The Song That Was Never Written

Elias had not touched his piano in three years.

The keys sat beneath a thin layer of dust, the wood dull from neglect. It was strange — how something that once spoke louder than his own heartbeat could now sit silent, as if mourning him instead.

He used to believe every emotion had a melody — that love, pain, hope, and grief could all be translated into sound. But that was before the accident. Before silence became his only song.

He had lost more than someone that night. He had lost the music itself.

It began one winter evening, as the rain tapped gently against his apartment window. The city outside hummed with life, but inside, Elias lived in stillness. He was about to pour himself another glass of wine when he heard it — faint, like a whisper coming from another room.

A piano.

A melody so fragile it almost broke the air around it.

He froze.

The sound wasn’t coming from outside or upstairs — it was coming from his piano.

Slowly, he approached it, each note pulling him closer, until he stood before the keys that had once obeyed only him. The melody drifted through the room — haunting, beautiful, familiar.

It was the song he had always wanted to write — the one he never could.

He sat down, trembling.

The moment his fingers touched the keys, the music stopped.

He waited. Silence.

Then, as if on cue, the melody returned — only now, it came from within him. It wasn’t a sound anymore; it was a memory.

He closed his eyes, and she was there.

Mira. Her laughter. The way she leaned on the piano, teasing him for always being so serious. The promise she made before she left that night — “When you finish your song, I’ll come back to hear it.”

But she never came back.

And so, the song remained unfinished.

Elias began playing again, trying to follow the ghostly melody as it echoed through his mind.

The notes flowed easily, like they’d been waiting for him.

Every chord felt like remembering something long forgotten — the scent of her perfume, the sound of her voice, the warmth of her hand.

The piano came alive again, as though it had been waiting all this time to breathe.

Hours passed unnoticed. When he finally stopped, dawn had begun to color the window with gold.

The song was complete.

He stood, exhausted, but peaceful. On the piano, a single sheet of paper sat — one he hadn’t placed there.

Written in delicate handwriting were the words:

“You’ve finally found it.”

He smiled through tears. He recognized the handwriting — hers.

That morning, his neighbor found his door slightly open. Elias was sitting at his piano, his head resting gently on the keys, a faint smile on his face.

The melody still lingered in the room, soft as a sigh — a song that seemed to play itself.

They buried him with that piece of paper.

No one could find the song’s notation.

No one could play it again.

But sometimes, late at night, when the wind passed through the alley outside his apartment, people swore they could hear it — a soft, haunting piano melody drifting through the air.

Some songs are never written — they simply wait for the right soul to remember them.