Indie Records

I met her at the ‘B’ section
I was searching for Bon Iver’s single ‘For Emma’, when I stumbled across her
“Excuse me?”, the sound of her sweet voice caressed me.
“Yes?”, I replied her, my voice not nearly as angelic as hers
“I’m looking for Birdy’s collection, a particular song to be exact. It’s called ‘Shelter’ “, worry fleeted her beautiful face, her eyebrows forming an arch.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen it”, I told her, equally as disappointed because I was not able to solve her minor problem.
“That’s okay. I guess I’ll just go then”, she said heading towards the exit.
I hurriedly tried to catch up with her as I pushed past a number of customers.

“Wait please!”, I huffed as I reached her just outside the small indie record store . The weather was a bit on the chilly side as it was late in the winter.

She turned around to face me, her hazel brown eyes glowing with curiosity and clear amusement at my lack of cardio stamina .

“I didn’t get to find out your name, you know. So that if… maybe… you know, like when…”, I stuttered .
“If you wanted to know my name, all you had to do was ask”, she snapped.
“I’m sorry”, I told her, pathetically.
“If you must know, my name is Emmanuella”, she said before abruptly walking away.

My mind swiftly fleeted to the song ‘For Emma’ that I was searching for when I found her.
If that wasn’t a sign, cupid might as well have dumped his dirty diaper on my head to emphasize the obvious.

Turns out, Emmanuella was a regular visitor to the indie record store, just as I was.
We would occasionally hang out there for hours, listening to new sample albums for free.
We had contrasting tastes in music.
I was a fan of the classics; Lionel Richie, Whitney Houston, Bell Biv Devoe. The kind of music your parents probably love.
She was into new and diverse sounds like Lana Del Rey, Johnny Rain and the likes of them.
But I guess our different sounds made us more compatible as we listened to each others version of “good music” for hours on end.

Our constant meetings at the Indie record store turned to dates at coffee shops or trips to my lake house in the next city.

Now, I’m not one to revel in emotions or sentimental statements.
But that faithful day was when I knew I loved her. We were on the deck, right above the shallow lake as we pretended to fish but actually just lost in our own thoughts and she blurted out suddenly “William, I have cancer”. The tears started to well up in her eyes, and just in time I caught the first drop before it rolled down her already red cheeks.
No need spoiling good make up.
“And I have ulcer. We’ll get through it together”, I said to her. She laughed, and for a moment the hint of pain she felt had vanished . That was all it took for us to know that our fates had been sealed.

Emmanuella had been diagnosed with Bronchial Adenoma, and over the months it became obvious that treatments and chemotherapy weren’t working and were of no use. She was getting sicker. The cancer cells were spreading. She couldn’t be cured. In fact, she was very lucky to still be alive after a rough 8 months.

Eventually she couldn’t speak because the cancer had spread to her voice box. So she found new ways to communicate with me. She would spend hours putting together a playlist to explain to me exactly how she was feeling, and even though I could speak just fine, I did the same thing too.

What was the point of talking if I couldn’t have the caress of her sweet voice in reply any longer?

We would lie there on her hospital bed, while she endured the pain of all the IV tubes & chemo , and we would drown the world out while listening to Ed Sheeran sing about British love.
And whenever she dozed off, I would put off her iPod and listen intently to my new favorite song; the steady rhythm of her heartbeat.

Cheesy, I know.

No matter how much I tried not to drift to my thoughts, the truth was not going to change.
Emmanuella was dying.
And the day the doctor in charge of her case called, I died too.

I was at the indie record store when I got that call. They had just gotten the new collection of Birdy songs and ‘shelter’ happened to be part of them. I thought about how excited Emmanuella might be about that.

But that didn’t matter anymore.

I hung up before the doctor could say anything else. I turned off my phone.
I sat down on the curb right in front of the store, I closed my eyes, and I screamed.
If my whole world was going to crash down around me, then I was going to make the sound of the crashing.
I could feel the hot tears burning and straining against my eyelids, but I kept my eyes shut in the hopes to contain them. And after what seemed like a millennium, I found my way to the hospital.

I decided to see Emmanuella one last time before any of her physical features showed a hint of change. I wanted to remember her in all her glorious beauty and not a faded shadow of the angel she was.
I stared at her for hours, memorizing everything.
The curve of her bottom lip, her long eyelashes, her chipmunk nose, her long black hair with the auburn streaks in between, the curve of her supple breasts, her pink painted fingernails, her extra 3 piercings on her right earlobe, and her thousand and one tiny tattoos decorated round her hands. Everything seemed to take its own place in my memory of Emmanuella. I laugh at the thought of how she never let me call her anything besides her full name.

Her iPod was tucked by her side. I softly took it from under her as if I was trying not to wake her. Whatever song she was listening to was still playing, the doctors probably didn’t hear it because the earphones are plugged in. I looked to see, ‘For Emma’ by Bon Iver , the same song I was searching for at the record store when we first met, is on loop.

And that’s when my tears began to flood.

Years later, I pass by the Indie record store that I haven’t been to in ages . I decide to stop by just to have a look. The place is much more upscale now, and more crowded than I remember it ever being. They no longer sell records, just regular album Cd’s. I find myself strolling to the ‘B’ section. I’m taken unaware as my hand collides with another stranger’s when I reach for Birdy’s newest release. I turn to look at the stranger beside me with long black hair and auburn streaks. She has a wide grin on her face and red cheeks. I politely return her smile.

“I’m Emma”, she says shyly.