I have been working on this piece for nearly a year now. By which I mean I wrote some of it a year ago and haven’t bothered finishing it. I am finishing it now.
As I approach that place I worry a little. I have been so excited about coming back; it has been almost 6 months since I was here last. But will it be the same? I shrug away my worry; it will be what it is.
I find a cigarette, walk in and light up. The haze hasn’t changed, and neither has the crowd, for the most part. There is a little more wear and tear, and people seem to be oh-so-slightly more on edge, but that’s it. There is some small talk lazily floating through the room, but it’s not very loud. People are waiting for something. I take a small drag. Should I say something? Should I go forward? The silence was deepening – the small talk had died out, the shuffle of feet had stopped. The only sound was the gentle burning of paper as people smoked, and waited. My brows furrowed as I took another drag. What would I say? What would I talk about? A part of me wanted to give to this place, as an offering to a distant yet distinct memory of a man who had lungs of iron and a story worth remembrance. I wanted to give to keep this alive. I wanted to talk just because I didn’t want to leave without a story being shared. Without something being said. I stubbed out my cigarette and rubbed my hands. Just as I looked up and opened my mouth to break the calm, a man spoke.
There were two women. Two women I loved and who loved me.
I looked up, and followed everyone’s eyes to this man. He was seated, leaned against the wall. There was something about him that was sad. He had the look of a man who had been searching for something for a long time, and found a lot, but not what he was looking for. He took a drag, sucked on his teeth and continued.
But the feelings I had while in love were vastly different from each other. Someone once told me ‘you will remember me not by our conversations or the words exchanged, but the feelings I inspire in you’. My feelings for both of them were, are, strong. Strong like the mythic Titans, bolstered by my own want, my need, for belief and faith.
There was a fire in his eyes now. A fire of passion and pain.
The first woman came into my life when I was young, when I was still tripping over my enlarged pubescent feet and squeezing pimples every morning before school. I couldn’t get enough of her, for nearly 7 years that followed our first meeting. We shared everything. She taught me how to love, and I adapted what I learnt into the perfect mirrored travesty. I hurt her, repeatedly, justifying it with undying love. We grew up together but she was the only one that grew out of the relationship. What was I supposed to do? I begged, I pleaded, all for naught. I was too fickle, too unstable, too dependent. Here we were, emerging fresh from the bosom of youth together and she was just throwing me out into the cold, dark wilderness. I stumbled, I fell, I got up. She was right.
He took a drag, and his hand was trembling as he raised the cigarette to his mouth. A single tear dropped in a wide arc down his cheek.
For a long time after, I lived in a bubble of anger and hate. And in the midst of this haze, I met the second woman. She was broken, like me. She looked to me for approval and a comforting love. I strongly felt something for her, and looking back on it, I’m not sure if it was longing or loathing. I was hurt, and broken, and so was she, and I was angry at her. It wasn’t her fault that I was broken, and I was breaking her further to fuel my own hatred for someone who broke me.
His gestures started to get erratic, and there was anger lining his face, like a red hue.
My feelings were getting tangled to the point where I couldn’t tell the difference between them. To the point where I can’t fully remember most of that period. But I near the end of this story. I have carried these burdens for a long time, and I wished to get rid of them. It is easier to tell a story when you don’t expect anything at the end, and you can only expect nothing, and thus everything, from a group of strangers.
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