The conifers played the piano the night you died.

On reflection, because of what happened, I expected there to be rain and stricken bolts of lightening. A perfect storm for an imperfect night.

In reality, the sun set in a perfect ball of glowing embers. There was no need for fire, catastrophe would occur that night in many other ways.

Our paths had never crossed before. Or if they had, we never knew it. I hadn't heard your voice, and I didn't know your name. Your voice and your name would never combine to enlighten me that night, nor ever again. The most important moment of your life, and possibly the most memorable of mine tugged us roughly together. You were given me as your human contact. And I imagine now, that I must have looked to you like the ghost you have now become.

There were others around, of course. Somebody dialled three digits and another kept people at a respectable distance. But it was I that you were dealt to preserve your life. I remember scolding you for your timing. If you had waited a few minutes more, maybe the next person that drove along would have been a surgeon. Or a paramedic. Somebody who knew more than the basics. Somebody who could do more than breathe pathetic sighs into your body. I wondered if you were always early for everything.

For minutes there was only us sprawled in the road. As I held your hand I felt the pain in your body throbbing through your fingertips. It felt like life was being forced out and death being sucked in. I didn't feel pain until long after they had taken you away. I was consumed by a broken version of you. Version because to many others, you would always be full of life. I knew you only in death. The copy of you lying crumpled in the road dotted with crimson patches of hurt and pain was all I would ever know. I will never consider the colour red with the emotion of Love again.

My fingers had fluttered desperately for a pulse, tapping along your neck until I found nothing. I had laughed, remembering those times in school when I had failed to find my pulse from the teachers instruction. We had always joked we were dead. I had looked for a teacher that night, to come and show me where your pulse was. Because I could not believe it didn't exist in a person.

As they took you away, amidst blue lights and coded talk, I looked up at the darkening sky. The wind whipped leafy fingers and coaxed stretching limbs of evergreen into action. They beat to the sounds of people crying and sirens wailing as somebody started to mop the stains from my face. But I only heard sweet melancholy music.

The conifers played the piano the night you died.