Love Without End

I thought about her every day, but she never showed up. All I had was this old photo of us that's partly squeezed. Each time I go through this phase, I think of so many things at once. I suddenly become forgetful of everything else and can’t seem to finish a simple sentence. Is this what it means to have a broken heart?

Back then, we enjoyed being soaked up in the rains under this old, rusty Glo stand. It could barely keep out the rains, but we kept each other company there, and weathered through together. There were occasional squabbles and times we made up for those fight days. Fast-forward many times, and we had quarrelled yet again.

Of course, I didn’t think this one was my fault!

After all these years, nothing’s changed. But then they say the race grows sweeter near its final lap. How true indeed. This is about the longest race ever! Emotional pain, and more, is all I have been bested with in this episode. Relationships can be indeed cruel!

Perhaps, I could have just said I was sorry, and then continued from where we left off, but this girl and the pride with which she exuded her personality, was often irritating. I desperately wanted to exorcise her of it, but here, she wouldn't just say let’s move on or, I'm sorry too, like a good girl should. She angrily walked out on me once, and I affirmed out loud: So be it! We broke off!

It had only been a year of our journey together.

Since then, we kind of let each other go back a bit in time into our personal lives, doing less stuff together or telling tales that could have been otherwise left unsaid. Thanks to mobile telephony.

But how did it all go wrong? She said I had appeared like a snob the first time she met me, like when we chat, and then I said she too had come across to me like a flirt. ‘Oh, is that? Me, flirt?’ she asked, ‘You call me a flirt?’

‘How could you possibly think of me in that way?’ But this had nothing to do with who she was, or wasn’t. I didn’t mean it like that. We were only having a moment there; an honest recall of what we thought about each other until we got off talking real good. ‘How's that insulting?’ Those were my thoughts initially, but of a truth, I have now come to know an entirely different person. She was just something else. Strange!

‘Well then, since you see me that way, I should stop talking to you like that, and mind my own space. Let’s have some respect okay?’

‘You're so judgmental,’ she added, whilst she walked away.

I soon found the courage to tender an apology, insisting that I didn't mean she was a ‘flirt—flirt’ like that; we were only replaying honest thoughts we had about each other until now. But she wouldn't let that fly. And that was it. She read the riot act, and vowed never to see me again!

And in that moment, something shifted. I thought it should have been different, but no. It wasn't.

Watching her walk away from me, I felt released. I must have been a bird or something in captivity all along. Could I have been wrong?

A year passed without a word spoken to each other.

On the streets and hallway, it was rude silence. Not even a fitting snooping on one enemy camp by another. Suddenly, she began to look different in my eyes, acted strangely, and in the homeliest possible manner. I couldn’t be bothered. I thought she would tire sooner than later, after all, they say ‘He that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.’

The memories soon flung wide open in my face. I had now finally grown up. Her last parting words though had been transformational, I now recalled vividly. How could I have let her go the way she did? And how could I have let her in that fit of rage, and I, consumed by my own weird and wonderful pride –slip off of these hands.

I didn't blame a soul anymore, but myself. Let it be, I mustered the courage to admit this - inwardly though - as I went through the contents of the neatly wrapped journal at the National Hospital. The tears were not free-flowing. Her mum, amidst two siblings, struggled for God’s comfort. Her dad, shut out between the reality of what had happened overnight, and the image of the devil before him, wept. But there I was, standing still and innocent as ever. I did nothing wrong of course!

Apparently, she forgot me, but not us. Her lengthy heartbreak note said it all. It was just a page, but I could feel it weigh mighty on my conscience, which is perhaps, why everyone now wanted a piece of me.

But how did that ever cross her mind? I don’t get it. Why suicide? Loneliness was never her companion – at least not while we were an item. Even when we were apart, she lived la vida loca with friends. She spoke tough too, like a boss, and acted it – yes, always! And was never the one to apologise to a soul. I suddenly began to feel dizzy, like something heavy sat on my chest. I began to think about how things went wrong. The details – every bit of it – began to roll in. What is going on? I heard voices debate this within me, as I tried so hard to free myself from the sounds now banging loud in my head.

I slowly advanced to the nearby wall with my hands on my chest – grabbing it like life depended on it; my vision failing, my legs heavy and wobbly.

My body, now tired of all the arguments in the head, gave in just like that. And I saw the miracle of concern over me for the first time. They all ran around for help calling my name as I watched every action, perhaps like she did, before passing.

Beep, after beep. I didn’t return. I too had long retired to the great beyond.