.: A little taste of obscurity :.

:: Monday, June 11, 2007 ::

the minor lift, the major fall

I held up my palm and watched the sun's rays outline my fingers in a red glow. For a moment I was translucent; for once my hands were that of a lover's.

It was also at that moment that the room in my heart turned into a vanishing hallway. The sound of your laughter reverberates so hard, it almost knocks me off my feet. But I stand here with my eyes squinted slightly, consuming the exhilaration for as long as it allows me to.

I sit down on the warm pavement because the tumultuous stampede running within my skin threatened to bruise my knees. The whispers of the breeze decide to join in the harmony of my reverie. Stories of people far away flirt with my ears momentarily, but my ignorance drives them into the shadows between the tufts of grass (which owed its existence to a landscape architect) that line the pavement.

But I don’t hear a single thing about you. My mind contemplates on making up a story befitting of you:

1. You are a King in some country, spending all your time protecting your people from famine, poverty, illiteracy and possible invasions. (The first thought is always the five-year-old's)

2. You are busy with work at the desk. (The second one is always the adult's)

3. You only allow me to exist in your mind as and when you have the time. (The third is the one that simply won't die)

A single tear meanders down my cheek. It clings onto my chin, hoping to prolong its lifespan. The cigarette in my hand is drawn to my lips, and as I inhale its toxins, my mouth speaks without instruction: "How ironic, the lover who isn't loved."

As if on cue, the lone tear drops into a place I'm not bothered to know. I suppose it vanished with my hope.

no credit

"I still think of her---". His voice evaporated with the mobile phone battery. The silence in her phone comforted her disorientation.

She put her phone on the table and took a deep breath. Her mind was a riot - she couldn't make out the messages it was shouting. Beer slithered across her tongue and past her throat. She was in a mess, and her face did nothing to hide it.

Her eyes were deadened and her lips clung precariously onto each other. She looked like she was summoning herself to burst into tears, so she could get over with the feelings that raged within. But the tears wouldn't come.

"You can cry if you want to, you know. No one's looking," I tried to assure her.

She brought a lit cigarette to her lips, but didn't inhale its offering. The cigarette smoke swirled around her face and hair. Maybe that was how she was going to start crying - by irritating her eyes with smoke. I didn't dare clarify it with her, lest she introduced the beer mug to my forehead. Then I'd be the one with tears (and glass and blood) in my eyes. She looked at me with a blank stare.

"I think ..." Her eyes hopped from my eyes, to the ash tray, to her cigarette, to her beer, and back to my eyes. "I think ... I will ... hold on". Her eyes fell onto her lap. "Maybe one day ... he'll think of me, the way I do for him …"

And I held her as her sudden realisation of hopelessness seeped into my sleeves. My heart broke to the rhythm of my helplessness. The only thing I could do was offer my phone.

"I'd rather not have the truth reiterated" her waning voice slit my arm.

Her words silenced the entire room of faceless strangers. I wanted to question God on why He made her this way; overweight and unattractive, incapable of getting wanted attention.

And then a pang of guilt struck right through me: I didn't feel for her as I did for so many other women here tonight. The entire room stared, awaiting an appropriate reaction from me.

But all I could muster was, "I'm sorry".

:: Another emo-ambient rambling at 5:44pm ::