The sequel

 

The sequel

 Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

jenny-o commented on the musical box story, ‘I’ll bet that couple swore under their breath at being so rudely interrupted.’

That made me wonder, so I wrote a sequel. It developed rather more gloomily than I intended.

 The Little Dancers

As the lid descended and the music ceased, the couple stepped apart.                                            

Marjorie stamped her foot. ‘Every time,’ she complained, ‘Every time, just as we’re getting the steps almost right, that wretched child slams the door on us and the music stops.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Henry said. ‘We can practise without the music.’

 ‘You mean we could count the steps, one, two, three, four, twist, turn, glide?’ she scoffed. ‘Huh, I can’t see that helping. You can’t keep time even when the music plays AND you keep treading on my toes. It’s a wonder I can still walk, let alone dance.’

Not for the first time, Henry wondered what he had ever seen in Marjorie. He had been captivated by her elegance and her beauty, but all he could now register was her screeching voice.

He regretted – oh, how he regretted! – the contract he had made with her. It had stated quite clearly that they must remain together until the musical box stopped working. That had been sixty years ago, and they were weary of pirouetting on the mirrored floor. The box was also showing its age. The pins on the cylinder sometimes missed the teeth that made the music, and the key to wind the mechanism was having to be wound ever tighter.

 Henry had heard ‘overwound’ once or twice recently, when the little girl had been turning the key. An older woman, her grandmother, perhaps, had gently admonished the child to be careful or the music would stop playing.

 How Henry longed for that day to dawn, but then he wondered what would happen after that. With a jolt that made him gasp, he finally recognised that this box was his existence, the one he had embraced the day he and Marjorie had signed the contract. He and she were joined for eternity.

There was no escape. There would never be any more music, just the gathering gloom, and an occasional glimpse of daylight when a stranger opened the box to see the little dancers with their painted smiles and wonder why the music had stopped.