“How is He?”
“Amm, Well, I hope he is good”.
“is everything ok?”
“Well, we …. Broke up… Last year”
“Awww.. I am so sorry. I am really sorry, I didn’t know. Oh God. How are you now”.
“Yea. No. I am … I am just fine. I am ok”.
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That regular day, when life calms down, flows lazily between the hands of the clock, hour to hour. The afternoon sweat exiles the body of its exhaustion like smoke out of furnace thoughtlessly, you stroll down the street. Grabbing a can of beer to refuel your exhausted body seems like the only aim you have. Walking in the same street you walk every day that no longer, carves any pictures on your retina, and seems familiarized by the eyes in such a way, that they don’t struggle to see, just pass over.
And suddenly, reality grabs your ankles and pulls you in. Standing at the corner, sighting a familiar person strikes your eyes and makes them work again.
In the alternate universe, your eyes rush and dig the name out of your mind box, fit it with the face and recognize the friend you once knew, a long, long time ago. You watch their eyes, do the same dance and spark simultaneously with yours. You begin to see the same old you from their eyes and words.
In the Universe of reality, the search, the recognition, the formal greetings, it all takes just a moment and then they ask you:
“How is He?”
A question as simple as that, sends tremors down your spine, your heart feels like it will explode and your throat gets chocked as if squeezed by the mighty fists of air, jaws locked, and eyes struggling to pull out of your brain and focus on the present. So many memories get back from dead, flash and disappear in fraction of a second and snatch all your words away. His name, mention of his name sucks all the strength from your knees and bones, robs you of your words and leaves you lost in your own mind.
In that minor “pause” before you answer, that one small moment, weeks, days, months collide with each other, in the alternate universe. Years of memories are played one after the other, never ending, flashing and playing on their own, unstoppable, uncontrollable, years and years, pass right before you, in that one minor “pause”, born and killed in just one second. The pause, before you answer, the pause that lasts only a second in the real world.
and you tell them,
“Amm, Well, I hope he is good”.
Your heart whispers to you, do you really hope so? Don’t you want him to be as miserable as you, counting every passing moment in the night, struggling with the emptiness of the endless days? Don’t you want him to come back, run back to you, devastated without you, calling your name loud, don’t you want him to be sleepless like you, exhausted like you and desperate to be with you, just the way you are? Do you want him to be fine? Do you? Your own words sound like mere alphabets pinned together to fill the empty space between questions. They become mere meaningless alphabets. You don’t mean them. You can’t. You hope he is as miserable, as devastated, as lost ... as you are.
It just takes a moment and your friend, questions the blankness on your face through his bare eyes, his confused, scared, voice follows:
“is everything ok?”
One sentence and everything in you just falls to the ground. It crashes that entire hollow frame that you erected, piece by piece, in so many days and nights, the thing that held your bones together and kept you from collapsing, it falls and smashes to the ground. The dust blows and clouds your thinking, no words, not enough to dress up your feelings and stop them from walking out the door naked. The words echo “is everything ok”. Your heart screams… Am I ok? Can I be ok? Can anyone be Ok? Your eyes open the windows to let the screams out and stop your mouth from opening the doors. You force the ‘alphabets’ out of your mouth. Truth rolls out like huge rocks, falling down from the mountain top.
In the Universe of Reality, just another second passes and you say:
“Well, we …. Broke up… Last year”
In the alternate universe, eyes fail to find themselves an expression. Memories turn into thoughts, thoughts turn into screams, and screams turn into gusts of pain accumulating at the corners of your jaws, pouring down in your lungs.
Their voice sounds full of worry and concern, when they say,
“Awww.. I am so sorry. I am really sorry, I didn’t know. Oh God. How are you now”.
Storms blow, break and smash everything to the ground, the voices turn into deafening noises and chaos becomes the only sound heard in the casket your soul calls home. The memories run from left and right baffled, hands tight on their ears, eyes wide open, screaming, yelling, and screaming. Your strength sinks down, drowns in the whirlpool of your heart. Destruction, Destruction, Destruction.
In the Universe of Reality, calmly, you shrug your shoulders, stretch a feeble painful smile and tell them,
“Yea. No. I am … I am just fine. I am ok”. The deep sigh that follows your smile, goes unnoticed.
In the alternate universe, echoing from wall to wall in the ruins of memories, thoughtful silence continues to whistle.
