Sea 2.

I see sea. Sea of lights. Sea of people. Sea of heads that block whatever scene beyond me may be. It is a street market, selling all kinds of clothes, all kinds of food, all kinds of junk jewelleries. It has that distinct smell of hot, steamed dumpling, with its smoke raising, then hams, and slight odour of freshly packed t-shirts.

My friends are giggling beside me, blurting a laugh I can barely hear. They are a few distance away, there are too many people rushing our way, like a tidal wave. I'm seasick in land. People, faces, thoughts. I can no longer make out which is fantasy, which is reality. Thoughts and physical truths. Separated. Thin line, as thin as a newborn's hair. A line so thin it becomes partially permeable. Through this line you see substances exchange position, diffuse into the other side.

My fantasy and my reality. When fantasy is too real and reality having a dreamlike quality. That headache you get in crowded places, when you are physically there, but mentally lost. You watch things moving, but you can't see anything.

Then, like a sudden flash of a lightbulb, a face stands out, thick big glasses, fishy lips and traces of cheekbones. I gather my conscious thoughts, while religiously tracing the outline of that face, the face that seems so familiar, yet distant. His flickering eyes going nowhere, his body seeming immobile, not moving but floating free in space.



It's you.


Of course it's familiar.
It's you I once had.

Of course it's distant.
It's you I've had lost.

I exclaim your name, out loud. Not because I want to. My cerebellum. It's an involuntary, spontaneous, immediate response to a stimulus. It's my reflex action. Like when your hand accidentally touches a hot pan. When you accidentally step on a tiny piece of nail. When you see your past lover, in the sea of people. The sight is your stimulus. Your eyes are the receptor. The stimulus is then sent through sensor neurone, all the way to the Central Nervous System at the vertebrate in your back. Jumping over a synapse, then passed over to relay neurone in the grey matter. Another synapse, then passed over to your motor neurone, sent all the way to your effector. My mouth. My vocal cords. I scream your name out loud.

It's nothing like what they have in movie, though. When the girl shouts, no one turns and dances. No one hears, no one tilts his head around. They are too busy making steps, agile, not wanting to waste any precious second of their lives. Their steps fast and furious. These scumbags, they won't stop moving, they won't make room for my voice to reach through.

Afraid that my voice has drowned in the sea of noises, I feel the urge to do a second try. But there's no need for that, because indeed you did hear me, now that you turn your head around, your hair messier than ever, your eyes gleaming, searching in the crowd, looking for the voice owner, looking for the source, looking for me. I exult, but then I see your friends. We are unmoved for a few seconds. I see your friends, boy friends. You know how much of a relief it is?


You know it's me. One dull second we exchange sight, then I nervously throw it at your friends. Then, then, out of blue, you grab my arm, whisper something like, "c'mon!" You, bathed in fluorescent light, your eyes looking down at me, you are so tall. The figure I so much adore.

It feels so otherworldly.

You give a quick signal, you leave your friends, you run with me. I don't want to leave my friends though, I grab their arms. I can't leave them because we have planned to watch movie together. A movie from months ago, which I don't get why this cinema is still screening. My friends are startled, two of them, their arms tightly clenched. But pretty much they can make out the current situation. I quickly introduce them two. They chuckle, shooting me an "oh, jadi dia!" look.

The market is crowded still, but you make your way, somehow, with your long fingers, your steel fingers that once run through my back, smoothly like a cotton brush. Your plaid jacket, I don't remember you have one. We run fast, faster than those scums. We reach the bus station, and quickly hop onto a bus.

In the bus, I sit beside you. Again, it's one reflex action. I could choose to stand with my girl friends, but I didn't. They don't seem to mind anyway, they are still chattering, with their hands covering their mouths. Pretty useless though, I certainly know what they are mumbling about, with their occasional peeks at us. Then at me. At you, alternatingly.

I turn my head, what are you doing? You are playing with your gadget. Yeah, of course. That android that can never properly function in my hands. I take out my blackberry, absolutely a no-match, but I'm not going gaga over gadgets either. (Is this a denial?) Half a minute later I put it back into my pocket. I see you, still cold. That coldness of a leftover pizza, the icy, ignorant feel you cannot fake. I draw myself closer. Of course, you are startled. Have I ruined your cyber ritual? I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean to...well, perhaps, I did. This could be my last ride with you. I don't want it to go wasted, with your thumbs dancing on keypads, with me seated safe aside, frozen like a statue....

"Can I hug you?"

I don't remember saying that, but I am saying something like that. The voice is strange, I don't recognise it immediately. But it can't be yours, so it must be mine. But I'm not sure what I'm saying to you though, it's something like that. A hug? Are you kidding me, Amanda. Or something else? Like what. How can I remember?

You don't respond. Of course you don't, a hug for a leftover pizza? Sounds no less like a ridiculous, failed punchline. So I take out my blackberry again, my face the heat of an onsen, my cheeks the colour of cherry tomatoes, my lips the movement of a hungry worm.

That, that awkward moment I can never fix.

My last ride, as disastrous as Hollywood remakes of Asian movies. There is that silence, this silence, like a hole I have to cover, like a stab of knife on my head. What's done is done, I mumble. What's done is done, I repeat. I drown my head deep, watching my phone screen, but nothing's interesting there.

"Manda!"

A command, almost silent, a decibel above whisper, with exclamation mark at the end, a few seconds later. It is coming from you. I turn around, you with your glasses off, with the widest grin I've ever seen, your eyes covered with your android that you hold with your both hands. The grin substituting "cheers!" A pinprick of flash that spreads fast, it's so intense and blinding. You are taking a picture of me. In a bus.

You did once in train. A few months ago. Our faces so close, with me putting that awkward smile. I never get to see the result. Perhaps you've deleted it anyway. But I do want to see this one, this new one, in a bus, spontaneous. What monkey face did I make this time?

Before I could ask, the bus stops in front of the cinema. I have to alight. I'm asking you, would you like to alight here too?

"Why yes, of course."

You say so. Why of course? Are you seeing that movie too?

"No. Well, I just felt like saying so."

And then you shrug. And then you alight. It's time. I have to come into the cinema with my friends. So you don't have any ticket, I ask. You say no, no ticket. So we have to part. We wave goodbye. Did you land a goodbye kiss on my forehead beforehand? Or did I?



Does it matter anyway?

sea

I know there are many fish in the sea. Many men outside of me. I'm free to choose, there are choices. But a wide range of choices sometimes doesn't do you any good. Many choices, many men, many heartaches. Many heartbreaks which I don't need. It's pointless to go on, to want another one if I couldn't deal well with my last man. What makes it hard to move on is the fact that I couldn't cope with you, I didn't cope with the previous ones too, I never learn. Which means, the chances of me coping well with the next one are pretty slim, too.

I consider myself fortunate though. Some people are having it like me, tough and never lasting. Some are having it worse. Some do it like a breeze. One good thing is you can get used to anything, even killing. Heartbreak is pretty easy to get used to. One tear or two are perfectly harmless. And you know what? Just the right dose will keep you looking youthful.