Four

--

the sun eventually settled into it's mid-day post, keeping sentry over the city of Kuala Lumpur. with it, the moist remnants of the morning rain disappeared, leaving the city looking decidedly different. the grays have now given way to sunshine, painting the city gold.

lunch for me was a simple sandwich and chips affair; julienned crabsticks with mayonnaise, salt, pepper and alfalfa stuffed between lightly buttered white bread. the chips were, of course, freezer-to-fryer crinkle fries. it sufficed. a glass of cool iced lemon tea washed it all down.

the afternoon meal gave me a welcome distraction. but if was only for a moment. now i was reliving those moments again.

i know i once promised you that both of us would go separate ways, and that we'd make no effort to establish contact with one another through any medium. hence, we didn't exchange e-mails, or IM, or write, or call...

sometimes it feels like we never loved at all.

and the thing is i know you've kept part of the deal. never have i heard a whiff or seen a trace of you since that fateful day when everything came crashing down. i, on the other hand, have fallen to weakness on more than once occasion. i've tried calling you before, or asking how you were.

much to my futility of course. in the end i gave up.

but i always ask myself the same questions over and over again, going over these conventional grounds relentlessly. would things have been different if we had stayed together? would we, hypothetically, still be holding each other in this very apartment?

this apartment holds so many memories. this apartment, in which we made love in, had fights in, dined and laughed in. how long has it been? two years? it seems like such a lifetime. i remember when we bought it with our savings a year after we got married. you had stepped inside first and had said "welcome to disneyland!".

i had laughed at that non sequitur. now i missed it.

i shook my head. i was now sitting at the dinner table, with only breadcrumbs on the plate.

sure, both of us had moved on. you more comfortably. i had dated after that break-up; regularly but never seriously. those dates never went beyond a first date. almost always blind dates. somehow i thought you were doing the same. but there was a difference.

from what i found out, you were happy.

i was not.

--

Three

--

sitting all alone in that apartment, time seemed to slow down.. and at moments stop altogether. this was not a good day. on any other day i probably could distract myself with work or whatever activity that needs to be done.

but not today. today, i was just alone in my apartment with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

in this isolation(self imposed? i do not know) the only things that run through my mind are memories and images of you. it hurts me to think so, but i guess i just can't help it.

now, as the sun rose higher in the sky and the gray clouds gave way to bluer skies, i thought about some time ago, when all this had suddenly ran downhill without a chance of stopping. like a landslide, inevitable, crushing everything in it's path.

the echoes of your voice resonate in my mind as again i nursed a coffee in hand, sitting on the sofa with my knees folded up to my chest. often the voices are sweet and beautiful... and often they turn into those last words i heard from you some time ago. the words that had hurt me.

some time ago you and i had been happy. some time ago i felt we were invincible. and i choose to believe you had thought so too. i guess the comfort i could take in the aftermath of that break-up is that, in the end, neither of us could stop the hands of Fate.

i admit i had tried to fight against it. i had tried to convince you otherwise. but in doing so i saw myself standing in your way... and how could i do that to the person i love so much? i had to let go. i remember at the moment it felt like i was throwing my very life away.

but somehow i had coped.. or survived, more like it. yes, this empty apartment feels emptier every minute i draw breath in it. but i live on.

but as i said, it's when i'm all alone, with nothing to do, the hurt comes snowballing back.

and at times like this my mind wanders and the tears flow freely from my eyes.

the afternoon was turning into the exact opposite of this morning: clear, bright and hot.

i let my mind drift, to that some time ago. as ever, the images and voices become solid in my mind. it was as if i had traveled back in time.

it was as if i was reliving those chain of events, and the moments that had released the trap-door and sent me plunging into the depths of a cold, dark sea.

--

(to be continued)

Two

--

as the late morning turned the rain finally stifled off into a fine mist and stopped altogether. rays of golden sunlight pierced the gray clouds, making little searchlights fall onto the earth below. the rays of sunlight seemed to promise a brighter, better afternoon for Kuala Lumpur.

"if you believe in love, there's always hope for a better tomorrow"

those words suddenly echoed in the caverns that were my thoughts. the cold cup of coffee was already long gone and in it's place was a... new cup of coffee. i needed it. it seemed to wash the bitterness away from times like these, when phrases such as the one above ran through my mind.

with a drink in one hand, i walked around my living room. i was almost in a trance, aimless and lost yet focused at the same time. i ran my fingers through the vestiges of memories that were left: pictures in Memory Lane photo-frames, gifts, candles. The subtle scent of your perfume hung in the air, causing me, for one moment, to think that you had passed me by.

i stopped by the mirror that stood just beside the door. i looked at myself in it: my eyes were pockets of darkness on my face, and my clothes hung a little more loose than usual. staring closer i saw that my cheekbones were more prominent; i had definitely lost some weight.

and perhaps part of myself.

in a crystalline but cruel manifestation of thought i saw you in the mirror with me; you smiled, wrapped your arms around my waist and whispered into my ear "everything is gonna be okay".

but it was only for a swift moment. the exact instant i smiled at that... hallucination, i suppose, the image of you faded away as quickly as it had come. all that was reflected in the mirror was my empty living room, and a person who looked tired.

some time ago when it all had began to turn into a downward spiral, i had tried to promise myself that there would not be times like these.

but seeing the image of me, on my own, in an empty apartment caused a part of my heart to shatter and the memories to come flooding back.

i sighed, fighting tears, and went back to the sofa. i took sips of my coffee, and tried to distract myself by thinking about what activity i should do today(since i had already wasted a good part of the morning doing nothing): go eat, meet friends, visit mama and abah, go shopping?

in the end it didn't matter what i did or would be going to do.

like the skies outside my window, my heart was a cloud, and those little rays of sunlight piercing it were images of you.

i was missing you.

where are you now, and what were you doing? i didn't know, nor did i actually want to find out.

people create history while weaving love. how true. with a coffee in my hand, i was forcing myself yet again to think about what happened.

forcing myself to look at the fabric that was our love, to see if we had missed a stitch.

--

(to be continued)

--