Wishing For A Hope is a short story I’ve written some years ago during a no-sleep-phase. It was written in the span of a night or at least the rough draft was. Fuelled by coffee and unbothered by trying to name the characters, I managed to complete the story at around dawn. This characters in this story remained unnamed, still.
I hope you enjoy reading Wishing For A Hope. I am working on filling up more stories like this, still.
One
It’s awfully cold. The chill permeated through the bones. The only acoustic relief, if any, from the sappy broken-hearted souls pouring out their angst on radio, was the constant pattering of the rain.
The moon’s waning, casting a sickly gloomy glow. As if reluctant to shine, clinging miserly to its sick glow. Yet, it painted a cheery sort of aura to the dank and dreary night. Just the night to die…
Except, I’ve died, I am dead, now, was. I died on night like this, three years back. It was raining too, that night. Heavier than tonight. Tonight’s rain a sorry relative to that night’s rain, reverberating thinly and inconsistent in its frequency instead of pounding mercilessly, steadily like a heart spurned by adrenaline. The stereo was blaring that night too. I recall it well. All too well. That damn bloody night. Probably too well for my own good. That night, the night I died, I was so full of life. Pumped to the brim, nearly bursting at the seams.
One would have thought it a funny and twisted cruelly in irony to die in a moment when one’s full of life. It is. Cruel, I mean. Funny? Depends on how you see it. How do I see it? A bloody arse born with half a brain could figure that out easily enough.
I wouldn’t know about dying funnily. Dying in bed with a prostitute could be funny. Embarrassing for sure, and the humour factor rises in correlation with how awkward a position you were when you expired. Now dying cruelly, I can really relate to. Just when the world seems intent on fulfilling its promises, granting you all your wishes, dangling the carrot of bliss in front of your nose, it jams it right down your throat. That’s cruel, dying choking on that carrot. or choked to death on that carrot of reward? !!!??%^*
I’m being melodramatic here. These bouts of melancholy serve me no purpose. Enough of that. Tonight, I’m going to die. Medically, that is. How I go about that, I have not yet decided. A razor perhaps, it would suffice. There’s a wide array of quickies, I’m spoiled for choice. Poison sounds seductive too. The choices of consumable poisons are remarkably wide. Or maybe, a sudden meeting with the pavement. From high up. Or the all time favourite, a simple loop around the neck. That would do. Simple yet elegant. I’m getting distracted here. I want to talk about the night I died. The night when all come to naught.
I’ve mentioned it before, and I’m mentioning it again, it was raining hard that night. Seemed to me, God must have been crying His Heart out for me. It was wet and bloody chilly that night. I was totally bushed from work, try as I did, I fell asleep with my work clothes still on. Now this is funny, falling asleep when I can’t keep my damn eyes open when I needed it open. And cruel, because once I was awake, I can’t keep those same damn eyes closed, when I needed some damn shuteyes.
How’s that funny? Funny (to me), because of the irony. Ironies rarely fail to tickle me, the wrong end withstanding. Cruel, because I’ve tried so damn hard to stay awake to hear any word from her. And when I had, I wish I hadn’t. Ah, how so clear and familiar it is now. God, it was wrong to laugh at people falling in and out of love and going by the way side, when they did. I realised it even then, I still do now, more so now. But never I’ve laughed in their faces, hell, in fact I came out good, tending to their bruised tender hearts, getting my shoulders all wet from their tears. And it steeled me, to never, ever, sass up in the game of love. Thought all that second hand experiences would wisen one up, would it?
Like hell it did.
The moment we got together was doom. She and I both together spelt doom. It wasn’t all dark, gloomy and doom-y, though. No it wasn’t. Loathe it as much as I do to admit it, what we had was beautiful. Terribly beautiful and horribly blissful. It made me swoon. She made me swoon. I won’t bore anyone here, I wouldn’t want to drag my suicide into homicide with killing someone with brute boredom. Lovers, in or out of it can grasp easily what I’m trying to say. The swoon feeling, the mushiness, the fireworks*. Let’s just skip that part. I was never much for romanticism. *i think i could still see and hear the fireworks exploding over our very heads.
Instead, let’s just see how she made me kill myself. We’ll just start from the beginning. I’m attracted to this girl, whose name I can bear not to mention here (it still brings a deep pang of pain to my heart), whose boyfriend I know. How’s that for variety in a fucked-up life? Nothing unordinary there, right? I’ve had crushes before for others’ girls before, but nothing ever came out of it. Guess I was just too timid to make an approach, besides I’m bounded by principles. A bloke doesn’t simply lust after another’s squeeze.
When I say variety, I must meant life was getting just too darn monotonous and nary a thing come popping out of the blue to jolt a little excitement in my life. I was just too careful, and have had enough of messing around in my life. The high life and risky gambles were too much for me. Besides my life have been through too much of an emotional upheaval these past few years. Meeting up with a father (after a lapse of six years) whose idea of a sport is running away and deserting his family, an uncanny gift to screw up relationships, soured connections with peers, a dead-end in my pursuit of education, a bad show of handling finances, and my inability to reach out and hold out my hand for help. Maybe I’m just screwed up, a likeable, humble guy I may be, but underneath that fa?ade, belies a gargantuan ego that refuses handouts. Anyway my emotional makeup made me keeps things bottled up. Seriously, none of the fuckers I’m acquainted to knew, nor can they ever know what kind of person I really am. Lucky me! I’d just suffer agonisingly in silence.
I’m getting distracted again. Maybe I might just kill someone with boredom. But, bear with me. My time is nearing to a close, a little while more of miserable existence will solely be my burden. Now this girl. This darling charming angel of a girl who robs me of my heart. Bewitched me with her dazzling smile and smouldering gaze. She worked in the same place with me. Everything seemed nice, rosy and in place, and it was quite a picture, a perfect one. And it was, everything but perfect. You see, wallowing in all this blissfulness as I am, it also beckons a tangy sour aftertaste in the shape of her boyfriend. Enough said, I leave it to your own imagination as to how the story progresses from there. I have this one last letter to write and my sorry life to finish later on and getting melancholic won’t help. It had all the ingredients of a Mexican soap opera. Look one up to get pointers.
Since you’re already reading this, I might as well explain why I’m taking this route. Basically, boy meets girl. Boy hooks up with girl. Girl is incidentally hooked up with another boy. Funny? Definitely. Cruel? Definitely! You bet your life on that, I’ve betted my life on that wager, and lost. Another time with different circumstances, things could be different and it might have worked. I can’t for the life of me, recall whenever I was that happy, or ever was I happy. Life was just so much rosier, she had made much of a difference. For once, life to me was full of promises and rewards, waiting to be reaped. Unfortunately, I was dumped hard on the asphalt, just as I was reaching out.
“And I lay me down, down on a bed of felt. Feel I not the soft caressing warmth, but the hard coldness gnawing through mercilessly. Why, I ask? Why, in the safe haven of the womb of love should a man be shorn of life in love’s scorn? Is love not life bearing? Is love not the bearer of hope? Has love given up on its promise? Or simply, love burns all in its path?
Love bestows one with wings and clips it while soaring high in the heavens. These wings turn leaden and grow weightier as one ascends higher, till the only way left is not up, but down to a hurried meeting with the ground.
Love grants one with invincibility. Impervious to fire, wind, rain, one wanders blindly, emerging scorched, blown away, drenched. Bluffed and judgement clouded by these invulnerabilities, one ventures where fools meet their ends.”
Forgive my attempt being melodramatic? at literature. It has been bottled up in me for the longest time. I just have to let people know how I feel. Love was an adventure. I’ve been in and out of love many times. I’ve had a girl who has left me (I have an aversion to overbearing presence issue), well, actually she chose me over somebody else. Flattering but hardly admirable. I’ve been scorned before, looked over, made way for a friend who together with me, were locked in a headlong quest for the same girl’s heart. Admirable, but stupid. I’ve been in and out of love and survived. So why can’t I survive this?
I just can’t. I’m sorry, if I’m letting anyone down. Ma, forgive me. But this heartbreak is too much to bear. I can’t make the pain stop, Ma, no one can. The pain is unbearable, I can’t sleep, closing my eyes mean seeing her in the voids of my mind. I can’t even go through a day without her impinging herself in my thoughts. I was dead long before I wrote this letter. I merely live a hollow existence and that existence of me will cease. It must and will have to, soon.
It was beautiful, yet dreadfully gloomy. But I treasure it. It was painful and it drowned me in its bliss. It’s just too much for frail old me to bear. Farewell world. Farewell love. Farewell all.’
Two
Three years was a long time ago. Well, time doesn’t really conform to forget physics or how much light travels to determine time shit relative physics. It depends on how you see it. ? A decade would be long to a 20-year-old girl. Her 50-year-old mother would shrug it off. For the former, it’s half her lifetime, the latter, it’s merely a blink of the eyes. It was also simply about the same time her daughter simply grew up and stopped being her little girl anymore. In this particular case, three years was a long time to this particular girl, now woman, who it seemed was just a girl yesterday. But no, we won’t venture into an endless loop of metaphorical and philosophical debates on whether three years was a long time or not. The young (again, subject to how you look at it) girl/woman is given precedence here, and three years IS a long time for her.
In her hands, crumpled papers were borne to her in a brown envelope. Stamped and addressed to her. And these papers brought forth a rush of emotion evoked by memories of a time, long ago (to her, that is), about three years before.Of a time full of emotional turmoil and despairs. And the guilt she has carried on ever since. And tears came rolling down her cheeks at the sight of the handwriting she recognised intimately, so long ago.
Inside it, unwelcome but not totally unexpected, were pieces of paper. Scrunched up, possibly meant for the bin, and as if they were never meant to be posted. It was folded with obvious ironing to smoothen out the crinkles. And on these pieces of paper, pour forth a sea of emotions of a man whose heart she has gutted. A man she bumped into two months back.
‘Ma Cherie,
This may came as a surprise to you, possibly not, considering the circumstances. Whichever it is, I’m sure, dead sure you will be surprised, later on. Not that I wanted to surprise you. No dear, about the only thing I want to do is give you the best I could offer, but alas, the best was not good enough for you. We could have it good. We did actually, in our short time together. And we could have it much better but God had His plans. I had none. I’ve had none before I met you. And worse, I’ve lost my bearings and all plans I’ve had for you, for us. It all has been rendered useless, hopelessly moribund the moment you left me.
I sound bitter don’t I? I’m not honey, I can’t be, not to you. I love you too much to feel any resentment. I’m just a fool. A silly old fool that could have just gotten on with his stupid life if not for a chance meeting with you. And what a gamble it was to pursue your affection, knowing the trappings that came with you. Albeit it’s somewhat unfair to me to only know of the damning circumstances later on.
I don’t really know why I should be sending this to you. It’d be useless to spill out my heart to you. You’ve heard it all. Seen it, felt it. And you’ve proven it to me, no matter how profuse my feelings are for you, it is wasted. Misdirected. Useless. Just like me. But I don’t care. I cannot care. I want you to know, and it matters to me not, what you think or feel about it. Because the only thing that mattered to me, the only good in my life is no longer with me. I have always loved you, I loved you then, I still do. And I will always love you. And words fail me when it comes to describing my feeling for you. The words, ‘I love you’ would pale besides my true feelings for you.
Setting my eyes on you would light up the gloomiest of days but our last accidental meeting brought back damning memories. Memories I never wanted to be reminded of. To tell you the truth, you had me hooked when we first met. The moment my eyes fell upon you was the moment I fell for you. What about you that hooked me? Can’t put a word to it. Bear with me a while, endure my mindless ramblings, my shoddy writing, my petty intrusions into your life. I’ll bother you not again, soon enough. In a while, we, or at least I will truly bare it all for the other to see.
My dear, much as I try to forget you, I can’t. Your presence never fades. Strain as I might, all my days passes not without once I think of you. You may not realise it, just what an impact you had on me. And I’m trying to not bore you to death with it, suffice to say that it satisfies me to make you know of such an impact you do have in my life. You kindled in me a fire I never thought I could have. And you fluffed it out when you turned your back on me. And I ask myself, (and questioned God too, blasphemous of me, eh?) what did I do this time? What in the world did I do to deserve this? Why can’t you just choose me over him? That and the most damning question of all, what is it with you that won’t make me let you go?
All things, good and bad must come to an end. My good times I can’t recall much, if there were any. Must be being in the perpetual gloom of all things bad and nasty that never cease that left me impaired and blinded to all things good. But you my dear, has changed that all. You gave me hope. You made me laugh. In me, you stoked a fiery outburst of enthusiasm to face the world. I’m no longer the spineless glob of depression living life by rote again. Where it used to be a daily struggle to make sense and meaning in this sadistic life, you enlightened me. How the days of summoning Herculean prowess to just get out of bed seemed no longer irrelevant.
When you departed from my life, all that is left is a vast numbness, too big to comprehend. I could feel nothing, all things just seemed to cease to exist. The ground seemed to swallow me up from below and there was no end in this abyss I’m falling into. I turned to God, pleaded with Him to make it stop. The loneliness was too vast. I begged, I pleaded, I promised, knowing very well, I can’t keep it, for God to make it end. It was like a burning stake through my heart and slowly turning. And I turned to so many things, some good, mostly bad, but still I hung on to the hope that someday, just maybe, you will come back to me. But, alas, that is one hope too big to be pining my life on. Then, one fine day, I finally realised, in a drunken but sobering stupor, all the hoping, the tears shed, the smoking, the moments wasted in shady establishments, (which I’ve sworn to never set foot in again) would never bring you back, ever. I can waste all my life waiting in vain for you, my love, but it would come to nothing. And it has come to nothing, and I have enough wasting of my life. There would never be anyone like you, ever.
There were times I wished I’d been more assertive. And not just stood by, dumbly oblivious to the fact that I’m not the only guy you’re seeing. I actually believed (it sounds absurd now) my waiting (in vain, I might add) would sway your affections into my favour. Ha! It doesn’t only sound absurd now, it was terribly absurd then but I was dead serious with you. I was just bidding my time, so I naively told myself. Leaving your boyfriend for me would be easier with the passage of time was my line of reasoning. So I’ve played along, stealing time away for you from him, making concessions for you to attend to him when beckoned by him. Letting you call him from my cell, staying a galaxy away whenever he’d come a calling. If ever they was a willing and gullible cuckold, I’m it.
There were times too when my conscience took its grip on me, sadly not too firmly for my sake. It keeps telling me not to flirt around with someone else’s honey. And I keep telling myself too, fire is not something you want to toy around with. But feelings overcome all reasoning. All the powers in the world could not make me regain my faculties of reasoning. I was totally smitten by you. You had me wrapped around your little finger. All you had to do was just snap your fingers and any wish you beckoned, would be my command. It was simply as you wished, dear.
Enlighten me my love, on how best to bury this sorrow. How best to climb out of these depths of sorrow. Without you in my life, I foresee no future joy in my life. You are my life and I miss you. Sometimes when the pain becomes acute it is difficult to hold on. Do you think all this pain is necessary when one can simply fluff out one’s life anytime? Is this not easier than to go through this devastating anguish? I wonder about this all the time for life has become a living hell for me.
Damn these memories I have of you! Damn the devotion I have for you, engulfing me with a steadfast loyalty for you. I’m broken, shattered by it. More broken than when we first met. But I can tell you this, these memories will taunt me no more. I’ve had enough of it. I will get to my reason for sending this letter. I will not brood over our failed relationship. All I’ve ever wanted was a proper closure, but that was just too much to ask of you. And years of wandering in the boundless land of depression have finally come to an end.
My time grows short. All the loose ends that need tightening have more or less been rounded up. I write this to bid you adieu, mon cherie. Wishing alone is not enough, nor will hoping. Hopes are just extensions of wishes. Making things happen when you have neither way nor ability will not amount to anything. I have done all I could and I cannot summon anymore from my battered body and spirit. Perhaps I could have done more and done things differently but I’ve reached my limits.
Things could have been different. I would never really knew what happiness was if I’ve never met you. I’m grateful for that. At least in my pitiful life, I, for a moment, have had some semblance of normalcy. I was actually happy, thanks to you, albeit for a short while. I would give up everything and forsook everything I have in this world for you, to be just with you again. But that is hoping, and hoping is so much out of character for me.
I’m sorry if I’m going to make you cry. Deep inside, I know you still care (at least, pity a fellow human being. Or maybe it’s just me wishfully thinking?), and I’m hating myself for doing what I’m going to do or have done by the time your beautiful eyes set sight on these words. I’d rather die than hurt you. So please, I beg of you, when you know what I’ve done, don’t you ever dare shed a tear for me. I’m not worthy of it. I’m a fool to do it, like the fool I am to never let go of you.
People keep telling me patronisingly (in my opinion), some things are just meant to be. Maybe things were meant to be, or in our case, meant not to be, which is the thing to be. Now I’m superfluously disorientated with my words’ gymnastics. But damn it, if things were meant to be, that is, if we were meant to be apart, why in the world did we meet in the first place? I can’t find no answer for that. I did however, find an answer for my pain. I can make it stop now. It will stop. And so will this letter. This is my end, my beloved, and that ends this letter.’
Three
Two more brown envelopes wound their way through the blindingly maddening pace of getting from point A to point B in the shortest, fastest and most un-convoluted way around the postal system. Likewise the contents in a similar brown envelope spoken earlier, they were similarly crumpled, and ironed, seemingly unwilling to play the part of passengers on a journey that served no purpose, only to be sent out. But that is of no concern. What’s important is that the letters reached the hands it was supposed to reach, and that is all that matters, at least for the sender, it matters because the recipients are people whom he felt deserving of answers.
Tears were something one of the receivers will not shed today. She has shed too many tears already. Her heart was crumpled so much like the folded crumpled-up paper in the brown envelope she has received earlier in the morning, only it was multiplied a thousand times more. It is in her hands now. It was in her hands in the morning too but she couldn’t bring herself to read the whole letter. A cursory glance was enough to acknowledge the sender, a man who has rent her to an impotence of the mind. She must have her wits around her, more so now, especially after getting a stern reprimand from her boss, concerning her lapses of attention during work. No thanks to a nosy super, who seems eager to wallow in her ineptitude. And have the whole God damned world know about it. Damn her, the bloody suck up bitch. But hell! Revenge sure was sweet, serves the damned bitch right.
No one would know she spiked the nosy super’s coffee. Hell, no one would miss the bitch for not being around. In fact the world would be a better place without her around, at least at the office. Guess the boss didn’t take too kindly to her amorous advances brought on by her intoxicated state. Who would? She’s terribly challenged in the charms department. For starters, she needs two pairs of hand to barely encircle her wide girth.
The morning incident threw some weight off her back. She’s wondering as she has wondered many times in the past, ?¡ãJust how in the world did she get her job??¡À, because she’s so God-damned ugly, (the job needed some measure of beauty or charm, of which she had none) and she was a slacker at her job, and for a while, pity crept into her, because a decent job is hard to come by nowadays. Heck, her own current position took a lot of conniving and a fair measure of coddling, on her part, not to forget some finger turning and wheedling. And just then a sudden heavy gust of wind derailed her thoughts of the bitch as it swiped the papers in her hands away…
Meanwhile, just as the airborne piece of paper finally succumbed to the force of gravity, another pair of feminine hands was tearing up a brown envelope. Inside it, expectedly was folded some pieces of paper. Written in a style she so much was acquainted to, but loathe reading. Reading it needs lots of effort. A doctor’s jottings make more sense than his handwriting. But then again, she IS a pharmacist’s assistant. She’s supposed to be able to read doctors’ scrawling.
“Can’t he at least has the decency to write them down, not scrawl it?” A flurry of curses flew through the air and definitely unladylike of her to have flung them around with her elderly neighbours almost certainly around. Those retirees are always in their garden, drowning or maiming whatever poor plants they have recently brought from a nursery. Well, we all have got to have some vices, especially in the twilight of our lives. Her vices, while many, were not as prominent as her swearing. The old couple next-door vices are simply being annoyingly patronisingly nicely friendly, and kill whatever plants they can get their hands on. And by making these oldies regular customers, we can pin the nursery owner’s vice easily enough. By seeing the dead and dying planyt the nurser bastard
Her swearing stops when she found her glasses. “Now, I can finally decipher the letter,” she mutters. Before she could make it inside to the sanctuary of her home, one of her neighbours homed in on her. The husband of the elderly couple approached her, leaving her no choice but to be cordial to him, who seemed oblivious to the peppering of the air with vulgarities while the wife sniffed disapprovingly at her surroundings, as if the air was made poisonous by her young neighbour’s rants. And high in expectations of a greater view of his young neighbour’s chest.
Goodwill dictates that a neighbour has to neighbourly with the neighbours, so she held the impulse to make a dash for her door and lock it while the old man’s still afar. If only the damn old fart would just stop ogling her, it’s a chore to listen to his rambles but torture of another kind to bear his perverted eyes wander annoyingly to her chest. She always wondered if the damn old pervert is just making his stories incomprehensible and cast his voice inaudibly as a ploy to make her lean closer and provide a better close-up view of her chest. It’s flattering all right, but all that attention doesn’t make itself welcome, coming from an old fart like her neighbour.
Anyway she kept up with the friendly banter, all the while stealing glances at the letter in her hands and just trying to be inconspicuously polite and conspicuously rude at the same time, without really hurting the old man’s feelings and telling him subtly that she really has to go. Words like good-bye and apologies were jumping off the paper. Without caring much for the elderly neighbour of her chest admirer’s feelings, she read the letter in between nods and muttered ‘uh-huhs’ and suddenly blurted, ‘Shit!’ and simply ran into the house.
The wife looked at her now open-mouthed husband, unaware of her spouse’s interest in the young bird next door was more than being cordial neighbours. ‘You can shut your mouth, you know dear’, she said to her husband. ‘Kids nowadays have no respect for us elders. Now if I were her mother, she’ll get a piece of my mind for using that kind of language with you dear. I’ll surely make her learn her manners.’ She beckoned him to come help her pull out the weeds and wonder how much fertiliser she has to put to make her flowers bloom this time and hopefully, not die like the rest.
Four
He was a pitiful sight when she first saw him through his thick veil of secrecy. His eyes were hollow and lacking in life. There was no sparkle in them. His face was wooden, though it was flexible enough to break into a grin and laugh genuinely convincing. It took a long while to see through that fa?ade. He was a ready laugh. He was fun to be with. And he played the part of a man bothered not with his troubles very, very well.
That was how it seemed at first glance. And damn, was he ever good! She could think of no one else who could keep a straight face like him. Anyone who has had the privilege of knowing him would think him of no else but a happy-go-lucky man. There simply was no way to think of him otherwise. The camaraderie, the infectious grins, the raucous banters. He was so full of it. He never seemed to have a care in the world. How so accurate that assumption was. Fact was, he really DOESN’T have a care about anything.
Odd enough, friends, or more suitably, acquaintances like how he would refer them to, ‘Because there is no friend in the world for me’ never really knew him for what he truly is. Underneath the plastic face he’s wooden, his laughs belies his cries, and the rambunctious exchanges of his were a sham. All he did was wear a mask of happiness and wear it well. It took an astute mind and a keen pair of eyes to penetrate through that fog of mystery he keeps himself perpetually shrouded with. And it was her who penetrated through the fake dalliances.
Actually, the credit wasn’t all hers. Nor did it take a genius to figure him out. One only needs to be well, astute and insistent. And be a spitting image of his old flame, the bane of his life and sad demeanour. He was very well liked by his peers and admired for his dedication to work (if only people knew he was using it to keep his mind off his undying love) and how nice he was to her in their inter-work relationship. She had ruminated over their relationship many, many times. He was never close to anyone but her, and her alone. He can be really mean, always jesting, making anyone and everyone (himself included) the butt of his jokes, but sparingly pulled out the milder, kinder jokes on her. He was always making time for her, didn’t seem to mind having meals with her, and plentiful as he was in acquaintances, he was always alone. Not entirely alone, he’d always have a pack of fag or two in his pockets, and a stick always clamped between his lips whenever circumstances allowed him to (and a bit too much to his peers’ concern, and way too much to her chagrin), and a surly attitude when the circumstances didn’t allow him to. And it made her wonder, really wonder, because he’s very much a loner, yet surrounded by company. It’s contradictory, this being a loner and surrounded at the same time business.
It took a bit of digging, actually more on her benefit than his as to describe his behaviour. He might look like a cow, chewing on a gum, looking drawl when he can’t get a drag, but underneath that dour long face is a man she’s really interested with. The tea lady enlightened her on that matter. An old maid, and as haggy as she was, things rarely escaped her attention. The tea lady seemed more concerned about office gossips than the awful tea she brewed day in, day out. She remarked about how similar she was to the old flame, whose name she can’t recall but remembers very well.
What a couple they were, the tea lady remarked. Except, no one really knew they were a couple, save but for a close circle of friends, though many of their peers suspected it. ‘Now how did she know about it?’ she wondered but knew better to ask but just accept the fact that a nosy old lady like her would know about that. He was never the one to divulge his intimate details, he was a people’s person, keeping a jovial front for his mates, and a mystery man. No one can’t really say where he’s from, he’d slip in and out dialects flawlessly. He doesn’t talk much about his family, (‘Hmph!,’ rang out a thought in her mind. “Bet this old lady has no inkling of him living with his mum and having a deserter for a father. It took a while for him to confide that his father deserted the family, it wasn’t a simple cut and dried case of divorce.”‘) or even mention his full name, preferring only to be called monosyllabically, hardly replies when called duo-syllabically, and pulls a face when called his name in full, all seven sylabbles? letters of it.*-change!
He never complained about the tea, instead he helped with the tea, because he drank it copiously, foully brewed or otherwise. His brew was a bit too light, skimping on the tea and sugar, but better than the tea lady’s. He was terribly nice, he made friends with everyone, and it was never below his dignity to help out with the menial, often overlooked (with scorn and distaste) tasks. He’d go out of his way for anyone (That was the hook that caught the younger of the two’s fancy). ‘But forgive me child, I know nuts about him.’ And the old lady very quietly and remarkably swift for her age, nimbly stepped out of the rest room, pretending to be immersed in her job as the silhouette of a manager grew into substantiality by the door.
‘I can’t say of nothing. I don’t have any words for you. All I want and can say to you is I’m sorry,’ were his last words to her and those same words are repeated faithfully in his letter. Instead of breaking off to a whimper and turning his back on her, like he did when they last met, his letter went on. ‘And all the apologies in the world heaped into mountains by your feet would never erase the wrongs I’ve done to you. And no liar can be ingenious enough to think of an excuse for what I’ve done. There’s simply no justification for behaving the way I did to you. It sounds hollow and downright unfulfilling to mutter those words, I’ve said and will say again. I’m sorry. Forgiveness may not come from you, and I expect none from you because I don’t deserve it. If there’s anything I deserve for being the bloody jackass that I am, it’s ignorance from you. I was wrong to take you into my world, and I, a man with little regret, regretted doing just that. Because I never really did that. I never took you into my world. Instead I resorted to fantasy. It’s not you who I imagined I was with. I’m sorry.
It has been boiling in me for the longest time and how so much I want respite from it no one knows. I wasn’t on the verge of breaking up, I was totally broken to a zillion small pieces, before you even came into my life. My first thought when I first saw you was finally, God has heeded my prayers. I wouldn’t deny thinking though, that maybe God was being cruel to me, playing tricks with my eyes. And how so much like her you are. You, no, not you, God really had me fooled. I’ve really thought it was her, not you. And try I did, believe me I did so damn hard to erase all thoughts and memories of her, you’ve brought me back to the happier days, which isn’t really a gratifying thought, because you and she are two different entities. And history has turned the universe’s greatest jester with me.
I saw in front of me, a future of the past or perhaps the past of a future (I’m not making much sense am I?) with you in my sights. Somehow along the way, fantasy and reality meshed together over blurring lines. You became her. The world closeted up in me, opened up. All wrongs in the world can’t hurt me, for my balm, the saviour of me, is back! You WERE her to me. You shook the very foundations of my sanity and you somehow were superimposed*overlaid in a sick way on her… I can’t think of a better way to explain my neurosis with her. I did say no excuse could come close to explain my wrongdoing. *She makes me laugh, and all I want is to be happy. Don’t everybody wants to be happy? You’re simply not her.
I think it’s only fair to come out clean, meek apologies and lame excuses aside, because I would like to leave this world with a clean slate. Granted I’m not the most pious man (can I be considered one even?) you’ve come across in your life, but it’d be best (for me) to know all the wrongs I have done in this world has been addressed, though forgiveness may still be wanting.
Take heart, you have made me happy, albeit prolonging my pain, unintentionally and I can never thank you enough for being patient with me. For being understanding. For trying so hard for me. For being the person she wasn’t. You have never turned your back on me, it was I, and I’ll take that regret to my grave. But I am not worthy of you. I never wanted to be with anyone else but her. And you are not her, but my twisted mind has conjured a perverted version of you/her. You are a wonderful person in your own right, I wish things weren’t so convoluted. Another time, another place, things may have worked out in our favour.
Funny, I said the same thing to her. And funnier too, I never really told you why things didn’t work out between she and me. It’s simple really, our conundrum. There was a third party in our relationship and before you go off on a wild tangent, *and calls her a bitch) addendum let me remind you, I was that third party. I will not justify myself for swooping on another lad’s squeeze, nor do I say I condone her for taking a look around, but things simply happened. And to my detrimental effects I should add. On one of our many trysts, she had me feeling for the only one time, there was no other man for her and I was that man. That day was not only particularly significant for that fact only, it was also the day the other guy found out about us, and the day she turned her back on me.
Funny how loyalty can be easily forged and just as easy be a forge. In took weeks for the simple fact of her leaving me to register in my mind. I tell you, I couldn’t feel anything at first. It was as if all my senses have been shorn of me. I simply couldn’t feel a thing. Nor could I think. I was numb. Totally numb and I found myself getting more lost and more morose by the day. I’m not proud and I care less to repeat to what measures and dire straits I found myself in after that. You yourself are quite familiar with that. How anyone could stand my ravings is beyond me. You were kindly to me and I am grateful but I’m also an ingrate for treating you so. Trust me when I say this, my feelings were genuine. All I have said to you weren’t peppered with lies. I could love you, I was opening up to you but she came back in my life. She came into our lives. I took the foolish step of leaving you, (not for her!) and mentally incapacitated the way I am right now, I know well enough my next step is immeasurable in its stupidity.
I beg you, forgive me. Find it in your heart. If truly you’ve meant the words you said to me, you will find it. For I am speaking from experience. I’ve loved her too much for my own good, and ours too sadly, but I can never hate her, despite all she’d done to me. All I had for her was love and forgiveness. Here’s hoping that you would someday forgive me. And dry your eyes, for it’d only cloud your vision. I hope you will see clearly what a hopeless case I was and look to the future without me in your sights.
We are but soldiers of love. I’ve lost my war of many battles. You’ve lost only a battle. Trudge on?-..’
Epilogue
When he was done writing he took a deep breath and stood on his chair. Clearly the matter of killing himself is still undecided, or rather the manner of his death is still undecided. His windows are blocked by grilles that are dead set bolted to the frame of the windows. That ruled out a jump to meet death. Sleeping pills would do, he has at least a month’s supply, ill-gotten, *courtesy of a well intending pharmacist’s friend and just as easily duped) thanks to a convenience of having a friend working in the healthcare fraternity.
He jumped out of his chair. Suddenly he was actually looking forward to doing something. His last thing to do on earth.
Rummaging through his medical supplies, he found what he was looking for. But he was looking for an instantaneous death, and sure death. He doesn’t want to wake up in a hospital bed. Overdosing himself with pills won’t do. Maybe a combination would do. But what the hell to combine it with? Should he slit his wrists too? He ruminated awhile and forgo that choice. His trusty razor is in the bathroom and he doesn’t fancy a trip to the loo, no not at this time. He wanted to die soon and the thought of leaving his room for a lousy razor, which might hasten his death, is unappealing in thought because it seemed such a drag to leave his room.
Over a cigarette, which was also fittingly his last of the two packs he has smoked for the night, his eyes caught a glimpse of his neckties hanging in his open wardrobe. Ah, simplicity and elegance shone through. Stuffing himself full those pills and with a loop the neck and fall in drowsiness seemed fantastical. That would be the way to go. And a sure way to go, at that.
Soon after the cigarette burned itself to the filter that it stung his lips with its heat, he went to work. He took a handful, popped it in and scooped up the ones he dropped from the floor. He took another handful from the jar to be sure. And fashioned a simple noose and tied it around the base of his ceiling fan. He was drowsy soon enough and the new dawn came upon him with a loud sickening thud of a body dropping off a chair, echoed in the still of the new day by the crashing sounds of a fallen chair. His stereo went on and on and on?-. fittingly greeting a new day not with sappy broken-hearted-mournful melodies, but in an upbeat gay harmonics, mocking him on and on and on.
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