Dust and Memories

Moving Day

Moving day was never a day Roderich enjoyed. It involved far too much work for the high-nosed aristocrat's taste, and although he could have easily hired someone else to do it for him, he was also very cheap. The man absolutely hated having to sort through the boxes of things that he had to shuffle across the city, and get rid of things that he no longer had need for. He always found painful memories in the paper and dust, memories that he had hidden away with good reason.

The musician was planning to gather his things and move to a new apartment across Vienna, that was a little larger and a little nicer than his previous one. With his music career taking off, he was willing to pay a tiny bit more for the larger kitchen and the easier access to the studio where he composed during the day.

Roderich had also decided to clean out his possessions this time. His home was becoming far too cluttered for his taste, and since he already had to clean out every nook and cranny, he decided their was no better time to get rid of things he didn't need.

He had saved the bookcase for last. It contained most of his composition books and sheet music, all meticulously organized in binders coded by composer, performance, or year. There was little to get rid of in it, he figured, but it was still better to be safe than sorry.

The paper shuffling and rearranging didn't take long, as he had anticipated. Most of it was being kept anyway, so the times he made a move to recycle a sheet of paper were few.

Pleased with his work, he sat back, gazing at the stack of binders and spread of redundant papers around him in a messy pile. He was sure he was done, and it had been relatively painless to boot.

That was until he saw the little leather bound book poking out of one of the unsorted binders.

Curiously, he pulled it out, frowning slightly. How unusual. He didn't remember writing in something like this before. Hell, he didn't even remember the book.

The leather was soft to the touch, and still smelled faintly of the tanning process used to produce it. Brushing the dust from it, he shook his head, flipping the cover open and fanning out the thick pages in search of writing. Blank. They were all hopelessly blank, like his memory of the little journal.

As he reached the last page, something fluttered to the ground at his feet, slightly yellowed with age and flattened by years of being pressed in the book.

Hesitantly, he picked it up, the paper feeling very fragile in his hands. He could see the faint traces of writing on the other side, and surprisingly excited, he unfolded it, only to have his mouth drop open in utter shock.

It was a letter from Basch.