Mr. and Mrs. Pullox were devastated. Their son Brandon, a piano child prodigy who was sent to France for advance training, died when the train to the capital city derailed from its tracks and crashed. Poor Brandon never made it to his first recital, and they will never have the chance to see him perform ever.
Because of the time it took for the French embassy to sort everything out, Mr. and Mrs. Pullox would only be able to get their son’s body in a fortnight, and because of their financial difficulties, they were unable to take the flight to France to get his body sooner, so they had no choice but to wait.
They have yet to tell anyone about the news, and those who knew through the news were forbidden to mention it in the household for fear of upsetting their little girl Hailey, who worshipped her brother like a god. They were afraid that their little girl would never recover from such a blow, and the thought of her breaking down and losing herself into despair and depression was not exactly something they wished on the only child they have left.
Hailey did question about her brother a little when she realized that his daily night calls had stopped abruptly, but they quickly waved it off as him being busy, saying that he needed the time for himself so that he could train himself to be at his best to impress her. Being left in the dark, Hailey went about her life cheerfully, waiting for the day that would never come to see her brother perform his first concert, even if it meant only on live TV.
They knew deep down inside that on the day they receive Brandon’s body, she had to find out eventually, but until then, they’d rather keep her spirits up.
A day before the supposed date of his body’s arrival, Mr. and Mrs. Pullox were awakened by a strange noise downstairs, like someone having a conversation with another. Thinking they were robbers, Mr. Pullox armed himself with a bat while Mrs. Pullox got ready with her phone to call the police just in case.
As they made their way downstairs, they saw Hailey sitting on a stool in the living room facing the piano, smiling, talking and laughing to an empty chair where Brandon’s piano was. It was Brandon’s birthday gift when he was 5 and his favourite thing in the whole wide world, and Hailey was seated beside it as she used whenever Brandon sat there for practice. Under the pale moonlight, the couple could see faint streaks of tears down their little girl’s cheeks as she continued to talk, her tone slowly going sad.
Before they could call out to her, the piano suddenly played by itself, the wonderful music that the Pullox family were so familiar with echoing down the room they were in. The piano keys were moving by themselves, the blacks moving rhythmically with the whites as the song that Brandon had composed for them the day before he left for France streamed across the room, filling the entire house with its beautiful melody.
Anyone would’ve been scared and high-tailed out of the house, but surprisingly, Mr. and Mrs. Pullox were not afraid. In fact, tears started to pour out of their eyes as the music continued right till the very end. Hailey leaned against the piano like she used to, closing her eyes as she took in every note and every beat that came out of the strong instrument, her hand tapping her knee along with it.
Once the music ended, a gentle cool breeze blew past the Pullox family, as if in a soothing manner before everything looked like the incident just now did not happen. Mrs. Pullox let out a cry and fell onto her knees, sobbing her eyes out while Mr. Pullox knelt down beside her, his legs, too, gave way as he held his wife with trembling arms. Hailey, on the other hand, stood up from her seat, wiped away the last remaining tears from her eyes and came up to her parents.
“Brother came home. He said he is now going to a better place, and said that we shouldn’t be sad for him. He said he loved us, and not to cry too much for him when his body comes home.”
Seeing the innocent smile on Hailey’s face, Mr. and Mrs. Pullox knew that everything will turn out alright in the end.
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