Beyond Memories

The lightbulb is a lifeline against the encroaching dark, a last vestibule, standing strong. 

So. Hindsight: irony’s a bitch.

A sigh escapes me unwittingly, the fog of my breath a cesspool that ebbs and flows in glittering silvers. Poetic injustice, to be sure. But. I’m too tired to care, really. It’s always been like this, Johnny old boy. Face it like a man! The words still manage to elicit a huff of wry, broken amusement out of me; the line a tether, a stronghold to my sanity.

It really says something about a situation when the slur of an unrepentant drunk become your only vantage point against insanity. Karma 101; open your notebooks, grab a pen, no laptops in my class.

Maybe I’m already too far gone if words like those start making sense.

But I digress. It would seem that in all my mental platitudes and half-assed humor attempts, the context has been lost. And, as we all know, as it has been and shall forever be, without context everything is lost; gone with the wind.

(Remember that.)

In that cue, let me paint you a picture:

There are four walls, one roof, one floor – all made out of the same cheap, dull cement (it could have been a bit more colorful and imaginative but well, it has been a long day, so, like, just go with the flow); there are no windows, no murals, graffiti, artwork or any kind of sensible décor at all. It is all a monochromatic hue of a disgusting shade of grey that no human being with even a bit of a handle on their creative mind would have been able to eschew out of apathy. Well, that, and . . . a simple block of curved out space set in one of the walls. In another life, in another place, if these were words sprawling across a crumpled, bleeding piece of paper, in that life, it would have been considered a door painted in the color of blood. And, and, and . . . what else? Oh, right. There, huddled against one of the conjunctions of two walls, is a lump. And oh, what a lump it is.

It. has. color.

On the upper half it is a bright blue of the lightest, most jovial shade. (Against the backdrop of the above portrayed picture, of course – pretty self-explanatory, that one.) Adorned from below waist is another joyful shade of orange eclatant (fancy French term don’t look it up) that is more a fashion choice (or character description) than a probability. After all, there is a statement to make. Always a statement.  

And . . .

Yes.

(CHECKLIST:

1.     Describe surrounding.

2.     Describe lump.)

That’s another line through the ol’ checklist (perspective, babe, all perspective). Done. Now that the scene of now is set, let us turn back time, shall we? Because, I mean, no scene/context is truly completed without a backdrop of love and hate and heartbreak, now, is it? Oh, and, let us not forget hope, because let’s face it, without that pesky little thing being in the persistent systolic and diastolic beat of this pesky heart of ours, there would not be much point in me telling you this story, now, would it?

Trust me, I am not being morbid, or setting you for some big ol’ boohyahfooledya! moment. I mean . . . I could. But. This is not that kind of story. So come with me, down ol’ memory lane. After all, there is a door for us to go through.

It was a day like any other. Looking back, it astounds me that such a day could’ve come with the blowing of the cherry blossoms, little blots of pink silhouette against the white of day. The path behind the campus filled with Sakura the color of hope, the kindly person selling the You’re my Sunshine, As Long As You Breathe thy Dawn Shall Come cards; the normal hustle-bustle of city life cut apart from the thick trees lining the pathway. The air was a bit crisp, a bit windy – a perfect day to debut my spur of the moment, black inlaid with hues of dirty blond, knee length coat. It was a day unlike another, the promise of Spring a bated breath on the horizon, when . . .

. . . I met you.

You were completely oblivious to your surroundings, clutching a copy of The House in the Cerulean Sea tightly in your hands as your eyes leisurely strolled right to left to right to left to right to left. It was nothing really about you that would prompt one to stop dead in their tracks. You were just another college goer going about your daily life, keep on keeping on (your words, sweetheart, not mine) as you walked at a pace, brisk-yet-utterly-unfurled. Maybe it was in the way you worried your lower lip as you came across a particularly heart melting scene in the book (there are many, so, like, don’t blame you at all, babes); or maybe it was the consternation in your eyes as you held every word not at their face value, but at the subtleties underneath, at the nuances hidden deep within every word, every change Arthur came across that impacted him without him even noticing. And. Thing is, love, you did. You noticed them. So, yeah, it was the eyes. (Or the fact that you were rocking a pair of black ripped jeans and an open shirt underneath a black, tweed jacket . . . I mean, it should’ve been ridiculous, especially when you coupled in your innumerable piercings, that’s totally gonna rescind you from any charity event ever, but man did you respond when I tugged on them, and the sounds you made were so ridiculously hot . . . yes, yes, I am getting along, just give me a minute to appreciate what life gifted me would you? I mean, wasn’t that the whole point? But. Well. I’m nothing if not filled with platitudes.) So . . . yeah. Eyes, babes. Always the eyes – a crystal blue inlaid with splashes of spring green. And I knew, right then and there. You were it, baby.

And then came the meeting: me accidentally dropping one of my knick knacks in your path, you calling me back, running up to catch up to me. Your rushed breaths, a heartbeat, two, and there you were in front of me asking me something but I was gone, gone, gone into your eyes, your smile, your smell . . .

(cedar, sandalwood, with just a hint of that clover perfume you love but cost one heart attack each pack)

And what more is there to say on the subject of you?

Should I talk about your kindness, the way you took the time to ask me if I was okay? The way you still continued to do that, till the end? Or the way you made me laugh? Sometimes at you and sometimes with; funny thing is you did not seem to care either way. Is it the way you promised to make me smile once a day every day for as long as we shall live? Or is it the way you got my coffee order down to pat after one trial? Or is it all of that, coupled with the fact that you weren’t perfect, that you sometimes forgot to put the toilet seat down, that you sometimes broke stuff in your ever-present quest to do something new every day? (Swear to god that vase from Italy was a year worth of my salary and you did not even have the decency to make sure you got every piece when you donated the remaining to Goodwill!) Is it the fact that even after you did stuff that made my blood boil, my heart ran at 100 miles an hour every time you held my hand?

(You made my soul bleed, sweetheart.)

Is it that every time you worried your lower lip, a crooked jaunt to your face like you were being naughty and you knew it, and it made my heart clench? Or is it none of those but just one thing: when you said you loved me, baby, it made me feel like that yes, I have done something with my life. You are my destiny, sweetheart, and I made it. I’m here. I’m yours. Always and forever.

I can see you, clear as day – eyes a faded mist, brow crunched in that way you did when I said something gushy and you were trying to act stoic in the face of it but failing miserably. Yet . . .

No. Enough dilly dallies.

There is a door waiting for us, sweetheart. Kept you waiting long enough. (Oh, and, let’s not forget the unrepentant asshole, of course.)

Honestly, love, I do not know why I did not tell you this part before. Maybe because it’s in the past, and I did not want it to taint the picture we have painted here with painstaking clarity. But no. You are a part of it, a rather big, substantial part of it. The one who gave me the courage to open the door set in the wall, after all. And yeah, you deserve to know it in all its entity.

In that vein, let me tell you a story:

Once, there was a house with a red door. And in that house, lived, a family of four. There were by all accounts a happy family. Might be a bit out of sorts, the edges a bit rough. But then, which family was not? Came with the job. But there was something different about this family. For, you see, this family of four of a house with a red door had, for all intent and purposes, a secret. Now, I know what you are thinking: which family did not? And in danger of sounding like a nosy neighbor, this secret should have never been one. You see, in this family, the father touched the youngest son. Like, a lot. And the others knew.

(See: family secret.)

It was benign at first, innocuous. A bit of hand holding, a brushing of skin against skin; a naked moist kiss, and if it lingered for a bit too long, a bit too tongue-involved, then nothing of it. After all, every kiss tinged in love involved a bit of tongue. And this was the child’s father, who, for all intent and purposes, loved him. Maybe a bit too much. But then again, too much of love can never be wrong, can it? And so, if sometimes the father was caught to be staring at the naked form of his ten-year-old son, then so what? It was just looking. Just adoration at how his little buddy was growing up to be a man. (Or so he was told by his mother when he confessed to it making him a bit queasy in the lower tummy. Mamma was not much concerned though, deeming it to be a normal affair and did Aiden want something to soothe away the pai –

mummy, mummy why is your neck red and why does it look like a handprint? shut up Aiden it is none of your business little boys minded their own business)

His sister was not home much, tending to mind her own business outside the home, of which, apparently, there was a lot. It was almost as if she liked keeping busy, liked it if it kept her outside the house, out of father’s reach.

‘Hindsight’s a bitch.’

But they were happy, damn it. They were a family. Many people did not even have that. Many children growing up in the streets, penniless – a hungry, gaunt look their steadfast companion. So, what if his father touched Aiden sometimes on his winky when they were just alone in the house? So, what if Aiden liked it a little bit? After all his father was not hurting him. (His friend, Marty’s father hurt him a lot and that was scary, but Aiden’s father was not scary. They were a happy family.) So, what when Aiden was 15, his father went down on him. At least he was not asked to do it, and he was a horny teen, and his father’s mouth was a hot whisper, a bated breath, and it felt so, so good, so right because that is how a parent-child relationship should be and his father had taught him that, his mother had acquiesced it to be ‘normal’, and he was reaching the threshold and his father’s mouth was a suction and he was up and over the hill.

That was Aiden’s first blow job.

After, it was a rollercoaster ride finally surmounting the peak. There was only one way to go from there. His first non-consensual case was when he was beyond the age threshold. He was an adult now and had had permission in the beat of his heart (and if it was shrouded in thorns of let go and I don’t want it it went unheard).

He was 18.6 when he did not like it for the first time.

But it was okay. All okay. They were a happy family.

He was 22.8 going on 23 when he swapped the pill bottle under the register over the busy cahier’s attention under the jacket and he was

running,

running,

running.

He was 22.82 when he laid out the plan that would be the last plan he ever made; eight minutes over 22.82 when he penned out the reason as depression, taking full responsibility.

Because after all, they were not a happy family. His sister had a job at a high-tech firm off in the east coast, his parents were vacationing in Cabo with the money he earned doing night jobs whilst taking his classes. (If his sister had any hand in it, he did not know. She had cut any and all contact when she graduated and got the hell out of their childhood home. There was a slight stiffening in her posturing that day, and when she hugged him that last time all she said was: I’m sorry.)

He was 22.82 and two hours, contemplating his last spring day when he bumped into a guy with the most ridiculous overcoat clutching a copy of The House in the Cerulean Sea.

He was 22.82 and two-point-five-hours when he turned around and there was a hand. Waiting.  

He was 23 when there was a hand pushing, pushing, pushing . . .

The red door opened. Wide.

He is 28 and he is finally saying out loud the reason why.

And . . .

. . . that’s it, isn’t it, love?

Someone once told me human beings are in a quintessential conundrum, and at the time, I didn’t mind it much. But now, after everything, after you, and all that you taught me about life, about love, about laughter, all I can think is: how utterly beautiful it is. Human beings, from the moment they, we, are born, we are dying. Day after day after day. Living and dying at the same time. And all the more flawed because of it. All the more . . . human. I miss you, my love. Oh, how I miss you. In every breath I take. In every coffee I drink I can taste you. In a sense, I am you, mon amour. Just as you were me. When death took you away from me, I was angry. Furious. How could they do this? How could they take something so beautiful, so monumentally more than the sum of who I could ever be, and leave me and take you? It didn’t make sense. Nothing did. And I was lost, love. So, so lost. For a long time.

so, break yourself against my stones,

and spit your pity in my soul

my heart is just too tired to care.

But then, I found them. Your letters. We knew the day would come when you would be gone, and I would still be here. Trying to keep on keeping on. Doing everything I can do to keep afloat just a little bit longer. And I thought I was ready for it. Prepared. And then . . .

You always knew me better than I ever think I will. And so, I found your letters. Your beautiful, beautiful letters. That day, three months ago (feels like a lifetime now), when we watched P.S. I Love You, and you smiled your mischievous smile . . . I do not know how I missed it.

Multitudes. That was what you were. What you still are. And this was your last wish for me that I do. It must have been hard, love. So hard to make me face myself without you. And by the way the last entry is smudged, I know the amount of strength it must have taken you. But you still penned it. Your dying wish. Knowing I would do anything for you, even from beyond the grave.

Living is no better than being dead if all you do is just go through each day, waiting for it to be over. And you taught me that.

After you, love, I was left hollow. A husk. And you made sure to pull me out. Even after . . .

. . . well, I’m here, Zach. I hope these words reach you, as I say them out in the open, the breeze off the cerulean sea carrying them on rough winds edged in trust. I hope, wherever you are, that you are smiling now. Wipe those tears I know would be there, love. You did it, mon amour. You made sure to remind me of the things you left behind. To remind me that life still goes on: one letter a time.  

Guess, this is it.

We did it, sweetheart. You and me.

Always and forever.