ks to columbia

20 august 05. i went up to the departure hall, found an empty seat, and sent her a message. it occurred to me that i should maybe write something for her, so i started on my notepad: "my dear baby:" ... then she called, saying she was having dinner at the other terminal, and asked me to join her. i said i would, even though i was half-unsure, but continued writing anyway. i cannot remember the details - i'm not a very details person - but i said it was very difficult to imagine how we had come through the past thirteen years, through the many highs and lows - with and without each other, but always with us in our minds. i couldnt be wrong on this one. the amazing, crisp anecdotes she related, that even i had forgotten, was testimony to how far back we traced and how much our lives had resided in each other's. and there were things i didnt know until for a long time afterwards. like how my mum called her and asked if she would like to marry me. like how the same mother complained to c over the phone that she had the nerves to bring her boyfriend (and who was not to be me) to this same mother's house. how i could tear at her ebullient narratives. three years ago she was at this same spot sending me off, and we bade farewell with as much certainty that we would see each other again, certain that when i returned there would be even more stories to regale - and indeed there were; and where we were now would be where we would be in 3 years' time - only then, with even more stories of our lives, with and without each other, to tell, to add to a shared lifetime of friendship that i'm sure would survive the both of us long after we depart, be it in our diaries, in the stories we tell our friends, in the footprints that would have long disappeared but nonetheless would indelibly remain in a happy soul, or an aggrieved heart, in an annonymous consciousness, somewhere. i didnt mean to sign off with a heavy heart and so deliberately pared down the emotions. but re-reading it just now i thought what i felt in me had spilt and splashed on their own onto the page that was totally removed from those black-inked cursive scribbles that purported to represent them. i could only hope that she would not read it the same way i had.

it was after she crossed the gates into the other side, when i entered the toilet and stood at the urinal, that the depressing, heavy overhang let loose its weight as i released my pee. i felt as if i was going to be standing there for hours on end, because that depressing, heavy feeling didnt seem to want to go away anytime soon. when i was finally relieved and went out, a kind of loneliness i had never felt before in my entire life sank in, sliding into my marrows, and i could just feel it snuggling comfortably in those marrow-nooks, stretching out cosily, languidly smiling to the pallid world outside, to the part of me that had abdicated with her.

Here we are all, by day; by night we're hurled

By dreams, each one, into a several world.

-- Robert Herrick