A Short Hollywood Melodrama

Chopin. Raindrop Prelude. The early 20th century:

A woman I love very dearly, who will die in the very near future, is riding a bicycle in a park and laughing inaudibly…. I am in tweed and flat cap laughing inaudibly as she circles me…. Intermittent flashes of a hospital scene, the camera inching past a delicate, pale foot pushing through the bed’s white sheets…  The motion of the park scene slowed while the beloved circles more and more closely… The head of the bed where I am holding her hand, and she and I are saying inaudible things… Yellow-brown leaves falling from the trees in the park… The beloved in the hospital in a wild coughing fit… The tires of the beloved’s bike cutting close to my shoe, then stopping as she let’s down her foot to steady herself… The camera following her leg up to where the two of us are embracing ecstatically… We kiss…. In the hospital I am leaning over her still body crying…. The bicycle falls to the ground….

Damn, I wish my imagination hadn’t been molded by Hollywood melodramas!