short stories based off ldr songs

the blackest day

The year was 1942. I clung on tight around his neck and squeezed my thighs on his hips, so i wouldn't fall. I wouldn't really have to worry about that though; his arms were securely holding me as he carried me through the puddles, all the way to the front door. The grey, overcast skies seemed to reflect my mood. Both i and the heavens above had just finished pouring out all our stories. My navy nails, all stripped now, were clawing into his white t-shirt, as if holding him tighter would somehow keep him from leaving me. I breathed in the smell of the familiar gel in his slicked back hair and it brought me momentary solace. He walked the familiar path extra slow this time. It would be the last time i'd see him, maybe for some years, maybe forever. We'd decided it was easier to just break it off. he'd wanted me to move on, find another man who could provide for me and give me a comfortable life. "It's just how it has to be", he said. I hated when he said that. He always said that. All of our plans down the drain.

Just two summers before, we laid in the flower fields and dreamt up a life together. We'd marry as soon as we graduated, he'd get a job making weapons to help with the war effort, and I'd continue trying to find stable work in Hollywood. I loved him, I truly did. He was all I had left. He'd made the long days tolerable and the hard seem easy. I guess we never really thought the war would get over here. And we were naïve to think so. We saw the television broadcasts, heard it on the radio. We never thought we'd have to live like those people, over there in Britian. It was easier to imagine it a world away. We were untouchable. It wasn't until they started taking it seriously, replacing physical education classes with combat training, mandatory physical examinations. Then, october rolled around. First to go was Dennis Carlisle, Virginia's brother. then, Randy Delvy from down the street, Lewis Shriner, the star quarterback, soon the better part of our football team, and soon the better part of our town's male population. Now, they were taking my Daine. Taking him away from me. Just like they took my mother away from me. She was a good woman. Everything she ever did, she did for me. And she's to suffer for it. The letter read:

ORDER TO REPORT FOR INDUCTION

To Daine Lloyd Wallace,

Order No. 16947

Greetings, having submitted yourself to a local board composed of your neighbors for the purpose of determining your availability for training and service in the armed forces of the United States, you are hereby notified that you have been selected for training and service in the Army. You will, therefore, report...

I still remember every word. It went on after that, but I don't know what it said, as I had dropped the paper on the hardwood floor in disbelief. He'd seen my face and I looked at me with bloodshot eyes and a gentle, familiar smile as to say "Everything is gonna be okay. I'm sorry. I love you." My heart beat a million times a minute and a sizesable lump formed in my throat as he embraced me. I didn't know what to do. I felt uneasy and a bit dazed for a second before it all sank in. Oh, I cried and cried and cried that terrible afternoon. Daine did too, it was the first time I'd ever seen him. We just layed on the tan, suede couch in the cold, dark basement and held eachother, already grieving what we were going to lose. We'd calmed down a little and he'd began to talk about some things he'd decided. I was to take his Volkswagen, if anything happened to him, and the  pistol in glove compartment. I was to mail the baseball, signed by Robinson himself, up north to his little brother and some money for his step-mother in the same package. He was like me, on his own. That's why we found eachother and latched together in the first place. All this talk, this if-i-dont-come-back talk, set a fire ablaze in my heart. I didn't want to hear it. I decided he was coming back. My little seventeen year old heart couldn't take it, losing another love. So I'd kept the wedding plans alive in my mind and disregarded his spoken will. He told me that he wanted me to have whatever and give whatever else to whoever else, but I'd been imagining our gorgeous wedding, my white gown, the mockingbirds singing in the back.

He put me down at the bottom of the stairs and fixed my dress, like a gentleman, to cover my legs in a respectable way. I stared into his loving eyes for what would be the last time. We hadn't said anything, for what could you say? He'd be gone by Thursday morning. We had always shared a kiss when he'd dropped me off at home, but this time was too painful, and we weren't technically together anymore, anyway. He instead squeezed my hand and slowy turned for the walk back down the driveway, the cicadas hissing and adding to the dread of this painstaking moment. He sat in the driver's seat and turned in the engine, somehow watching me the whole time through the window. I stood, expressionless, facing him. It wasn't until he'd given me a final wave and pulled halfway down the street that the hot tears came rushing out. I let out strangled cries and gripped the wooden railing beside me. I collapsed into the bottom step and held my knees to my chest, longing for the plot to change. Smoke barreled from the exhaust and he turned the final corner, out of my sight through my blurred tears. I don't know or remember how I got myself in the house the night. The maid was playing Gloomy Sunday, the Billie Holiday rendition, and that song stuck with me for the rest of the war. I was on my own, once more.

I wrote everyday. I told him about the school, the town drama, the county fair, even the weather, anything to talk to him. He wrote me back for the first six months. In the seventh month, I got no response. The anxiety build up everyday. I carried the letters to him, and to my mother, to the little mail box on the culdesac everyday. A pang in the heart with each empty box. I just wanted to know that he was okay. My mother could write me back, she wrote me back from the isolation room of Killeen County Prison, Daine could write me back, from wherever he was. He finally responded in the eighth month and when I get that letter, I was initially furious...