Angor

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The guitar lay in your lap, like an old, good habit. Your fingers found the familiar chords on their own, and your voice, quiet and slightly hoarse, picked up the first line: "Who are these people who took down the crosses..." You sang Zemfira's old song "Who?", and each line carried not just nostalgia but a bitter aftertaste—after all, you were singing about him. About your ex. You played on the balcony of your apartment, and people often stopped and admired you.

You didn't notice him stop beneath your windows. He stood there, mesmerized, with a couple of coffees in his hand—one, apparently, for his new flame. He listened to you sing about people who "wait for the weather by the sea, but you and I..." and, it seemed, in that moment, he remembered everything. All your storms, your "sea," which was brighter and more real than the quiet backwater of his current relationship.

When the last chord sounded and dissolved into the evening air, he was still standing there, forgotten about the coffee, about the girl waiting for him somewhere. He looked at your window, and you knew you had just cut through his soul with the sharp blade of an old song.

Today he wrote to you. His first message in six months. "It was... beautiful."

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