[ WP ] The day after a suicide attempt

There was a piano playing. A somber piece. It was familiar, something I knew at the edge of my mind. Vladimir's Blues, I thought. 
 
 My eyes opened and I glanced over at the bedside table. There sat an empty bottle of vodka and a half empty bottle of pills. And then last night memories returned accompanied by the sharp, rotten smell of vomit. 
 
 I slowly sat up, feeling the fade of intoxication. My stomach felt pain, a rawness of stripped lining, emptiness and self-digestion. Peering over the edge of the bed I found where I had been sick. I stepped over it and out of bed. 
 
 The music played still. I went to see where it came from. The corridors were in a state of ruin. Frames of paintings and photos torn from the walls and smashed onto the ground. I looked down at the glass before my feet and then I noticed my feet were bloodied. I had walked across the shards of glass last night, feeling no pain. 
 
 Well, why would it be different now. But it was. Each step, I felt jagged edges tear open old wounds and new ones on the soles of my feet. I made it across the corridor. A trail of blood smeared in my wake. 
 
 Slowly I made my way down the stairs. The music continued. The piano was there in the middle of the living room. Unoccupied. And then I realised, the song; I was hearing it in my head. 
 
 I walked to the piano, ran my fingers gently over the keys, not pressing down. She loved when I played that song. I sat down at the stool and remembered the notes. My fingers hesitated. I pressed down and the first note struck and then echoed into silence. And then slowly the next note and the next after that. As I played I looked up and saw the photo of us, together. Her laugh was captured for all time in that one moment frozen before her camera. 
 
 I wanted a picture of us, together. She always preferred being behind the camera. Too self-conscious of how she looked. Especially at that time, wasted away to a stick figure, her head bald from chemotherapy, her sunken eyes. I still saw her though. She was still the woman I loved. 
 
'There will always be terrible pictures of me taken by my friends. And where I have hair!' she said. 
 
'Well, if it's the hair, how about you put a wig on?' I said. 
 
 She narrowed her eyes at me. How does one joke about cancer? 
 
'Why do n't we both put a wig on?' 
 
'Better yet, what about we both wear turbans?' 
 
 She laughed, and I pressed the remote control and the camera clicked. 
 
 As I played, I remembered her and all of those moments. I had forgotten them. I thought they'd been buried with her all those months ago. But I remembered now. Every happy moment and the sad ones we shared together. Yes, I felt loss, but I knew we at least had those ten years together. 
 
 My fingers felt the reverberation from the piano, my stomach felt the pangs of hunger, my head ached. I felt the air pulled into my lungs and my chest expand. I felt... I felt... something, not just a void, not just the emptiness, not just the loss. I felt alive. Barely, but still alive. 
 
 My fingers struck the final note. The sound evaporated into the air. I took the picture and held it before me. 
 
'I'm not dead,' she had said,'As long as you remember me, I'm still here.' 
 
'I'm sorry,' I said to the empty room,'I forgot for a moment that you're still with me.'
