The melody of your doubts (deticated to Rogers Nelson and any melody that used to visit your mind in times of difficult doubts)

Berta turned on her left side and snorted sweeter than usual.

- Was there even one reason not to take me seriously?

- There was.

- I don't believe it.

- I've had my natal charts read. For the first time in my life...

- I don't believe it twice.

   The day was like a gray weekday Tuesday. It was drizzling drearily and surely. A good time to walk by the Tower. But It's Saturday!

- I didn't think we'd ever talk again.

- You can't just leave it at that.

- I can hear the fear in your words. Are you serious?

- It doesn't work like that. I have to be with you always.

- Rainbows can't always be with us. It's just a phenomenon. Sometimes I don't even have time to take a picture of it.

- It's like someone's going to admire your snaps! And I'm not a rainbow...

- Yes, you are. You're a shade of it. I don't believe there are only seven colors. There are many more. The color of your smile...

- Reminds me of lipstick.

- Reminds me of joy and goodness. So you're leaving?

- I guess I am.

- For good?

- I'm afraid so.

- I'm not afraid anymore. I mean, Martin will always hug me in a thunderstorm and hold my hand when I choose between pink and mint.

- Mint.

- No, pink. And it's not that I'm too unapproachable to fashion, it's my protest. Not only that, it suits me. And I already have mint colored sneakers and a jacket.

- What would you do without me?

- I never would have doubted it.

- And would it have been okay?

- No. But you've seen how I've always agonized, haven't you?

- Like with your favorite rainbow toy pony in that orphanage?

- Yes...

- But you gave it away. Just gave it to the children at the orphanage as a piece of your simple kindness.

- It was hard. He was my best friend growing up.

- And if it hadn't been for your doubts, you would have taken him back home...and he would have been lost in the next move. And no one else would have been happy about it but you.

- So you won?

- No. You won. And doubts always benefit the truth.

- No.

- Are we saying goodbye?

- Oh, thank God.

- Give me the spell.

- It's been seven hours and fifteen days...

   An indistinct shadow with tangible features and silver eyes vanished from the reflection in the window. And the clouds grew closer. And the rain beat right into her heart.

Berta opened her eyes, and Martin's face was right above her, but he was looking somewhere toward her shoulder, which peeked out gently from under the blanket.

- You were purring something in your sleep. Just like our Tigger. I even thought you were dreaming about him. Or that you were him.

- Almost. I was singing our song.

- Oh, my God.

- Yeah.

- Get some more sleep. I want to feel like a keeper.

- My dreams?

- Your dreams. And nightdreams.

- And fears?

- And fears.

- And insecurities?

- And in... what?

- Nothing. I've already said goodbye to them. Right in this dream.

- Congratulations, my Queen...

- You laugh, it was so realistic.

- Tea?

- You never listen to the end of me.

- I'm all ears.

- Well... I've already forgotten.

- But now you'll never doubt it.

- Yes...

- Not a drop?

- Not a drop. Oh yes, it was raining.

- And in me?

- And in you. And in me, such a strange dream... But I don't think anymore.

- I rarely think with you at all. I get high.

   Berta stirred her tea with a spoon and was still remembering her dream. It was already faded and exhausted. Like a melody in a badly winded organ, it faded and slowed the sounds, evaporated and disappeared. But those gray eyes... Why does gray melt so much hope and uncertainty?

- Berta.

- What?

- Your gray-eyed king has the honor of singing an ode to your unearthly beauty and asking a question...

- Go ahead.

- Did you not sleep well?

- You know... I was dreaming. That my fear... or rather, my indecision came to me. That, you know, incomprehensible and dragging, always simple and at the same time very painful...

- So what?

- So I let it go. You know, I was always agonizing. And now it's so easy. I just hummed our song...

- I heard it. I was watching you. And I purred with you. That's more our Tigger's thing, though.

- Yeah. And it was so easy. Because you were there, I guess.

- And our song.

- And our song. It's always a lifesaver.

- By the way, have you decided what we're going to do on our one day off?

- Oh, I had so many plans...

- Do us?

- It's been seven hours...

- And fifteen days...since you took your fear away ...

Berta often recalled those silver days and nights full of mysterious dreams. Martin joined a charity expedition, grew a beard, and stayed somewhere in the vast expanse of Buddhism, never staying long at any point in the world. Tigger grew up to be a great spotted cat and, with the help of Bertha and her future family, was able to realize the warmth of regular family, human affection and the playful reproach he was rewarded with every time for wilful pampering and refusing to sleep in his parents' bed. The gray-eyed king no longer returned to Bertha in dreams or in Martin's occasional letters. There was nothing more to doubt. Friendship, love, and family had flown a kite in the clouds of hopes and aspirations, drawing there an airy castle to be admired from the ground, now less and less often to be held during the brief visits of children and grandchildren. Bertha had once deduced a beautiful truth for herself that far surpassed the reliability of the coin flip ritual or the search for divine providence, and she was grateful to fate for the opportunity. Only the melody of your soul, one note of which was once planted in you by your best days will help you to make the right choice in a time of little and great doubts.