She went quite silent thereafter. Not a call, not a word- just a big, fat void. Mann tried plucking guitar strings, but he found a mourning instrument in it- dead, dry and flat notes that echoed with his miseries. Days fell into weeks, and all he would do was sit and stare at his phone repeating the mutter: 'Cassette where'd you run off to?' It was chewing at him- was she a ghost all along?
He sent one last midnight message: *"Hello, my song: are you still breathing?"* Not a sound. Could he sleep? No. He paced under a moon that did not care. Then at last, because the sky was a very grey and messy one, came the blink of an email.
*"Mann, I didn't intend to go off.. Life's rather messy-because someone I love is fading, I'm drowning in it. Didn't want to pull you under. Sorry."*
His blow by beat response newly typed in awkward fingers: "Cassette, I swim through hell for you. Tell me where you are-I'm coming." But silence came back heavy as a stone, and he felt it press down 'til he couldn't breathe.