Arlecchino offered a slow, solemn nod.
"I promise."
The vow required no flourish. No grand adjectives. Just two words.
But they were heavy enough to anchor the world.
Sandrone leaned back into the chair, letting out a long, ragged exhale.
"Thank you."
Arlecchino studied her, her expression a complex tapestry of grief and iron.
"I don't know whether to accept your gratitude or to curse you for this."
"You could do both."
A thin, fleeting smile ghosted across Arlecchino’s lips. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished into the stern lines of her face.
"You still have time," she said. This was not a casual observation. It was an edict—a command to endure.
Sandrone offered a slow, deliberate nod.
"I know."
"Then use it wisely. Do not leave room for the shadows of regret later on."
Sandrone looked down at her hands, the tremors stilled for a brief, miraculous second.
"I am trying."
Arlecchino reached out and took the gramophone, re-shrouding it in the dark velvet with a reverence she rarely showed to anything.
"Very well. I will keep it."
She fixed Sandrone with a sharp, unwavering gaze.
"But I hope I am forced to keep it for a very long time."
Sandrone let out a faint, brittle laugh.
"As do I."
They sat in the quiet for a few moments more, the air between them no longer charged with the electricity of a confrontation, but with the heavy, shared weight of an unspoken pact.
When Sandrone finally stood to leave, her footsteps were slow, but they were steady. It wasn't because she had embraced her end with open arms. It was because she had fulfilled a vital obligation.
Those two objects were more than just artifacts of wood and paper. They were the distilled courage of a woman who had once wanted to abandon everything, yet chose instead to leave behind the tenderest part of herself for the person she loved.
Arlecchino remained in the café, alone.
She placed her hand on the velvet bundle, feeling the cold shape of the machine beneath.
For the first time in an age, she did not feel like the master of the chessboard, the one manipulating the pieces.
Instead, she felt like the guardian of a fragment of someone else’s heart.
And she would not let it fall.
======================================
In the days following the meeting with Arlecchino, no miracles occurred.
No divine intervention slipped through the window at midnight. No news arrived to claim the lab results had been a cosmic error. Sandrone’s body remained a fragile, failing thing; the coughs persisted, as inseparable and persistent as a shadow stitched to her heels.
Yet, something fundamental had shifted.
The shift lay in the way they inhabited their days.
Neither of them spoke the phrase “the final days.” It was an invisible sign suspended between them—visible to both, yet never read aloud.
On the first morning after the meeting, Sandrone woke earlier than usual. She lay perfectly still, listening to the cadence of Columbina’s breathing beside her. It was steady, warm, and brimming with the vitality that Sandrone herself was losing.
The morning light crept into the room on tiptoe. It wasn't brilliant; it was just enough to trace the silhouette of the woman lying next to her.
Sandrone reached out, her fingers ghosting over a stray lock of hair on Columbina’s forehead.
“I am still here,” she thought.
And for the first time in an age, the thought did not feel like a leaden weight.
Columbina’s eyes fluttered open, sensing the movement.
"You're awake?" Her voice was thick with sleep, soft as unspun silk.
"Yes," Sandrone replied, drawing Columbina into a gentle, tentative embrace. "You were sleeping so soundly."
Columbina smiled, a slow, languid expression.
"You must be quite fond of my face."
"Not just your face." Sandrone answered quietly.
There was no mockery in her tone. Only a simple, unadorned truth.
They began to cook together.
In the past, the kitchen had been Sandrone’s domain. Columbina would usually observe or set the table. Now, Sandrone stood by the stove, leaning her weight slightly against the counter whenever a wave of vertigo washed over her.
"You should just sit," Columbina said, watching as Sandrone struggled to chop vegetables.
"I can still manage," Sandrone countered, a spark of her old defiance in her eyes.
"Your hands are trembling."
"The knife is simply... unsatisfactory."
Columbina let out a genuine laugh.
The sound echoed through the small kitchen, mingling with the sizzle of oil. The scent of cooking rose—warm, familiar, domestic. It wasn't a feast of delicacies; just the simple meals they had shared a thousand times before.
But today, Sandrone noticed every detail.
The rhythmic thwack of the knife against the wood.
The steam blurring the windowpane.
The way Columbina occasionally brushed hair from her ear with the back of a flour-dusted hand.
Things that had once been the background noise of her life had suddenly become the center of her universe.
When the exhaustion finally became too much to ignore, Sandrone sat down quietly. Columbina placed a glass of warm water before her without a word.
"You don't need to force yourself," Columbina murmured.
"I’m not," Sandrone said softly. "...I just want to be with you a little more."
Columbina’s hand faltered for a fraction of a second before she resumed stirring the pan.
"Your presence is already more than enough."
Sandrone watched her. She thought about how, in the past, she had often been present only in body, while her mind was elsewhere—lost in blueprints, buried in mechanisms, or caught in endless calculations.
Now, for the first time, she was here entirely.
--------------
They began taking walks in the late afternoon.
Never far. Just around the neighborhood. There were days when Sandrone had to stop in the middle of the street just to catch her breath. Columbina never spoke; she simply stood beside her, a steady hand resting lightly on the small of Sandrone’s back.
The early autumn wind swept through the trees, carrying the scent of dry leaves and mellow sunlight.
"Do you remember the first time we walked this path?" Columbina asked.
"I do," Sandrone replied. "I complained that it was far too crowded."
"And you walked ahead, leaving me behind."
"I thought you would catch up."
Columbina let out a soft laugh.
"You always thought I would catch up."
Sandrone looked down at her hand, then slowly reached out.
Columbina took it.
This time, no one walked ahead.
They moved slowly—so slowly that even a running child could easily overtake them. But no one was in a hurry.
Once, while they were resting on a stone bench, Sandrone leaned her head against Columbina’s shoulder.
"Are you angry with me?" she asked abruptly.
"For what?"
"For wanting to leave."
Columbina fell silent for several seconds.
"Yes," she answered honestly. "I was angry."
Sandrone offered a faint, understanding nod.
"But I was angrier with myself," Columbina continued. "I was angry that I wasn't enough to make you want to stay."
Sandrone looked up, her gaze searching.
"You are enough," she said. "You are the reason I am still here."
The wind brushed past, causing the canopy above to shiver. No more words were needed. Between them, a fragile, gossamer peace was beginning to grow.
-------------
There were days when Sandrone was too exhausted to step outside.
On those days, they stayed indoors, throwing the windows wide to let the light flood in. Columbina would read aloud. Her voice was steady, dipping into low tones at the sad parts and brightening at the joyful ones.
Sandrone lay on the sofa, her eyes half-closed, simply listening.
"I like hearing you read," she said.
"Hmm?"
"Because of your voice. It sounds... like home."
Columbina offered a tender smile.
"If you say things like that, I’ll end up reading for the rest of the day."
"Then do exactly that," Sandrone murmured. "Read for me."
There were moments when Sandrone drifted into sleep mid-sentence. Upon waking, she would still hear Columbina’s voice, steady and unceasing.
It was as if Columbina read not to tell a story, but to keep the room anchored in sound—to ensure that no other silence, no other intruder, could find a way inside except for the cadence of her voice.
--------------------
One evening, they decided to look through old photographs.
The box was placed on the table, its lid lifted with a quiet reverence. Columbina drew out the first picture. In it, Sandrone looked vibrant, her gaze sharp, wearing a smirk that radiated an effortless, almost arrogant confidence.
It's a picture back when they were in highschool.
"You look so insufferable here," Columbina remarked.
"I have always been insufferable."
"No," Columbina shook her head. "You were just very skilled at hiding how tender you could be."
Sandrone stared at the photograph for a long time.
"At that moment, I truly believed I was invincible."
"And now?"
"Now, I know I am not," Sandrone replied. "But I no longer feel the shame of it."
Columbina rested her hand over Sandrone’s.
"You never needed to be invincible."
"I know that now."
They continued through the box. Short trips. Small gatherings. Moments so mundane that, at the time, they had seemed hardly worth recording. Now, each photograph felt like a small door opening into a lost world.
"Do you have any regrets?" Columbina asked.
Sandrone paused, searching the depths of her mind.
"Yes," she admitted. "I regret being so busy that I forgot to simply exist beside you for longer."
Columbina didn't answer. She only tightened her grip, a silent acknowledgment of the ache they both shared.
----------------
One night, the rain fell in a torrent.
The downpour lashed against the windowpane like thousands of frantic fingers tapping for entry. Sandrone sat up in bed, staring out. The streetlights were blurred by the water into long, weeping streaks of amber.
"You like the rain," Columbina said, approaching the bed.
"I do," Sandrone replied. "The rain forces everything to slow down."
A cough seized her—longer this time, more taxing. Columbina sat beside her, waiting patiently until the spasm finally ebbed into silence.
"Does it hurt?" Columbina asked softly.
"Yes," Sandrone was honest. "But it isn't always the pain that's the hardest."
Columbina wrapped her arms around her from behind, a protective cocoon against the world.
They sat there, listening to the rain.
They didn't speak of the sickness. They didn't speak of the horizon.
Instead, they spoke of how slick the cobblestones would be after the storm. They spoke of the distant rumble of thunder. They spoke of how, if the sun came out tomorrow, they would hang the laundry to dry.
Small, undramatic conversations.
Yet, it was these very things that made the illness feel distant—as if it were merely an uninvited guest forced to wait outside the door, unable to breach the warmth of the room.
One day, Sandrone took it upon herself to brew tea for Columbina.
Her movements were slow. Meticulous. She measured the tea leaves, timed the steeping with a watchmaker’s precision, and poured the amber liquid into white porcelain cups.
"You’re acting as if you’re performing a sacred rite," Columbina teased gently.
"It is a rite," Sandrone replied, her voice steady.
Columbina watched her for a long time, her gaze unwavering.
They sat opposite each other, lifting their cups. The steam rose in delicate tendrils, weaving through the air between them, a warm veil of domesticity.
Sandrone fixed her eyes on the face before her. Every line. Every fleeting expression. Every micro-shift of emotion.
"I want to remember you exactly like this," she said.
"Like what?"
"At peace."
Columbina smiled, though the rims of her eyes were tinged with a faint, aching red. "Then look closely. Don't miss a thing."
And Sandrone looked.
She looked as if she were engraving the image directly onto the circuitry of her memory, a blueprint that would never fade.
The illness remained, a constant specter in the corner of the room. But it was no longer the protagonist of their story.
They began to write down the small things they wished to do.
It wasn’t a grand bucket list. Just a few lines on a scrap of paper pinned to the refrigerator.
Finish that old movie we started months ago.
Cook something new, even if it’s a disaster.
Write a letter that will never be sent. Watch the sunrise, at least one more time.
They moved through the list, item by item.
There were tasks for which Sandrone no longer had the strength. In those moments, Columbina took over, yet she always managed to pull Sandrone in, one way or another.
"Just sit here beside me."
"Just give it a taste."
"Just lean against me."
The days no longer felt like a countdown toward an end. Instead, they felt like the pages of a beloved book being turned very, very slowly.
----------------------
There were evenings when Sandrone was too exhausted to speak. She would simply lie with her head in Columbina’s lap, listening to her recount the trivialities of the day.
The new bakery at the corner. The stray cat that napped on the porch steps. The elderly neighbor who had just planted fresh flowers.
Stories that had absolutely nothing to do with medicine or mortality.
And for that very reason, they were priceless.
Sandrone closed her eyes, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "If there is a next life," she said once, her voice hazy with fatigue, "I want to find you all over again."
Columbina leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.
"If there is a next life..."
Outside, time continued its relentless march. No one possessed the power to arrest it.
But within that small house—amidst the soft morning sun, the afternoon drafts, and the rhythm of the falling rain—two people had carved out a space of their own. A world that belonged to no one but them.
In that space, the illness did not vanish.
But it was no longer the sovereign.
Within those walls, every touch of a hand, every muted laugh, every cup of warm tea became a living testament that they had truly existed.
Not in the shadow of fear.
But in the grace of tenderness.
And regardless of what the dawn might bring, those days remained—etched into the foundation of the world.
They were like a melody playing softly in a quiet room, warm enough to make one believe that, sometimes, love is simply the way human beings light a lamp against the gathering dark.
----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
---------------
The morning was preternaturally clear. Sunlight spilled into the small garden in soft, dappled patches, filtering through the camellia trees Sandrone had planted the very first year they moved here. The petals, fragile as frost, trembled in the breeze, exhaling a scent so fleeting that one might mistake it for a trick of the imagination.
Inside the bedroom, however, the air was saturated with a different kind of stillness.
Sandrone lay on her side, cradled within Columbina’s embrace. Her beige hair was splayed across the pillow, a few stray strands snagged against the collar of her thin nightgown. Her breathing was faint—so faint that every time her chest rose, Columbina had to watch with a haunting intensity, fearing that a single moment of distraction might mean losing her forever.
Sandrone had refused to cut her hair, just as she had refused to spend her remaining days within the sterile walls of a hospital. To say she was fighting the illness with all her might wouldn't be entirely accurate; but to say she had given up would be an even greater falsehood. There were simply some things—some parts of herself—she refused to let go.
Columbina had been awake all night.
In truth, she had been awake for many nights now. She had learned to recognize every variation in Sandrone’s breathing as if memorizing a fragile piece of music. Sometimes it was as rhythmic as the ticking of a clock; other times, it was as precarious as a single thread stretched between two opposing winds.
Today, that rhythm was weaker.
Columbina did not cry. Her amethyst eyes remained calm, but behind that stillness lay an ocean so quiet it was terrifying. She tightened her hold, as if by sheer force of will she could anchor Sandrone to this world.
"Can you hear the birds?" Columbina asked softly, her voice a mere ripple across the surface of the silence.
Sandrone’s eyelashes fluttered. A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "I can… they’re so noisy."
"Yes. They’ve never quite learned how to keep still."
Sandrone let out a faint breath, a sound that nearly dissolved into the air. "Neither have you."
Columbina’s lips curved. "Me?"
"You’re always rambling… but I never hated it."
It was a simple confession, yet it made the air in the room vibrate with a sudden, sharp ache. Columbina bowed her head, her forehead resting against Sandrone’s hair.
"It’s so soft."
"Hmm." Sandrone stirred slightly, her breath brushing against Columbina’s neck like the wing of a butterfly. "I’m only telling the truth."
Their final days had passed in this specific kind of tenderness. They had sipped tea together on the porch back when Sandrone still had the strength to sit upright. Columbina would read her fragments of trivial news, tell her stories about passersby, the color of the sky, or a cloud shaped like a giant, slumbering cat.
Sandrone would listen, her eyes reflecting a soft, shimmering light. On certain afternoons, she would ask Columbina to bring out her old inventions—the machines that had once been her crowning pride. She no longer had the strength to repair or command them, but the mere sight of them made her eyes ignite like lamps in a darkened room.
"Are they still running well?" Sandrone asked.
"They run perfectly," Columbina replied, her voice unwavering. "But none are as exquisite as the one who created them."
Sandrone shook her head weakly. "There you go again, flattering me."
"I am only telling the truth."
In reality, within Columbina’s heart, all those machines had long since become meaningless. They were no longer masterpieces; they were no longer symbols of glory. They were merely objects that Sandrone’s hands had once touched. And now, as those hands grew thinner and colder, the machines were transforming into relics of a world about to depart.
But Columbina allowed none of this to show.
She continued to smile. She still brewed the tea at the exact temperature Sandrone preferred. She adjusted the pillows, drew up the blankets, and kept everything in meticulous order, as if their life together would continue this way forever.
Until the morning after.
Sandrone opened her eyes once more. Her gaze lacked its former sharpness, yet it remained unfathomably deep. She looked at Columbina for a long time, as if etching every curve of her face into her final memory.
"Columbina."
"Yes?"
"If I fall asleep… please don't wake me up."
Columbina didn't answer immediately. She reached out, her fingers grazing Sandrone’s cheek. The skin was colder than it had been yesterday.
"I’ll be here," she said softly. "No matter how long you sleep."
Sandrone smiled. It was a look of profound peace. No fear. No lingering regrets. Only the quiet composure of one who had accepted the relentless flow of time.
She shifted slightly, pressing closer to Columbina. Her thin hand came to rest against Columbina’s chest, right where her heart was still beating a steady rhythm.
"Do you remember…" Sandrone whispered. "The first time I told you I loved you… you laughed as if you’d never laughed before."
Columbina let out a soft laugh. The sound was thin but warm. "Because you said it in a laboratory filled with smoke."
"I was never very good at choosing the right moment."
"But you were always brilliant at choosing the right person."
Sandrone chuckled faintly, followed by a small, shallow cough. The sound was as fragile as a leaf touching the ground.
Columbina held her tighter.
"Columbina," Sandrone called her name, her voice a mere thread.
"What is it, Sandrone?" Columbina leaned closer, the distance between them no thicker than a sliver of paper.
"Please… you must live on. Live for the part of me that cannot."
Columbina trembled, a silent shudder passing through her frame, before she offered a quiet, solemn nod.
"I will."
Time in the room seemed to decelerate. Outside, the sun had climbed higher, its light reaching the edge of the bed. A golden beam touched Sandrone’s hand, making her pale skin glow with a spectral, gentle hue.
Her breathing slowed.
Columbina felt every single breath. She counted them in her mind, just as she used to count the heartbeats when Sandrone slept soundly in the days when she was still whole.
One.
Two.
Three.
The intervals between them stretched, growing longer and longer.
"I’m right here," Columbina whispered into the silence. "There is no need to hurry."
Sandrone’s lips parted slightly, a ghost of a movement as if she intended to tether one more thought to the world. But no sound came. Her eyes remained fixed on Columbina, a gaze that refused to let go even as the light within them began to recede.
Columbina leaned down, pressing a kiss as light as a feather to her forehead.
"You’ve done so well," she murmured. "You lived with everything you had. You loved with everything you were."
And for a fleeting heartbeat, Sandrone fought to release one final word.
Broken. Fragile.
"...Bina... I... love..."
One more breath.
Infinitesimal.
And then, there was nothing.
There was no grand crescendo. No theatrical display. Only a sudden, hollow ache—a void that opened between two heartbeats where one had simply ceased to follow.
Columbina did not loosen her grip.
She waited.
She waited for the return of a shallow breath. She waited for the slight rise of a chest.
But the body in her arms had grown as still as a windless lake.
Columbina did not cry.
She only held her tighter, as if she could force her own warmth into the frame that was beginning to cool. She pressed her cheek against Sandrone’s hair, breathing in the scent that lingered there—the faint aroma of coffee, the bitterness of tea, and the lingering ghost of the morning sun.
"Are you sleeping?" she whispered.
There was no answer.
"Sleep well, then." Her voice remained steady, as gentle as any other morning they had shared. "I’ll stay right here."
She began to speak. She talked of the small things. Of yesterday afternoon, when they watched the sunset bleed across the horizon. Of the camellia that had just bloomed. Of the toaster Sandrone hadn't quite finished repairing.
"I still don't understand those blueprints you left behind," Columbina said with a soft, aching laugh. "How selfish of you. Leaving me with nothing but a heap of tangled symbols."
She stroked Sandrone’s hair.
"But it’s alright. I’ll learn. I’ll understand. No matter how long it takes."
Sandrone’s hand was growing colder. Columbina took it between her own, rubbing it gently, the way she always did whenever Sandrone complained of the chill.
"You once said you weren't afraid of death," Columbina continued to whisper. "I didn't believe you. I thought everyone was afraid, in the end."
She paused, the silence of the room pressing in on her.
"Perhaps... I was the only one who was afraid."
A single drop of moisture shimmered at the corner of her eye, but it did not fall. Columbina closed her eyes and took a long, shuddering breath.
"But I won't cry," she said, her voice barely a breath. "Not because it doesn't hurt. But because I want you to leave in the warmth of my arms, not in the sound of my sobbing."
She spoke of the first time they met. Of the icy glare Sandrone had given her when misunderstood. Of the fierce arguments, the sleepless nights, and the times their laughter had echoed through every corner of the house.
Each memory she recalled was like a small lamp being lit in a room that was slowly succumbing to the dark.
"You know," Columbina whispered. "I have never regretted a single second."
She leaned down, her lips meeting Sandrone’s for the final time. A kiss that was very light, and very, very long.
Outside, the wind gave a gentle tug to the trees. A single camellia petal drifted to the earth, tracing a small, graceful spiral before coming to rest in the dirt.
Columbina remained there, holding Sandrone for a long, unmeasured time.
She stayed until the angle of the sun shifted. She stayed until the room bled from golden yellow into a soft, bruised orange. She did not let go. She called no one. She did nothing.
She simply held her.
As if letting go meant allowing the reality of the world to finally, irrevocably settle in.
Eventually, Columbina drew back. With agonizing tenderness, she adjusted Sandrone’s hair and pulled the blanket up to her chest. Her movements were careful, deliberate—the actions of someone looking after a person who was merely deep in sleep.
She sat by the bedside, memorizing that face one last time.
The pain was gone. The exhaustion had vanished. All that remained was a pure, crystalline silence.
"You look beautiful," Columbina whispered.
She stood up and opened the window to let the air rush in. The scent of the garden followed the draft, drifting through the room as light and fleeting as a farewell.
Then she returned to the bedside, sat down, and took the cold hand in hers.
"I will live on," she said, her voice steady and clear.
She pressed that hand against her own chest, over the heart that still beat for both of them.
"And I will carry you with me."
Outside, the sky opened wide, a blue so profound it seemed capable of swallowing every sorrow ever known.
In the small room, Columbina sat beside Sandrone. There was no sobbing, no desperate screaming. There were only words of love that continued to fall—soft as petals, persistent as a heartbeat that refused to stop.
She sat until the shadows of dusk blanketed the floor. She sat until the world outside began to flicker with the first evening lights.
And within Columbina’s embrace, the love remained. It did not move; it did not dissipate.
It simply changed its form.
From a breath into a memory. From a warm hand into an eternal space.
But despite the change in shape, it endured—like the light of a star that had long since died, yet continued to shimmer across the midnight sky.
Columbina bowed her head, whispering one final time into the deepening twilight.
"Sleep well, Sandrone."
The room fell silent, wrapping around them both like a vast, velvet cocoon, guarding the final moment of a love that had never known a single regret.
=========================================
====================
======
The funeral took place on a day of pale grey, as if the heavens had draped themselves in a thin veil of mourning out of courtesy for the world’s grief.
Their small house could not possibly hold the tide of those who came to pay their respects, so the service was held in an ancient chapel on the city’s edge. High stone walls and stained-glass windows filtered the daylight into hushed streaks of indigo and violet. Incense rose in slender threads, weaving a frail connection between the earth and the sky.
Sandrone lay encased in a casket blanketed by white flowers.
Columbina stood by her side.
She wore a long black dress, so stark and simple it offered no detail for the eye to cling to. Her hair fell straight, devoid of any ornament. Her face was composed, her gaze as still as a frozen lake in the heart of winter.
To a casual observer, she appeared drained of all emotion.
But those who truly knew her understood: that composure was merely a thick layer of ice concealing a turbulent, fathomless ocean beneath.
The mourners were many.
Old collaborators from the world of mechanics. Rivals who had once argued with her until they were flushed with rage. Students whose blueprints she had dissected with a sharp, unforgiving eye. Even those who had never been close, yet held a profound reverence for her intellect. And then, there were the friends of both Columbina and Sandrone—those whom Sandrone never officially claimed as "friends," yet never bothered to deny, either.
One by one, they stepped before the casket.
Bundle after bundle of flowers was laid down.
Each "My deepest condolences" fell into the air like small pebbles tossed into rippleless water.
Columbina nodded in response.
"Thank you."
Only those two words, steady and rhythmic as a heartbeat.
An old colleague of Sandrone’s took her hand, their own fingers trembling with age and grief.
"She was a genius," the person choked out. "We… we simply cannot believe it."
Columbina looked at them, her gaze softening just a fraction.
"Thank you for coming," she said quietly. "I believe Sandrone would be very pleased to see you here."
The other person let out a tearful, shaky laugh. "Yes… yes, I suppose she would."
Then they moved on.
There were embraces intended for Columbina.
There were glances that didn't dare linger for too long.
Among their closest circle, Lauma held Columbina in a fierce, crushing hug, whispering promises of, "If you need anything, anything at all, remember you can find me," before retreating to where Nefer stood in the shadows. Nefer offered a solemn, steady nod to Columbina—a silent anchor of comfort. Jahoda, Aino, and Ineffa provided a collective embrace, the three of them weeping openly like drenched kittens. Flins rested a hand briefly on her shoulder before stepping forward to bow deeply before Sandrone’s portrait; Varka, standing beside him, offered Columbina a look of profound, silent solidarity.
And then there were the twins, standing like twin sentinels on either side of Columbina—a quiet act of companionship that lasted until Columbina softly told them it was enough, thanking them with a sincerity that bridged the silence.
What remarkable friends she and Sandrone had gathered over the years.
Some stood at a distance, bowing their heads deeply before the portrait resting on the altar. In the frame, Sandrone looked as stern as she had in life—not the soft, private smile she reserved for Columbina, but the polite, practiced expression she wore for the world. To Columbina, the photograph felt hollow. Empty.
She stared at the image for a long time, a quiet protest rising in her chest.
“You should have looked brighter,” she thought. “You were always my sun, after all.”
The ceremony unfolded like a slow, mournful movement of a sonata.
When the casket was finally closed, a profound silence rippled through the chapel. The sound of wood meeting wood echoed like a door slamming shut between two worlds, final and unforgiving.
Columbina didn't even blink.
She remained anchored to her spot until the crowd finally began to disperse, a solitary figure amidst the retreating tide of black.
Outside, a fine, mist-like rain began to fall.
Black umbrellas unfurled across the courtyard like somber flowers blooming all at once. The patter of raindrops against the fabric was steady, a distant, rhythmic drumming.
Columbina stood in the open air, her own umbrella forgotten.
The rain gathered on her hair, clinging to the shoulders of her black dress. Yet, she felt no chill. The cold outside was nothing compared to the stillness within.
A familiar voice resonated from behind her.
"You should shield yourself from the rain."
Columbina turned.
Arlecchino stood there, her umbrella tilted slightly. Her gaze was as sharp as a thin blade, but today, her usual iron-clad composure flickered. There was a rare, subtle tremor of emotion in the depths of her eyes.
"You came," Columbina said.
"Yes," Arlecchino replied. "I made every effort to arrange my affairs as quickly as possible to be here."
There were no flowery sentiments. No hollow comforts.
Arlecchino stepped closer, angling her umbrella to cover Columbina, bringing them both into a shared circle of dry, grey space.
"My deepest condolences," her voice was low and resonant.
Columbina offered a faint, weary nod.
"Thank you."
A brief, heavy silence stretched between them.
"After the service," Arlecchino continued, "I wish to speak with you in private."
Columbina studied her for a moment, sensing the weight of something unspoken, then gave a slow nod.
"Very well."
-------------------------------------------------
The afternoon aged into a bruised grey. The cemetery had grown sparse, the crowds thinning until only the silence remained. The rain had ceased, leaving behind a heavy, humid atmosphere and the raw, damp scent of freshly turned earth lingering in the air.
Columbina stood before the headstone, the name Sandrone freshly carved into the stone. The letters were sharp, their edges yet to be softened by the erosion of time and winter.
She said nothing.
She simply existed there, a dark silhouette against the grey.
After a long interval, Arlecchino appeared at her side, her presence a silent, cooling shadow.
"I have never been skilled at goodbyes," Arlecchino said, her gaze fixed forward on the stone. "But I respected her. More than most."
"I know," Columbina replied, her voice barely a breath.
Arlecchino remained silent for a few more beats before turning to her.
"Come with me."
They left the garden of the dead, walking in a quiet procession to a small café nestled on a street corner nearby. The establishment was nearly empty, occupied only by a few worn wooden tables and the amber glow of dim lamps.
They sat opposite each other. The atmosphere was thick with the unsaid.
Arlecchino placed a square object onto the table, shrouded in dark velvet. Beside it, she laid a leather portfolio.
Columbina stared at them, her heart giving a sudden, painful thud.
"What is this?"
Arlecchino pushed the square bundle toward her.
"From Sandrone."
Columbina’s hand faltered, freezing inches away from the fabric.
"She entrusted these to me," Arlecchino’s voice was steady, devoid of hesitation. "With instructions to deliver them to you only after... everything had reached its end."
Columbina’s fingers trembled as she unfurled the velvet.
Inside sat a small, exquisitely crafted gramophone. The metal gleamed under the café’s amber light, its surface covered in intricate engravings—a miniature mechanical blueprint, though some lines were slightly uneven, betraying the frailty of the hands that made them. On the top, etched with painstaking care, was the familiar insignia Sandrone used only for her most cherished masterpieces.
And then, the inscription on the wood caught her eye.
“For my greatest love.”
Columbina reached out, her fingertips grazing the polished surface.
She felt every groove, every slight imperfection. It wasn't just wood and brass; it was the tactile ghost of Sandrone’s final days.
"When did she make this?" Columbina asked, her voice barely a fraying thread.
"Not long ago," Arlecchino replied. "She entrusted me with the task of delivering it to you when the time was right."
Columbina lifted the lid.
Inside lay the music-playing mechanism, assembled with a meticulous, almost desperate precision. A small hand-crank was tucked neatly into the side.
She turned it, a slow, tentative rotation.
Nothing. Only the dry, mechanical click of the gears.
The room remained submerged in silence. For a moment, she had forgotten—Columbina closed the lid, her gaze falling on the empty spindle where a record should be. If Sandrone were here, she would surely have called her a fool for expecting music from an empty machine.
Arlecchino pushed the leather portfolio toward her.
"And this."
Columbina opened it.
Inside were the records, arranged with a library’s care. Each one bore a small slip of paper, the handwriting unmistakable—sharp, purposeful, yet softening at the edges.
“Listen to this when you cannot sleep.”
“Listen when the rainy season no longer feels like a friend.”
“Listen when you feel the weight of solitude.”
"Listen when your birthday arrives.”
"Listen when you miss me too much.”
There were many more, each label a different anchor, each one a whisper of Sandrone’s lingering tenderness.
Columbina’s fingers trembled as they brushed against the ink. Arlecchino watched her, a silent witness to a grief that was finally finding its shape.
"She..." Columbina let out a laugh, as thin and fragile as a spider’s silk. "She always was one for over-calculating everything."
"She didn't want you to be alone," Arlecchino said.
Columbina looked up, her amethyst eyes searching.
"Do you think these records could ever truly replace her?"
"No," Arlecchino answered bluntly. "But they can remind you that she remains beside you. You simply cannot see her."
The words fell between them—heavy, but lacking the sharp edge of a blade.
Columbina pulled the machine and the records to her chest, clutching them as if they were the only solid things left in a world made of smoke.
"Thank you."
Arlecchino stood to leave.
"I am not skilled in the art of comfort," she said. "But if you find you need someone to sit beside you in the silence, I can do that much."
Columbina watched Arlecchino’s retreating figure until she vanished into the gloom outside.
She remained alone in the café. The amber light pooled on the table, illuminating the gramophone and the records. Columbina rested her hand on the wooden lid, tracing the engraved letters with her thumb.
"You really are something..." she whispered into the empty air. "Even in leaving, you refuse to give me a chance to hide from you."
Outside, the world succumbed to the dark.
Within the small sanctuary of the café, amidst the scent of warm coffee and old wood, Columbina sat in the quiet, cradling the final echoes of Sandrone’s heart.
The tears had stopped.
There were only the sounds waiting to be played.
And a love that, though it had changed its form, was still finding a way to speak.
=====================================
The years drifted by like fine layers of dust settling upon polished wood—noiseless, unhurried, quietly reclaiming every small corner of a human life.
Their house remained.
The camellia garden still stood before the porch, though the original trees had long since been replaced by a new generation. The wooden chair still rested by the window, where the afternoon sun visited like a familiar guest who required no invitation.
Only Columbina had changed.
Her hair had turned almost entirely silver, the soft dark luster of her youth surrendered to time. her back was no longer as straight as it once was, and her slender hands were now traced with the blue map of veins and the pale spots of age. But her eyes… those eyes remained unchanged. They were still that deep, amethyst violet, as hauntingly beautiful as the moon.
Columbina had never loved another.
It wasn't for a lack of suitors.
There were those who came, bearing tentative kindness. There were quiet, waiting glances, invitations for afternoon tea, and conversations that stretched longer than necessary. They knew about Sandrone. They knew Columbina had lost the one she loved. And they thought, perhaps, that a long enough stretch of time would eventually force open a different door.
But Columbina only offered them a smile.
A gentle smile—one that carried no rejection, yet never provided a path forward.
"My heart is already occupied," she had said once, her voice as light as tea-smoke.
And that truth never wavered.
In the living room, atop the carefully polished wooden table, the gramophone remained in its place.
It was never tucked away in a cupboard. It was never allowed to gather dust.
Columbina cleaned it every week, with the reverence one might show a sacred relic. The metal had dulled slightly over the decades, but the engravings remained intact, as sharp as the day they were made.
She played it often.
On nights when sleep eluded her, she would turn the crank, letting the mellow melody fill the dark room. On rainy days that brought a certain heaviness to her spirit, as the droplets drummed against the eaves, she would select the exact record labeled: “Listen when the rainy season no longer feels like a friend.”
Each record was a shard of memory.
Sandrone’s voice would crackle through the slight static of the aging device, yet it remained clear—imbued with that familiar, low-toned tenderness.
"Columbina, if you are listening to this on a rainy day, then you are undoubtedly sitting by the window, pretending you don't actually like it."
Columbina would let out a soft hèn in response.
"I’m not pretending," she would whisper back to the empty air. "...Well, perhaps you were right."
There were records that made her truly laugh. There were others that made her press a hand to her chest, where her heart beat slowly but steadily.
The years marched on, and one by one, the old faces departed from the world. The city shifted. Taller buildings rose, the street in front of the house was repaved, and the café where Arlecchino had once delivered the final gift had long since shuttered its doors.
Only Columbina and the memory remained.
Arlecchino had still visited occasionally in the early years. The two of them would sit opposite each other, speaking little. They simply drank tea. They shared the weight of the silence.
But then, even Arlecchino vanished from the relentless current of time, leaving yet another void in Columbina’s increasingly sparse world. Her closest friends followed, one by one, slipping away like autumn leaves into the soil.
Columbina did not complain.
She simply continued to live, her pace unhurried and rhythmic.
Mornings for the garden. Noons for her books. Afternoons for the music. Evenings spent by the window, watching the sky bleed through its palette of colors.
The portfolio that held the records of her life was nearly empty now. Only one remained untouched.
The final disc.
It sat at the very bottom of the case, marked with neat, steady handwriting: “Listen to this when you feel your own departure is near.”
Columbina had never reached for it.
She knew that to break the seal on this last melody was to acknowledge that her own journey was drawing to its inevitable close.
Late one autumn afternoon, a wind carrying the first bite of winter whistled through the crevices of the door.
Columbina sat in her familiar rocking chair. Her hands rested on the armrests, her gaze fixed on the camellia garden in full, vibrant bloom.
She felt tired.
It was a deep, marrow-heavy exhaustion, as if her body were whispering that the time for rest had finally arrived.
Her heartbeat slowed its cadence. Her breath grew shallow, no longer holding the steady rhythm of the years.
She looked down at her hands. They trembled, just a fraction.
Columbina offered a faint, knowing smile.
"So, it is time at last," she whispered, as if posing a question to the silence.
The house remained still. The last light of day fell in warm, golden ribbons across the floorboards.
She stood up slowly, her steps small but resolute. Each movement felt like pulling the final thread through the tapestry of her life, stitching the edge clean.
She moved to the table.
The gramophone was there, waiting. The portfolio was there, waiting.
Columbina sat down and opened the case. The records she had played countless times bore frayed edges and softened paper. She ran her fingers over them, touching the ghosts of her years.
Then, her hand stopped at the last one.
“Listen to this when you feel your own departure is near.”
She lifted it.
"You always knew," Columbina murmured. "Always one step ahead of me."
She placed the disc onto the platter. The needle descended with a gentle weight.
A soft, rhythmic crackle filled the air, and then—Sandrone’s voice materialized.
It was the same voice. It had not aged. It had not faded.
"Columbina."
The mere sound of her name was enough to make Columbina’s eyes well with a sudden, stinging warmth.
"If you are listening to this, then I imagine you have lived a very long time."
A small pause followed, as if Sandrone were smiling from the other side of eternity.
"I hope you lived long enough to see the camellias bloom for many more seasons. I hope you ate enough delicious meals, even without me sitting across from you."
Columbina offered a faint, breathy laugh.
"I always ate well," she whispered to the shadows. "But nothing ever tasted as sweet as when you were there."
Sandrone’s voice continued, crackling with a haunting warmth:
"I don't know what lies on the other side. Perhaps it is only darkness. Perhaps it is light. Or perhaps... it is a colossal mechanical workshop that I shall seize the moment I arrive."
Columbina let out a genuine laugh. It was frail, but it was real.
"Whatever it may be, if you feel yourself drawing near... do not be afraid."
The voice softened, losing its mechanical edge and becoming pure, unadulterated tenderness.
"You were always so much stronger than I was."
Columbina closed her eyes, letting every syllable steep into her heart like tea.
"Thank you for loving me."
She took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Thank you for not abandoning me when I became my weakest self."
Columbina’s aged hand came to rest over her heart.
"Thank you for letting me go within the warmth of your arms."
A final tear finally escaped, tracking a slow path through the wrinkles of her cheek. It wasn't a tear of grief. It was a tear of completion.
Sandrone’s voice became very light now, like a breeze slipping through the eye of a needle.
"And if you have listened this far... then perhaps you are almost here."
Columbina opened her eyes, looking out at the garden. The sunset had dyed the entire world the color of wild honey.
"I will be waiting."
A simple sentence, yet it held the weight of an entire lifetime.
Columbina’s pulse slowed its cadence. Her breath became as thin and translucent as a strand of silk.
She leaned back into the chair, her gaze still fixed on the window. Her expression was one of absolute serenity. Sandrone’s voice uttered the final words of the recording:
"And then, you and I shall meet again. We shall love each other, and we shall never, ever part."
The sound lingered for a heartbeat, then faded into a hush. The record spun one last rotation, emitting a soft, rhythmic scratching sound.
Columbina smiled.
It was a smile of profound contentment—devoid of regret, stripped of longing. In that singular moment, time folded onto itself, sewing together the two ends of a very long thread.
She felt no fear. Only a boundless sense of relief.
It was as if she had finally set down a burden she had carried for decades. Her final breath slipped from her lips, as effortless as a petal falling onto still water.
Outside, the wind gave a gentle nudge to the camellia trees.
A single petal detached itself from the branch, spiraling through the air before coming to rest on the windowsill.
Inside the small room, the golden hour draped itself over Columbina’s face, gilding her final smile in eternal light.
The gramophone remained on the table, its brass horn catching the last of the amber light.
The record had ceased its rotation, the needle resting in the silent groove at the center.
Yet, those final words seemed to linger in the very atoms of the room, vibrating softly against the old wood and the faded curtains.
"And then, you and I shall meet again. We shall love each other, and we shall never, ever part."
The chapter closed.
Not with the cold finality of a period.
But with the soaring promise of an ellipsis.
A vow.
A meeting yet to come.
_________________________________________________________________________
"What is your name?" the dark-haired girl asked, leaning toward the girl with beige hair who was buried deep within the pages of a book.
It was her first day at this school, and the teacher had assigned her a seat right beside this particular stranger. The air between them, however, felt somewhat rigid—bristling with an unspoken tension.
The girl with the beige hair offered no immediate answer. She merely knitted her brows in a flicker of annoyance at the interruption before finally turning to look at the newcomer.
Their gazes locked. And for the first time, Columbina Hyposelenia realized that such a pure and breathtaking color truly existed in the world.
"Do not disturb me," the girl snapped, already retreating back into the safety of her book.
Columbina offered a soft, yielding nod. "Very well..." she whispered, slipping back into a quiet of her own.
Perhaps the beige-haired girl felt a sudden pang of guilt, or perhaps she realized her lack of courtesy was becoming a burden. Her voice softened slightly, though her expression remained characteristically prickly.
"Sandrone."
"Hm?"
"My name is Sandrone. If your curiosity is satisfied, then this conversation ends here."
Columbina stared at her—a long, unblinking gaze so intense it began to spark a fresh wave of irritation in Sandrone. Just as Sandrone whipped around, ready to let fly a sharp, scathing remark, she froze.
Columbina was looking directly at her, and Sandrone could have sworn she was witnessing an entire universe unfolding within those eyes.
"I am very glad to know you, Sandrone."
"I am Columbina."