The Player and Dancer

I walked into an old house, my grandmother's house. She was an interesting old lady, had all the coolest little trinkets, the things that seem to fascinate girls, old china dolls from foreign countries, combs, brushes, and makeup from her own grandmother, umbrellas and fans from china. She was a travelled woman with things from places I'd never heard of, books in languages I'd never seen. She read some to me when I was little. She let me play with the stuff as if it's safety meant nothing to her, but that it's very presence in her home reminded her of some place of beauty she'd been, some amazement in the beauty of a people she'd seen, maybe of someone she once knew.
She was a widow. I never knew much of my grandfather, just that he was a musician from Italy that she met while in school over there. All she had left of what he looked like was a picture she drew of him while he was sleeping in a rocking chair.
I've grown, now something in my fifties with grandchildren of my own. I always wanted to be like my grandmother, but I never felt I could compare. I was her only grandchild, though, and I can't split myself amongst five grandchildren of my own. I stepped out of my memories and into an old room I'd never seen before. I thought I'd been everywhere in my grandmother's house, but this room was darker and more dust-covered than any of the other rooms. It was empty, too. There was a small upright piano sitting against one of the walls, and a gramophone rested on the opposite wall right across from the piano. I only saw that once, when I peeked in on my grandmother to see what she was doing.
I walked to the gramophone and looked to see how it worked, remembering how grandmother used to do it. It was already wound, so I gently popped it into 'play'.
"The Rainfall Lullaby, by yours truly, take one," a warm voice said. I imagined my grandfather saying it. Then the keys of a piano lightly tapped began to play through the gramophone, slightly echoing in the dust.
There was a pair of slippers on the piano that I noticed when I turned around while the music played. They looked worn, old and loved by dance and dancer. Then, I imagined my grandmother dancing to the music as she was young, nimble, graceful, and majestic, beautiful, a magnificent compliment to the music, almost its perfect partner, swirling as the keys tapped and rolled, bending and twisting, unfurling like a flower with music in tow, both player and dancer in tune, found in one another.

I found myself crying from the beauty, and a tear landed in the dust on the ground.

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I had to write it and play it and AHH so beautiful