AN: IT IS BACK!

As some of you might remember, I deleted this story back in 2013 because of plagiarization issues. Since then I had some trouble with my laptop and backup storage and long, long story cut short I had thought I had lost it. I had made my peace with it until last week when I cleaned out some boxes I had left at my parents' and found an old external hard disk. I plugged it in and low and behold it still worked. On it was - among other things such as embarrassing high school photos nobody, and I repeat, nobody wants to see, ever - all my old stories including an early version of this story from 2007 when I first published it on this side.

I have decided, after much debate, to re-publish the story here and edit it as I go along. I do this because I know there are still some people out there who remember "The Melody of Love" fondly and would like to read it again. I do this for them and in the - maybe naive - hope that I will not have to deal with plagiarization again. I think that I am speaking for most of the writers who publish here (or any writer really) when I say that our stories are not just our "intellectual property" but also a part of us. We put a lot of our time and work and sweat and anxiety and love and hope and dreams into them. In short, we put our hearts and souls into our stories and for somebody else to come along and claim them as their own is a violation. I can't say it any other way because that is what it feels like. We take a risk publishing them on a free site like fictionpress but we do it because we are human and want to share our work and want to grow as writers through our readers. Fictionpress was and is a fabulous side for young and aspiring writers. And it is sad if that is destroyed by greedy, selfish people.

Riiiighht. Now that I got that one off my chest, my dear old and new readers please do enjoy "The Melody of Love". I will be publishing the rest of the chapters when I edit them. Since I am working full time and studying for a second (or third, or fourth I kinda lost track) degree I will not be able to edit the chapters as fast as I would like so you can probably expect one chapter a week or so. But I do hope it will be worth the wait.

Now, without much further ado...

Prologue: You ask me…

You ask me if I have always loved you. How am I supposed to answer that when I don't even remember the first time I saw you?

My mother said I was three months old back then and you just a few days. They would have brought me to you earlier, but I had a slight cold and hadn't stopped crying for days. My mother liked to tell me that I stopped crying once I saw you, but that isn't true. I screamed ceaselessly. I hollered so loud that your mother kicked us out of the room - we gave her a headache.

How do I know that if I don't remember? Your father told me.

You look surprised. Is it so surprising that we would talk, he and I, before?

But that isn't the matter right now. My mother was partly right after all; I stopped crying once we left the room.

I don't remember the first time I saw you, nor do I recall the times after. But I still remember the moment when I first noticed you - really noticed.

You sat in that little sandbox you had in your courtyard when we still lived in the centre of Philly.

You weren't any older than four, five at the most, and your braids were tousled.

I still remember thinking that you would be in trouble later on, for Nanna had taken so much time that morning to braid those little, colorful ribbons in your rebellious curls.

You were so immersed in your play and I was angry at you. Because my brother hadn't had any time for me that day and now I was forced to play with some stupid girl.

You laugh, but it is true.

It irked me that you wouldn't notice me, and I silently approached the sandbox to play a prank of some kind or another on you - I don't know anymore.

You had a butterfly on the back of your hand - it was so big in comparison to your small fingers. It sat in total silence and so did you. It was as if both of you were in some kind of trance.

This butterfly was so beautiful, much more colorful than your ribbons, and it shimmered in the sun. I had never seen anything more magnificent in my life.

I still remember asking myself why you wouldn't catch it; the bucket was right next to you. Didn't you want to keep something so beautiful?

You didn't notice me that day.

At some point, the butterfly began to flutter its wings and flew away. You just watched it go without moving. I just thought how stupid you must be to let it go.

But it didn't leave me alone. I couldn't understand you and that fascinated me.

It's an idle thought to ask oneself if I fell in love with you in that moment.

How can a five-year-old boy love when his whole world still turns solely around himself?

But I couldn't keep you out of my mind, and I found myself being close to you time and time again. I think it was then that I started being protective of you.

You had this natural talent to wind up in trouble. Or the trouble found you. I don't know. I suppose this is one of the many secrets I'll never figure out. So, I made it my habit to get you out of your predicaments. It irritated you, I know. You have always been independent.

But I didn't want to risk anything wiping out this look which I had seen in your eyes when you let go of the butterfly.

It was mine, you were mine. For I didn't know how to let go. I still don't.

You shake your head, but it is true. I don't have clue how to let go of you. You are like a drug, addicting.

And it was back then that I became hooked, slowly but surely, and there was nothing I could do against it.

I was always there, but I suppose you never really noticed it.

You had your friends as I had mine. But always, somehow, my mind returned to you, as did my gaze, no matter if it was in the schoolyard or at one of our houses.

It was not that long ago that you compared us to the sun and the moon. We coexist, you said, but we never touch. Maybe you were right, for the moon always yearns for the sun and chases her over the firmament without ever catching her.

So I watched you, unseen.

And then it became dark. It was as if a heavy, black curtain had fallen over my life, my mind, when my mother died.

You say that was only natural, I was in a state of shock.

But, you see, my world wasn't fully black. There was a light, small but persistent. You were that light. Don't make such a face, I know it sounds corny.

But, all of a sudden, I understood what you meant to me back then. And it scared me, it scared the hell out of me.

I was a twelve-year-old boy who had just lost his mother under, well, terrible circumstances. I didn't know shit about love or about its meaning. The only love I had ever known was my affinity for music. And here was this girl, who had been there since forever. Who had me worried shit-less because she always seemed to wind up in trouble. And now I was supposed to love her? What if you left me? What if, one day, I wouldn't be able to help you? I had loved my mother as well and, in the end, I hadn't been able to save her.

Don't look at me that way. I know I was only twelve years old, but that is beside the point.

You can't imagine how scared I was.

I thought if I could keep you away from me nothing would happen to you, nothing would happen to me. It's absurd, I know, but I couldn't think straight back then.

My feelings were running amok in me; I had to lock them away. I just had to. I know it frustrated you to no end.

It is quite the paradox that the further I push you away, the closer you come to me.

And, still, I couldn't stop myself from protecting you and, somehow, I guess I hated you for that. Because I just didn't seem to be able to get away from you -or want to.

And, when you finally got close enough that I was unable to push you away anymore, I simply drowned in you.

You ask me if I have always loved you.

But how can a three month-old baby love? How can a five-year-old boy or a twelve-year-old? How, for that matter, can an eighteen-year-old?

And, still, I know that I can't keep away from you and never could, never will. You see, you are my light in the darkness, my world around which I turn endlessly. I know it sounds corny but that is just the way it is.

I love you. I think, in a way, I always did.

And so the story begins again. I hope you enjoyed this first glimpse :).