The sound of the voice is what stopped him. High and clear, the notes floated gently through the air and whirled around him, filling his ears. He looked his left and all he saw was the local graveyard and the single barren tree twenty feet from the fence. The dead brown leaves formed a rough circle around the trunk and gathered around some of the tombstones, pushed there by the wind. Perched delicately on one of the cracked marble stones was a girl who looked about seventeen and had an alabaster white complexion. Long, chocolate colored hair was loosely tied with a black ribbon near her shoulders and fell down her back in waves that the breeze picked up and blew around gently. Her old fashioned long black skirt rippled in the wind along with the loose sleeves of her crisp, white blouse.
The boy stared at her, but the girl didn’t seem to be aware of his presence. One of her legs was up on the old and weathered tombstone; her hands were folded delicately around her ankle as she looked up at the sky with a forlorn expression. The pale girl’s shoulders shifted as she drew breath and she opened her mouth.
Instantly the air was once again full of her song. It didn’t seem to have any words, at least not in any language known to man. But this song was one that transcended language and hit your heart with its raw emotion. Her song told of beauty and love, the high, sweet notes permeating the air with the very essence of those things. Memories that didn’t belong to the boy flashed before his eyes. A costume ball, a chance encounter, a stolen kiss, and a white dress. But quickly the notes became longer and melancholy and the song filled the boy’s ears and heart with betrayal and loneliness and sadness and death. An empty room, the palm of a husbands hand, a fight, the glint of a knife. The sound of the girls own heart breaking filled her voice and the air seemed to vibrate with it.
Just as soon as it began, the song seemed to end. The boy didn’t realize the tears streaming freely down his cheeks until a drop hit his hand. Slowly the girl turned her head towards the boy, her eyes looked to be a pale green and full of sorrow nobody her age should have had to feel. She smiled a sad smile at the boy and he self- consciously rubbed his face and eyes to get rid of the tears. When he opened his eyes again the girl was gone, a swirl of dead leaves and the blow of the wind the only things left on the tombstone. Confused, the boy shook his head, unsure of what he’d seen and heard, and continued on the way home. He thought of the girl sitting on the tombstone in the graveyard and the melody he’d just heard was swirling around in his head but already fading with each passing moment.