The Three Lives of Sonata James

Recapitulation: Presto

Sonata was pulled to her feet by many hands. “You nearly got yourself killed,” a bystander chided. She looked across the street and saw a boy, his mouth agape at the close call. A gust of wind whipped up, pulling orange and red leaves from the trees and sending them on a final journey, dancing across the face of the midday sun high overhead.

Then Dante was suddenly there, hood thrown back, his face twisted with concern. “I was just leaving the coffee shop when I heard the commotion.” She was suddenly engulfed in his embrace. Her hands touched the hardness of his computer backpack, but it was the warmth of his flesh that gave her joy. She burrowed her face in his neck.

“I love you, Dante,” she said, realizing the truth of her words as they cascaded unbidden from her lips.

“Easy there,” he said. But when he nudged his face around to meet her gaze, she saw the delight in his eyes. “I’m just glad you’re okay. How about you come over to my place? Rest up a bit from your near miss.”

“I should tell my mom…” She trailed off, suddenly disoriented. She looked around at the street, at the throngs of people that had gathered on the sidewalks and were even now moving on. There were fewer people around than she expected to see, and not one of them was a newbie.

She drew in a deep breath, and let it out. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was crying, weeping tears of relief but also mourning what was lost, which she was incapable of putting into words.

“Hey now,” Dante cooed, and took her chin in his fingers. “Can’t have that. Come to my place and rest awhile.”

She nodded. Dante slung a reassuring arm around her shoulders as they walked eastward, toward the lake. The scenery was simpler in a way that could only be explained by way of virtual reality. Bits of memory brushed her hair like blowing leaves and moved on, borne on a biting autumn wind that brought fresh smells. Somewhere inside her core she knew there would be no mother here, but that the friend walking at her side was really Dante. The fleeting image of an Egyptian god with whirling eyes passed through her mind, but finding no purchase, no reality within her current frame of reference, it moved on to whatever land the leaves were going to. She tried to track it in her mind, but couldn’t. She’d lost some of her memory in her fall, then. The phantoms that were even now quickly dissipating… Were they shreds from her past? Or were they the mind’s attempt to fill in what was lost with a backstory that was false? She was certain there had been a conversation about Nietzsche, but all that came to mind was her favorite quote of his. “This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all things: and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon.”

She touched her brow, aware she had paused on the sidewalk. She felt emotionally raw from the near accident. She could’ve died. She pressed against Dante’s side, and he tightened his grip on her shoulder and bent to kiss the top of her head. As they walked on, she pledged to make something of her life.