My Lady’s a Wild Flying Dove
FICTION

He took the CD out of the case, and carefully placed it on the player. Then settled back in his chair as the music from the surrounding speakers started to fill the room. It drowned the soft murmur of a summer evening that was wafted gently in through the open window on the warm evening breeze.

Oh, she had certainly been like a dove! Soft, even a little timid almost from the first time he had seen her.

He remembered so well that first time they met. He had been doing his regular late shopping, always at the last minute, remembering he needed to eat as well as enjoy himself.

The supermarket, thank goodness, was now open 24 hours, and his late-night refill of the fridge had become a weekly trip.

He was just sorting out this week’s TV dinners when he caught her looking at him. At a first glance, she was not beautiful, her face perhaps not perfect, her body, perhaps a little full. But her eyes smiled, piercing him like a laser beam. All this he noticed in one brief second, and without thinking, smiled back at her.

“Not cooking like Mother used to make,” he laughed.

She jumped at his words, as though he had brought her out of another world. For a moment, she looked like a frightened bird.

“Oh,” she murmured. “Perhaps you need to learn how to cook better.” She smiled and started to turn away. And with that smile, the wheels for the next few months started to click into motion.

The next weeks, he made a point of being in the store about the same time of night, each time making sure he bought “proper” food. Then, one night, with a chicken and fresh vegetables in his basket, he was waiting at the checkout when a voice behind him made him start.

“Now that food looks a lot better.”

He turned and there she was. And, as she smiled, he felt as if a hammer-blow had hit him in the heart. He tried to remember all the plans, clever lines he had thought about saying to her, all the things he thought he might do at this very moment, but his mind became an empty void. Instead, he just smiled at her and carried on putting the food into the bags.

He was just moving away when the words flooded back to him.

“Er...” he said. What a marvelous start! “Er...if you really want to see if I can cook, why don’t you come round for dinner tomorrow evening?”

The smile on her face seemed to flit away for a moment, and a timid bird appeared for a brief instant, then she smiled, and once more her whole face lit up.

“Well, what have I got to lose?” she said, and for the first time he noticed that she held a basket full of TV dinners.

So the date was made. And by the time she arrived at his house, so was the meal. He took her coat, and their hands briefly touched. A bolt of electricity went through him.

The evening flowed by, the plates were left, and soft music filled the air. Talk turned to silence as they took their first kiss, then a second, and a third. By the time she left the house, the first pale kiss of dawn was just touching the night sky. And he knew he was falling in love.

The music once more penetrated his thoughts.

Special moments of them being together came and went, floating through his mind on the words of the song.

The night they had lain together under the stars, wrapped in each other, saying volumes, without uttering a word. And when he had reached for her, she came to him, with a need and a want that took him by surprise. The moon and the stars could tell much that night, but two hearts knew just how special it had been.

Then there was the night they had got caught in the storm together, coming home like a couple of drowned rats. And as they fell laughing through the door, throwing off their sodden clothes, the look of pure happiness he saw on her face. The way they had plunged together under the welcoming hot shower. The water had long stopped being needed by the time they had left the shower.

She had started to dry her hair when she suddenly turned round on him, as though she must say something. And then with a smile that filled his heart with pure happiness, the timid bird went away, and she said. “You know I love you, and I’m yours for as long as you want me.”

His mouth went very dry, and he could not speak for what seemed a long while until, finally, with what seemed to be a very husky effort, he managed to say, “And that is forever.”

Again the words of the song came echoing through his thoughts.

Thereafter, their lives had been as one, with each other, and with themselves. She moved in with him and plans were made, families were met, and everything in their lives was wonderful.

Then came the dreaded day. He came home from work, and found her not there.

A small clipping of newspaper fell from the opened CD case. He picked it up, and read the words, he knew by heart.

WOMAN MISSING   -   POLICE FEAR THE WORST

The headlines shouted out to him, piercing his very soul.

He could remember the endless questions from the police and the media, the sleepless nights worrying, trying not to think what might have happened to her.

As tears pricked his eyes, the music once more squeezed into his thoughts.

She had been such a fragile dove.

He remembered the joy, the hysterical wonderful joy as, a few weeks later, she had turned up at a hospital. How she had been in an accident, and lost her memory, and how the hospital and the police helped him, guided him to be where she was. The shock of how she looked when he first saw her, tubes everywhere, and not the love he knew.

Weeks of sleepless nights by her bedside, holding her, caring for her, protecting his dove from the world.

The music finished, and he finished his drink, slowly standing to turn the music off.

She whispers each evening, “She’s mine, mine, mine...” The music slowly died, just as she had done, in his arms, leaving him alone, with a heart ripped in two. His dove had come home, and then left him, flying to a better place, leaving him with so much love. He knew she would be there waiting, for him...

NOTE: Wild Flying Dove is a song written by Tom Paxton.

- Storyheart   
http://4tenderheart.com