He remembers the day like it was yesterday. He often sits there in his favourite chair, right beside the window, retelling the story to whoever is willing to listen, and most importantly; believe him. The story of the day that changed his entire life…

He enters her dark forgotten room after the death of his beloved. The room is damp and dusty all around. The furniture in the room is old and creaky. The rattles of the furniture resembles those of the soldiers who raided the beaches of Dieppe. It aches like a corpse who has re-awoken after centuries. The bright loving pink wallpaper has faded into a dingy, washed out pale white. The paper covering has begun to peel away while cobwebs take its place. The edges have been torn all around and burnt at every corner. But it holds together through it all. To this day, never does it fall apart.

On the middle of the floor lie three items. A flashlight with batteries that would barely last though this sentence. This flashlight was the only source of light when the electricity in the house would go out. They would light her way when those darkened days appeared in her life. The second item was a music box. The only song that played was the heart crushing cries of a girl who had given her last breath. He sat there on the dirty sticky floor littered with bugs and listened to the recording over and over again. The third item was a frail heart that lay between the flashlight and music box. No blood spills around it. The heart’s mighty sounds could be heard softly. “Boom, boom, boom” was the only sound that quietly filled the humid atmosphere in the house full of ashes .He couldn’t bear it anymore and decided to leave. As he was leaving, he noticed that the sounds of the heart had also stopped. “All for the better” he thought to himself sadly as he walked out of the once beautiful house forever.

But then one day, through the suffocating atmosphere of the house, a screeching flat line sound ripped through the airwaves. This loud screaming sound came from inside the music box. The flat line continued to sound as the box rattled shockingly. As far away as he was, this sound approached his ears, and he hurriedly followed it to see what it was. He couldn’t help but to wonder what was going on. He walked carefully almost worried as he entered the same dark room he was in only a few months ago. Those three items lay there as always on the teary floor. He noticed the flashlight had barely enough battery life to stay lit. He tried to lift the top of the music box in the right corner but it wouldn’t open despite all his great strength. Then he noticed the heart, which had exploded. Blood splashed everywhere as he reached to cradle it between his palms. He suddenly saw the color changing. The screeching flat line sound abruptly stopped. It was as quiet as a baby's breath sound sleeping. And then he heard it. “Boom, boom, boom!” Once again, the same sound! Could it be that the faint heart beat had returned? That the heart had been revived? He listened again, waiting to hear the screeching flat line. But all he heard was the beating of the heart getting stronger. The beat became louder and louder almost as if it was trying to speak.

Sitting there in amazement, he tried to open the lid of the music box again. It finally opened and he saw that, at that very moment, the inside of the gloomy music box became visible and well lit. The dying flashlight now shined the entire room brighter than any sky on a sunny day. The box was beautiful from the inside. Something that had always been so uninviting and cold had now been transformed into something so warm and charming. The heartbeat of the soft heart grew in the palm of the boy’s hands as did his eyes. He hadn’t moved his eyes from the heart which now seemed to be alive and well. But over the roar of the beating heart, he heard something else. It was sweet, soft and delicate. As he listened closely, he realized it was coming from the inside of the music box. He dropped his gaze into the brightly lit box. His eyes were now so big and brown and full of hope and fear at the same time. They caught the sight of the music box which had been opened. Inside, a little figurine of a girl dressed in neon tights and a classic band tee, spun around expelling a sweet, craving -fulfilling sound into the room. It chanted throughout the whole house. It took a minute before he realized that the heartbeat became the lyrics to the melody. The lyrics were “Boom, boom, boom!” while the melody played in the background. It was a song like nothing he had ever heard before. He didn’t understand anything that was going on. An ear screeching box, a lifeless flashlight alongside, and a dead heart in the middle of a house that was always so ungrateful and cold. How could they be what they are now? A beautiful music box that had a vibrant exterior with a figurine inside so life-like that played a melody as sweet as the sound of a child’s laughter. A powerful flashlight brightly spreading light through each corner of the saddened house. And lastly, a beating heart that were alive and full of a rich pink color between the palms of his hands. He just stared at the heart in his hands while he thought about what was happening deeply. It was when he saw the face of the figurine that things finally started to make sense. The soft brown face, with tiny brown eyes and a small little button nose was accented perfectly with short black hair that was pulled back into two pigtails. Her bangs swept over the right eye of her face. Her face resembled that of his lover that he had lost a few months earlier. She had passed away from an accident. His eyes welled up with tears and he looked down back at the beautiful heart. As the first tear rolled out of the corner of his left eye, a flood followed quickly behind covering his creamy cheeks. As he finally understood what had just happened in the depressed house, he whispered her final words… “Without you, my heart does not beat.”