Selections from the Life of an Inventor (and his Ghost)

Waltz Tempesta

It was odd, this game of theirs they played.

A twirling, waltzing denial that hit both deeply and far too personally, a dance around the edges of friendship and romance, bordering on some unspoken, un-acted upon desire for closeness.

H.G. Wells was certainly not the type to fall in love. After all, he was an inventor. A scientist, focusing on factual information. The statistics, the numbers, the screws and bolts and wires holding together a machine that ran in such a certain way.

He decided far too young that romance simply wasn't for him, and stuck with it, throughout his childhood and adolescence, his years as a young man at university, his years of writing and thoughts and ideas.

He never expected Lenore.

The two of them were two notes in harmony. Clicking instantly with the other, creating a sort of beautiful echoing presence that could be denied by no man.

When he first met Lenore, H.G. was... starstruck. That blossoming feeling within your heart when you hear a familiar swell of strings in your favorite song overtook his every sense, and he fell almost instantly, despite his better judgement.

Some measly part of his brain, the logical side, of course, was complaining. Filling his mind with doubts.

"She'll never love you." His mind insisted. "She's an angel. You, you're a mere mortal."

But nevertheless, they played this game. This dancing, dodging arpeggio, leaving spaces in between. Looks lingering just a moment too long, hands brushing as she passed a handful of wires to him, a small smile shared, as though it was a secret.

There was an eternity between them. A director holding their baton in suspense.

Then, the shattering crash. Somewhere, between the hissing of smoke entering the attic, his coughs, wheezing, calling out for Lenore, the ticking of clocks in the back of his mind, he realized that this was it. His final crescendo.

Lenore pulled H.G. onto her lap, trying to steady his breathing, but it was too late. The tempo rose, then dropped, and his hand, clutching hers, fell.

An eternity passed, but when the strings began to swell once more, that ticking of clocks, the metronome to his heartbeat, he opened his eyes. And no, his first thought wasn't in reference to his obvious displacement, how his throat ached, where he was, floating in this... grey void.

His first thought was more along the lines of, "Lenore?"

H.G. Wells made it his mission. A mission to regain that dance, to break through those stops and silences and recreate that echo, that seemed so far away.

And so he worked. He worked tirelessly, though, in this void, devoid of time, space, existence, he perhaps shouldn't have felt that exhaustion... but nevertheless, he persevered. He worked, worked, worked, for so long that his hands, forever sooty and stained and calloused, grew sore.

Lenore, his guiding star. His light in the darkness, in the void of nothingness.

Guided by her words, her touch, her smile, her laugh, H.G. twisted the final few gears into place, sitting back and admiring his work for just a moment, before flipping some switches, setting a dial or two, then inhaling, pressing a button.

There was silence for a moment. Then, it was as though all of time was folding in on itself, and H.G. Wells disappeared from the void, leaving just a slightly singed scrap of paper behind.

It was curling at the edges, the ink bleeding, but legible.

"To Lenore,
How to tell you? How to explain my affections to you in simple words spoken aloud?
Oh, how I desire to tell you. Tell you precisely how I feel for you.
I cannot, I'm afraid. Which is why I leave you this note.
I love you.
You'll never read this.
But I do.
Ever yours,
H.G. Wells"