Hard, screeching tires hit the pavement hard. The rush and inevitability of returning home is beffudling. Hank left for New York four years ago to pursue his dream to become a best selling author. Now, here he is once again by the small, quiet sea side town of Eureka by Humboldt Bay in California. Go figure he reminds himself, as he disembarks from the plane and sees they need to walk to the airport’s arrival area. Pretty standard westbend; small, simple, but homey. Nothing too outrageous; they always worked with what worked the most. That meant being profoundly trifty you could mistake them to be unbelievably cheap; sometimes Hank believes the town’s forefather’s invented everything from the concept of hand-me-downs to recycling and outsourcing. Ofcourse he knew it was incredulous, incredibly ridiculous, but he never gave up the idea completely even after the Chinese settlers were expelled years ago. He was reminded about it when he entered the airport’s main arrival hall, which doubled as the departure area too. He looked at the metal bleachers lining the hall’s walls; grey from his first trip to his aunt’s in Chicago when he was eight, still grey when he left four years ago, and to no surprise, still grey today. He waited for his bags by the usual spot, the hole in the west wall where the arriving bags came through. There was still no conveyor, so the same tanned skinny guy who hauled bags all those years ago was the same man who still did the hauling, having greyed abit like the bleachers. Despite not being home for years, he befriended Hank and helped get his dufflebag first. The dust settled as it hit the floor. It was official, Hank was back. All of what was his life in New york was in that bag. Now, all of his life was in Southbend once again. Started from nothing, returned to nothing. Being back home was both reassuring and boring. He was hoping the latter be more appreciated now that he was in between older and wiser. He just came from Marseille, in France,  spending his honeymoon. It wasn’t the typical one mind you. He came home alone.

Dear Karen,

If you’re reading this it means I’ve actually worked up the courage to mail it, so good for me.  You don’t know me very well, but if you get me started I have the tendency to go on and on about how hard the writing is for me.  But this, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write.
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it. I’ve met someone.
It was an accident. I wasn’t looking for it. I wasn’t on the make.  It was a perfect storm. She said one thing. I said another. Next thing I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the middle of that conversation.
Now, there’s this feeling in my gut; she might be the one.
She’s completely nuts, in a way that makes me smile. Highly neurotic; a great deal of maintenance required.
She is you Karen. That’s the good news.
The bad is that I don’t know how to be with you right now, and it scares the shit out of me. Because if I’m not with you right now, I have this feeling we’ll get lost out there. It’s a big, bad world full of twist and turns, and people have a way of blinking, and missing the moment; the moment that could’ve changed everything…
I don’t know what’s going on with us, and I can’t tell you why you should waste the leap of faith on the likes of me, but damn you smell good, like home, and you make excellent coffee. That’s got to count for something, right?
Call me.

I’m faithfully yours,
Hank

It’s been a few years now. I’ve been working on forgetting the lasts. I still remember however, in all earnestness, the firsts.

I remember the first time we met. She had a tall, Mocha Frapuccino. It was the first time we talked face to face. I also remember her first kiss. It was on our way to separate sides of the train tracks. I got off work to meet her and make her feel better, just because she needed me. I was pleasantly surprised she leaned close, like the first time she put her arm around mine. The memory still makes me smile. I too remember meeting her daughter for the first time. We shared awkward laughs amidst chicken and spaghetti. I remember all the firsts pretty well. I remember our first movie, Wall-E. I remember how I told her awkwardly just moments before that I liked her, and how she, moments later said it back without saying it to me.  I remember our first kiss the most. We kissed in the middle of the street as I dropped her off. I also remember the first time we had gelato. She asked me to go to Italy together with her. We promised to go together. Those were the days. They were all in the past; memories dear to my heart.

Now, much time passing after, I’m here by her gravestone, visiting every Wednesdays and Saturdays, just like back when we started dating, where I chose these dates since she was off these days too. Things changed, as they always do, with impeccable permanence.

I’m now 42, grayed and older. I’m married as well, to a lovely wife named Jenny, with whom I fathered four beautiful children. She is very tender, and showy, and truthful; she loves with all her heart and without holding back. Our children take after Jenny in that respect. They never fear to show their love. There’s John, with red hair that matches his fiery spirit. Then there’s Sophie, a year younger at 12, who is I think the smartest woman in the world. Clark is awesome at nine; he says he will cure cancer. Last is the sweet Natasha, who whenever she sees me, gives me the biggest kiss as if she hadn’t seen me in forever. I’m living a good life. I still work for an airline company, same as then, the one where I started, and have moved up the ladder quite a bit. I teach part time at a different school downtown and I guess I am pretty popular with the students. I like it there; the change in the scenery makes me feel I’m twenty three all over again. I also coach a peewee basketball team every Sunday morning, which both my boys Johnny and Clark play for. We all live in a beautiful 2-storey home in the suburbs where we have two puppies named Santiago and Muniel.

I had some dreams done too. I got to see the world too. I’ve gone to Fiji, the Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe, of course Western Europe too. I’ve been to the Americas, Hawaii and Tahiti, and old and greater Asia. I’ve migrated to Canada but returned here. Been to Italy but was left there. I have also been to Cannes and Sundance, but as an audience and not an entrant. I never got to make the most awesome movie ever, but I cheered on for my friends Val, Marv and Roach for doing it for me. I’ve managed to keep my friendships with everyone from friends to primary school to those I met in the ends of the country when I worked on my one and only documentary. Life has been good to me, very good. However, I’ve been everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I’m lucky in more ways than one, but the future without her is kind of weird. Back then, I swear to God, I imagined succeeding and failing all these dreams with her beside me. Things happen for a reason though, and I’m still content with the way things turned out. The word happiness was left with her. I’m still happy, but it’s a different happiness. Like love I guess, happiness has different forms, the most splendid of which are still memories of Her. My wife knows this, and I love her for always understanding and letting me go visit. My kids on the other hand are oblivious; they just like chasing each other in the vast greenery of the cemetery, tripping over the headstones after hours of running. Her daughter, now lovelier than her mother, is happy and wed too. She’s still young though, and stays in Italy as an architect. She got to live the dream of her mom for Her. She stays in touch, and sends a box of biscuits every Christmas, which, by the way, the children love. She’s expecting a baby girl soon too. She says she’ll name it after her mother, and it was her husband Fierro’s idea. I said it was awesome, and we’d visit next year when I get my yearly dose of free tickets. She calls once in a while to check, so that’s how I manage to still keep in touch. Whenever I visit her, I tell her mother of the stories of her daughter. She must be smiling mischievously and proudly up there. As for me, I still visit every Wednesdays and Saturdays as much as possible. It was our days; we were mercurial and unpredictable as Wednesdays and as gracious and protective as Saturdays. I still come with yellow lilies, despite her never liking flowers, just like the way I did to brighten up her gray days. Pissing her off was one of the things I missed the most. I’m not ashamed to admit I still miss her dearly.

On the afternoon drives back we always passed a basketball court after having dirty ice cream by the south gate. The kids there played with an old, worn ball, the threads visible even from this far. One team sported shirts, the other sported skin. They played old school, the way I liked it; barefooted. They didn’t care whether it rained or it shined. They were there all year round. One day, after seeing the usual pickup game, I remembered a question an old teammate asked. Is Basketball like Life, or is Life like Basketball? As a retired player turned coach, I have always pondered this question since the first time I heard it. It was a junior game way back in high school, and we just lost our first and only elimination game in the school’s intramural games. Our coach said losses are part of basketball, of life. Our point guard, Mark asked which it was it between the two. That was first time I saw the truth in the matter, that life and basketball are not really all that different.

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“Is Basketball like Life, or is Life like Basketball?”

Life and Basketball share the same fundamental truths. There are winners and there are losers. And with the losing and winning, there will be the inevitable meeting or failing of expectations. Luck can go your way, or either way. There are things you will never be able control, such as time, other people, and sometimes yourself. Once decisions are made, they are irreversible. Once calls are made, they cannot be taken back. You have to work on the relationships you have with the people around you; you build on chemistry and work to bring the best out in people. You can try hard, but sometimes it just won’t work out. People come and go too; rookies, imports, retirees.

Like a basketball, you bounce around in life too. You’re up, you’re down, you’re in control one time, and you’re out of bounds the next. But regardless, you always find yourself back in the game. Pressure abounds all the time; it may strain you, but you must never let it break you. The final truth is you are always part of the game, whether you are on the court as a player, on the bench as a coach, or in the stands as a spectator. You must always remember there are no off nights in life and basketball; you may struggle through but you must get through it. And it the end, it’s not about the box score, it’s about the effort put in. If you’re not going to go all the way, don’t even bother trying, as I used to say all the time to my teammates and to my players. There is no place for fear on the court and in life; there is only solace for those who gut it out. There are comebacks, there are retirements, there are injuries, and there are casualties. Which you will be will entirely be up to you. You can be a super star, or half a star. You can be a coach, or you can be a mentor. You can simply be content watching from afar or work on your game to actually play in it. Like in life and basketball, you can be all you want to be. The difference between the two is, in basketball, there is always the accolades and glory for the winner; enshrinement and immortality. For the loser, there’s the mopping and the watching of the winner win it all.

In life, there is no such thing. There are no guarantees that the winner wins it all and losers get nothing. In life, there are triumphs in defeats and sacrifices for victories. Basketball is governed by the rules. In life, there are no rules. Where the similarities end, the differences begin. Life is far more far-reaching and unpredictable than basketball. Life is more exciting than slam dunks and fast breaks, as well as fancier than alleyoops, behind the back and no-look passes. Life too, is far greater unpredictable than a buzzer beater or even a series upset. Life is what it is. Life is awesome, despite the things it may force us to go through.

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That is what I remember to this day. If there is anything that’s sure in this life, it’s death and taxes. Death however, also means that for every departure, there is the arrival of new life, new starts, new beginnings, and new paths to trailblaze. Whenever we hit the road home every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, at just about twilight, that point in between the day and the night, I remember I’m still stuck there, in between two places; slipping throught the cracks. I’ve always realized being in this surreal prison of sorts showed me things enlightend or befuddled people definitely couldn’t; seeing things in perspective made me see things all the better as a matter of fact. I realized I will be forever at an impasse with the happy life I am living and the happy life I could’ve had…

The lesson I’ve been trying to learn so far was in front of me all along. We must only bury the body, and not the memory. I also learned we must never, ever, regret anything that ever made us smile. I’ve learned, most importantly, that just because we can’t start over from the beginning, it doesn’t mean we have to have the same ending. I learned, thank God, to live life, one day at a time; to not let the worrying of tomorrow to ruin today. I learned early in life, at a young twenty three, that most importantly, nothing is far greater than to love. We must love with all we are and all we have; whenever and wherever we might be, as well as whoever we will be with.

And that is the moral of this story. Love the fuck out of anything, even if it costs you everything. It’ll never be easy, but it’ll always be worth it.

I needed to meet Her to find the Next Her. I guess where some stories end, another simply begins…

Six monotonous chimes of an old, brass bell break the silence. I look around and all I see are people who are moving too fast, too hasty for my taste at least. I hear nothing but noisy whispers and the shuffling of busy feet. The aura of uneasiness fills the air, like how these churchgoers were filling up the once empty pews and killing the calm and sanctuary this place has offered me lately. As I saw this unfold before me, the one thing that drew my constant gaze was this frail, old lady in the front most seat. She wore a black dress and a white veil, and kept on praying with hands clamped so tight that I could almost feel the rosary she was clutching choking. All I could pray for was I had the same amount of faith. I was praying I was right to have faith in myself. I have lost my way these last few weeks, and it has me all going back to that fateful day.

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A small clan, I hear from Raef, called the Yaghan, who reside somewhere in South America, in an island called Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, in between Argentina and Chile, have a word of theirs that is ringing in my head. Mamihlapinatapai, which is sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word”, and is considered one of the really trickiest words to translate, given the lack of words to grasp cultural context.

It describes a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start. This could perhaps be translated more succinctly as “eye-contact implying ‘after you…’“ A more literal approximation is “ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other”. A reciprocal decision to go somewhere and nowhere at the same time is frighteningly an inner battle I am facing. It could be said it was about Her, but truthfully, it’s about the old me telling the new me to kill the memory of Her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here I am, in Church, arguably in the arms of God, but unwilling to be embraced. I’ve been a regular at Church lately, seventeen straight days to be exact. The parish priest sat beside me a couple of times, and apparently saw my searching for answers as a personal journey. In a community of intrusive parishioners, I was given a place of solace despite my personal desolation. I don’t know why, but someway, somehow, my memory lately has always found it’s way back to that, the last day; the last date, the last cab ride, the last non-talk.

This Church, with all the melancholy, was my only saving grace as of late. The altar has become my visage, symbolic of only ritualistic but not actual retribution. I had accepted my saving myself has become a far-flung idea with the remotest of possibility to be actualized. Bloody brutal I have become, maybe because I was brutally bloodied to begin with. The fuckee has become the fucker, if I may say so. It’s still lingering, this metanoia of self-destruction I am commandeering my soulless reprieve with. Seeking blind vindication, I have discovered, is the most self-rewarding self-flagellation of an emotional sadist like me. It reminds me, in all grueling detail, that the last look we shared was mamihlapinatapai-ish; the classic impasse. Like most though, it was unresolved and to this day is what I have credited for our demise. I remember going down the cab, and that was the last I would ever see of her being seen with me.

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It’s people who put people in a bad place, but it’s also people who can save people. She used to always tell me this with her smiling eyes.

She saved me once.

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I had just got back from class. It’s an early Tuesday evening. I open the screen door out back and plug my earphones in. Glam Rock is blasting through, and I get psyched up from Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name. I tighten my cross trainer’s laces then tuck them into the sides. I feel the temperature drop, and instinct dictates it’s going to rain a bit, and it’ll probably be on the light side. I walk slowly to the curb. I take a deep breath and put my hood up. I blow my cheeks full of air then speed off into a jagged pace.
I see everything blur by, not because I was fast, but because maybe things were starting to get blurry inside.

Getting Stella’d was the closest thing to winning the lottery. It could happen, but the chances were infinitesimal. But it did, and it didn’t reflect the luck of the previous, but rather the unfortunate playing out of fate from the latter. The revenge of the unfortunate, I was starting to discover, is an uphill battle with inner demons. I was just about starting to win them over with the serenity of being alone.
I looked left, looked right before crossing the street. I jetted forward but freeze in my tracks. It’s Her.
She’s waving. She’s waving frantically and pointing to her right. Before I know it, I hear a loud horn drowning her screams and the others on this busy street. I look left and notice the damn bus too late.

Screech. Then Bam.

I feel the hard, cold cement road break my fall. I saw how the bus breaks her.
How come I wanted to do all the saving and she always manages to do it for me.

The last touch I ironically get from her is like the last one: a hard push away.
This time, it hurts a hell of a lot more.

I miss you. I miss the old you; I even miss the new you. I miss the entirety of you. I wished I said that, but I didn’t say that.

I want my life back, I told her.

She asked what the heck did that mean.

I looked deep into her eyes and told her, that I had meant her.

I badly wanted to say she chose the wrong guy. I wanted to say she was going to regret this all of her life. I wanted to say, most of all, that I know she knows she made the biggest mistake of her life. But I wasn’t there to win her back, so I kept my trap shut. Maybe I shouldn’t have. 

There was just silence.

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Maybe a part of her didn’t expect what I would say. She was maybe expecting ‘what happened?’ or the proverbial and accusatory ‘why?’ We were here in a place either of us was sure we did not want to be. We haven’t talked in ages since the split. Concerned and engaging friends arranged for this, and I couldn’t really decide whether I agreed with this idea of theirs, this ‘closure’ thing. I went on with my life, and so did she. Here we were, all of a sudden, reopening closed books and old wounds, at least mine I thought. And was there anything to be had? I always kidded we were sadists; she the teenage drama queen, and me the emotional vampire. We never really needed closure. I thought I did before, compared to her. I realize now it is better bitter sweet; frozen in time and etched in memory.

Everything from the talks at the libe, to bad hair days, to early morning breakfasts, and before school coffee, after school dinners and the cab rides in the rain or on a hot day, our Saturday’s out, I treasure those days. I regrettably too, treasure her cold stares, her verbal spitfires, and her increasing indifference. I always carried a chip on my shoulder, and arguably having a hole in my heart suits me just fine. Right here, right now, we were engulfed in this silence.

It would have affected me before when we first went out; were the silence meant a conversational lull and equated boredom. But as we get to know each other, we somehow got to experience the serenity of the peace and quiet of just sitting with each other. Oddly, we reached a point we didn’t need to talk to communicate. We did everything fast and it didn’t cost us the translational loss like how others had despite their years together. That is the awesomeness we had, and lost.

That is why I will forever relish the early days of my being twenty-three. I was young, I was stupid, I was nonchalant. I was madly in love.

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Here we are again; she short of being tied and gagged to a chair, but nonetheless reflected the same emotional immobility. And I get the same indifference, and with that the same nostalgia of the good times. I accept I have to take the good and the bad; and that is what makes it all worth it. So I stare back and smile at her, and she understands she needs not to say anything. We leave the room meeting minds for the meantime, like in the good old days. It ends at that. Or so I think.

She confessed she was sorry.

Sorry about what I asked? I said I was the one that needed to apologize.

She said she was sorry about everything.

I said I was too.

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Years later and she haunts me. Her haunting me maybe a strong word, but she does. Her influence and presence stun me to this day, like the ghost of the past nagging at a troubled conscience. I look at couples and I see her. When I look at window sills and shop display’s reflections, I see her grinning. When I see a little girl, I see her eyes disappear as she begins smiling widely. I see her in anything and everything and the void eats me up. I will admit I am to this day a shell of a man, a mere shade of my former self. And it aggravates me I made it reach to this point, to such a putrid, sorry state. Friends notice this degeneration, and are present to try and thankfully ever misdirect my troubles. The thing is, it stops were we separate and the void grows once again, and fills my mind with doubts and my heart with darkness. It is continually being nourished by this spin cycle of growing weariness from my inner battles.

I have learned to succumb to cigarettes and scotch for comfort, and like the burn nearing the butt and the booze nearing the brim, the same void is there, lurking. The full glass, or so they call it, is continually becoming more empty.

I find myself staring into empty spaces lately. I notice the bad habit to be growingly unhealthy, eating my focus and depleting my drive. I am inimitably surprised at my own stubbornness; why want something that doesn’t want you. It eats me. It consumes me. This love affair with the ideal is driving me in-fucking-sane. And I hate myself for letting me do this to me.

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We looked at each other for a deep second. I could see in her eyes she wanted to say so many things. Knowing her though, she wouldn’t. She was like a guy in the way; she bottled that shit up.

She couldn’t stand the silence, and it didn’t surprise me. 

She said she couldn’t stay.

I said I wasn’t asking her too.

That was the last conversation we would ever share.

Binangungot nanaman ako kagabi.

Napanaginipan kong masaya tayo’t magkasama.

Bakit ba na kahit anong pilit kong talikuran ang alaala mo,

siya naman ang patuloy na pagmumulto nito.

Kailan ba ako titigilan ng aking pusong patuloy na nagaasam na makapiling ka?

Kailan ba ako tatantanan ng pag-asa na may hinaharap pa tayo?

Kailan ba titigil itong pagdarahop ng aking puso?

Bakit nga ba na kahit nagkakaganito ako, nakukumpleto pa rin ng mga alaala mo ang araw ko…

Tang ina naman oh.

Opening my eyes seemed hard at first. Before I open them and see anything, the harsh light blinds me, my bed obviously just by the window to my right. It seems forever since I opened them. Before I get my bearings to realize it is about mid-morning already, I realize I’m in a hospital room. I hear the machines attached to me go beep, just like how the heart monitors go on television. I think I hear Christian Amanpour, and I realize there is a television to my left, and the channel is on CNN. Something about a plane crash in the Atlantic is being featured. I see the familiar Continental Airlines logo, and see the plane is halved in the middle; the tail-side bobbing just like the backside of the Titanic. I stare at it, bewildered. Why am I so engulfed in the image, I ask myself.

It all becomes clear to me all of a sudden, that, despite the odds, I miraculously survive both a plane crash and drowning in the sea. I always joked I was unbreakable, just like the Bruce Willis movie. But this was pushing my luck. I remembered why I survived, and I was thinking of her; her smile, her warmth, and her love. As I looked to peek at who was on the chair looking at the TV, I will admit I was disappointed when I saw it wasn’t Her. How could it be anyway?

Jenny was a very attractive young lady, and from the looks of it was very energetic to see me wake up. Later I remarkably discover she is very smart as well as courageous. She introduced herself as a news reporter for the local TV channel. I was found by crab-fishermen some two miles out at sea a week ago. She said I was lucky I only lost my leg. I then realize my right leg wasn’t where it used to be. From just above the knee, everything else under it was now made of a composite leg. I tried to move it but all I did was wiggle it a little. I noticed her scrutinizing my facial expressions. I defensively looked towards the window. She repeated that she thought I was very lucky. I asked myself if I was. Definitely. Probably. Maybe, maybe not. I frankly didn’t know. I continue to look away from her. That is when I notice that as the sun beamed through my window, it revealed a well-manicured green garden. I said I wanted to go outside.

Jenny stood and called a nurse from the hall. After a brief checkup and some questions, I said I needed fresh air, so they halted the probing and helped me into a wheelchair. I don’t know why, but I asked Jenny to wheel me outside. She gladly obliged, maybe because it was the exclusive she was waiting for. On our way outside I met the odd gazes of passersby; other patients, doctors, nurses, visitors, even the janitor. Reaching the garden, I let out a sigh and looked at the sky. I was up there, the last time I could remember, and now I’m down here. Everything from in between both those points seemed to make me realize the journey was were everything was made clear; from the onset, the destination always help realize the worthiness of the journey. And here I was, as clueless as ever. She saw I was deep in my thoughts, and asked what I was thinking. Before I could answer, she blurted maybe I was asking myself why I survived. I nodded in agreement.

She pushed me to a wooden bench and sat. She motioned if I’d mind her smoking. I said it was OK. She lighted a stick with a match. Three strikes got it lighted, and then she puffed a couple of neatly made smoke rings. For a twenty-something woman, she appeared a lot older all of a sudden. She then said she used to cover military updates in Iraq a few years back. She then recounted something about their Hummer being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Her two escorts and the cameraman died in an instant she said. She showed how she was shielded by the soundman to her right, and explained how pushing her from being in the middle to the space between the two front seats saved her life by mere inches. She said she waited for hours being pinned under the truck before help came. After a few weeks of therapy, she came back home and decided to quit. This story was not worth telling she pondered. She said she meant the war, and that the soldiers were pawns. She said we all were, and she realized she’d rather be a meaningful pawn here in her small hometown, rather than a useless pawn fed uselessly to unworthy causes. I said she was wise for her age. Maybe coming close to death does that I told her. You realize you only have so much experience to draw from, and only pairing that with time will make the most of our own idiosyncrasies. She told me she always knew there was limitations to saying things; words, both spoken and written, media, audio, visual, audio-visual, and basically everything else. Like the gradient of pictures being a thousand words, and video a thousand pictures, we are all searching for our reasons for being, and how do we say it properly if we do find it. We are struggling to communicate not only to others but also to ourselves. The weird thing is we all look for something to say, and when we do have something worth telling, it becomes oddly personal, but it is she reaffirms. We can never share the truths we have learned, well, not in all entirety. I said maybe that’s how we are all the same. I said barring my leg, that we were all handicapped, one way or another. She laughed and nodded in disagreement. She said it’s not our fault. I said I didn’t need her to agree.

She lights another cigarette with her first one. I notice her dark black eyes sparkle in the morning sun. The gentle breeze that was flowing tussled her short black hair in the air. I noticed a scar on the upper left temple. She looks to me and offered me a cigarette. She said she picked the habit up covering marines. She said it was her tribute to the guys that saved her that day, and a sort of tribute to those she lost that day. I motioned for a stick. She put one in my mouth and lighted it for me. After spiffing it a few times I exhale a deep puff out. I tell her its been ages since I smoked, back when She was alive. She said she was sorry for my loss. I said I was sorry for hers. I talked about how our smoking was somehow reminiscent of our loved ones. The embers were like little pyres burned again and again; like a lifelong elegy if you will. She stroked the side of my head, and brushing my hair sideways a bit.

It was here, for the next two weeks, where we talked about everything and anything. We were talking about life. We were making sweet music together, playing pseudo-philosophers/ theologians without the buzz of alcohol or the bake of weed. We were playing a requiem for two; the cigarettes were our conduits and conversations played the instruments. This ritual was very reassuring over the next few days. It helped her move on, while it helped me remember. Two weeks later, after 37 days in the hospital, I was let go. Jenny dropped me off at the airport, and kissed me on the cheek. She thanked me for everything. I thanked her for everything else. She said she’d come visit me in Seattle sometime. She never did. She never had the chance. I never got to call her either. The plane I took that day, Continental Airlines flight CO 171, crashed somewhere in the Atlantic.

Up ten thousand miles in the air, and the only thing settling me is the three doubles of Jack Daniel’s I had in the first class lounge before boarding. In an airplane with a hundred sixty people, it’s still oddly all lonely. Being by my lonesome self despite the company; this was the theme of my so-called life the last few days. I’m off to the Korea and all She is all I can think about.

I know it’s over, but I just SMSed her, just in case destiny decides otherwise that I am not destined for greatness, or simply if the plane crashed. This was the only insurance I’ve set myself up for recently; the rest were astoundingly all risks.

I was out of character the last few months, and this action proved the trend. For the sure shot, I gambled a lot lately. The only thing that reflected who I am was my impeccable choosing of going for broke, since I always had nothing to begin with, nothing to lose. Apparently, there was everything to lose in love, and no amount of number crunching could have determined the outcome. Now, despite the faux paux company, I am as separated from the world as I can get. Like the scene from Superman Returns, where he flies high to watch from afar the travails of the world, I feel that sense of detachment and freedom, but at the same time the same sense of responsibility. 

I always felt I owed it to more than myself to be the vanguard of people’s dreams. I’ve realized over the years I’ve never had my own dream. I was someone who was dictated what I wanted in life; a good decent living, a loving family, some sense of self-respect and maybe, just maybe, a dream, or the dream. I, in all honestly, have neither of the last two. I discovered recently I am just a big ball of clay; highly impressionable but neither with enough gusto or talent to shape my own destiny for myself. I am the extreme form of mediocrity; I absorb lexicon and mannerism; the penultimate culture vulture if you will. I maybe in the truest sense a great copycat, but in all truth am not filled with any of the perceived originality either. I am a soulless drifter going through my boring prolonged soap opera of a life and the only true high points is my guest starring in the lives of passers-by I meet on the road with far more interesting lives. Why am I here, being benched in the air; I get a break from it all. And this is not helping me, at all. Really. I’m dry on material; I need inspiration. I need her. I’m afraid one day I lose all the griping and the loneliness I won’t have anything to write about. This would mean I actually exhausted her, and that is truthfully what fears me. I don’t want to lose her completely. The memory of her lips and the broken, cruel smile of hers is all I have left of her. If I exhaust that; if I replace the doubting with the indifference, I end up just like her. I am soulless enough as it is. The last thing I want to become is heartless. The turbulence that is stirring the plane is disturbing my heart. What if the numbness does get in; the cancer that is her memory, burrowing deeper into me, is magically replaced with the healing done by time and a clearer mind. I don’t want to erase her from my memory. I want to fight changing. I want to stay here; vulnerable and with so much love. I know I tried my best to reach her. Will I reach me?
Oh no.
No time for that.
The plane is starting to tremble uncontrollably. The flight attendants serving the after-meal teas and coffees are spilling the drinks all over the place, tumbling all over as the overhead compartments open and throw bags to the ground. The sleeping Welshman beside me opens his eyes and along with the others, screams for help. The chaos all around seems all too orchestrated; a mix between a well-choreographed dance and a well-planned sequence shot. Everything is happening so fast and yet I manage to see everything unfold; the seat belt signs light up, the croaking of the captain’s voice as he masks in his nervous voice the reality of the end announcing everyone to brace themselves, the drowning shrieks of everyone from the crying, ignorant baby two rows up front to the wailing mother and daughter at the exit rows opposite me. I feel my stomach level with my chest, the lightning bolt that glowed gold that I witnessed up close on my left window milliseconds ago apparently hit us hard. We were descending uncontrollably, down spiraling instead as the Captain tried to tussle the plane, one-wing bad and two-engines dead.

The plane I feel hits the water, tossing the two flight attendants, one the aged Purser forward and brushing him hard against the seats in front of me, and the other, younger lady thrown backward, barely seeing her slam into the ceiling before rolling to the toilets at the back. The plane stirs the crashing waves, the waters matching the frenzied pace of the harsh winds outside. With all the high-tech weather forecasting systems, our planes falls smack in the middle of a thunderstorm. My sarcasm is short lived as I remember to open the airplane’s doors as the lights on the plane’s floors light up. I give a quick look to my right, being seated window side by the plane’s middles section, by the wing. I see the old man to my right and his son to his right out of it. The passengers opposite us are the same. Being the able bodied one and oddly with the presence of mind, I unbuckle my seatbelt. I tried to look at the instructions on the emergency exit door on how to open it in case these things did happen. I should have paid more attention to the safety video at the beginning I told myself, as I tried to yank the lever in the direction the red tape dictated. Clock wise you idiot, not counter clockwise, I mumbled to myself after figuring out the information on the glow-in-the-dark sticker on the pale, red lighting. As I push out the door, I realize too late my error as the sea pushes hard on the door and suddenly fills the hull to the brim, putting us more in danger. I couldn’t close it in time. The cold water was now after a second to my knees, and I could see the few that were conscious stand up frantically and grab the lifejackets beneath their seats. I scramble to do the same. As I manage to barely put my partially inflated jacket on, the plane’s left middle door is yanked outward by the cruel sea, giving me just the right amount of time to instantaneously take a deep breath as my jackets fully inflates after a quick tug on my end. I am forced outward by the waves; maybe the vacuum of the sinking and the plane’s tossing. As I notice my emergency light blink, I notice a few others outside like me, maybe from the door up front by business class.

We were all tossed in the high seas, and it was too late before I saw the crescent of this rouge wave hit me away from the other waves crashing me outward the plane. I am hit against the door I opened moments ago. I feel nauseous as I drink the seawater and smell the faint metallic odor of my blood, now streaming down my face after breaking my nose. I have trouble breathing with both my mouth and my nose now, both airways drowned in blood and salt water. As I try in all futility to flail my arms and stir me upward, I feel little by little my strength leave me. The dark sky that towered over me as well as the brutal waves following suit seemed like an ominous nightmare, only the terrible chill of the hard wind and the brash waters reminding me otherwise. I try hard to stay afloat; the situation seemingly growing drearier. The darkness that enveloped me was approaching faster, the cool that came with it grew incredulously more bitter. I felt her warmth for a second. Then just like that, it fleeted.

I flew a thousand miles this time around to get away, and it is no different as my epic sea journey years ago. I was as soulless then, and was in the journey to redeem my old self, my previous glory. This time, far from South America, in the far reaches of Northern Asia, i try the much-ballyhooed Airship. I am now the Captain of new seas; of the air. And being so free and away from the world has made me somehow find the old me. ‘He’ however is now a lot different from the scruffy, weathered man I once saw in the shores. This trip has made him younger, and way fresher than even in his youth. This new, old me, may be a stranger, but a stranger I believe I will like to know better and faster. The old thunderstorms I once faced were met differently by the new me; now facing sandstorms and smokescreens. He is not physically different; but the immediate change I notice is that of his perception.. He had seen something in nothing and was rewarded with nothing for everything. He is wiser than I ever was despite my many, many follies. He had all the battle scars of a tough life, none reflected in the long lines on an aged face, but they showed in the similarly tired eyes and weary smiles worn by long travelers in search of retribution. He came out not getting what he was searching for, but he settled for what he found, a separate peace; a delineated truth. He came home not the bit older but all the more wiser. Time is alot more profound a sage than experience he has learned, and only in hindsight is foresight trully developed. Despite travelling with one eye, he has begun to trust this good one. He acknowledges the depth of its perception and the limitations of his acuity. He has learned to look beyond his heart and into the heart of others. He has learned to set the heart and not his mind free. He has learned there is a price to pay for this new gift, and he has accepted its graces without the tab at hand. There is a new future for this man, this new me, and he has, in my opinion, restored faith; my faith in people. If I do manage to keep this fate, then maybe there is still hope for me to get my soul back, which unlike my eye, I believe can still be salvaged. To the new seas, may you welcome me as my old one; may we see what the seas in the air have in store for me!