Falling water

He's sitting down, trying to remember her.
It's been five years since he saw her last.
He's leaning against a railing, his weight on both elbows talking to a friend and waiting. He feels two light taps on his right shoulder and turns his head. There's nobody there. He turns around to the left, and she's there, smiling.
He's standing at a bookshop in a posh shopping centre with a grand piano on every floor, eyes peeled, waiting. He's early, and soon, she will be late. He leafs through some random pamphlet things, puts them down and looks up, and she's striding towards him, smiling.
He's running, running late, for the first day of induction of his elective. A face flashes by, but he's so late he doesn't break stride. A few seconds later he realises, with a shock, that he'd just run past Her. Standing, eyebrows creased, talking to another doctor. He wants to wheel around and run back to say hello, but his heart is too full of misgivings and fears, and he's late, and all the excuses come together, and he keeps running in confusion.
The sun is setting over Hyde park, a dusky red globe hanging low on the horizon, rays of sunlight streaming almost horizontally, almost painfully, skimming the ground into one's eyes, and the sunset is coming off in reds and golds off the water, mingled with the dramatic black shadows of dusk. She decides to feed the swans with some bread which she's pilfered off some random enchanted waiter from Belgos. The swans gather around her, and she holds out her hand, palm up, bread in it. They gingerly snatch the bread away. Swans, and girl, bonded in trust, sillhouetted in black against a blood red sky. The moment is so beautiful he feels his heart about to break.
He's in the middle of his exams, but he's happy. He paces himself amongst the mess of books he's created, absorbs himself fully in the stuff. He's about to do ridiculously well in these exams, but he really doesn't care, because in five, four, three, two, one minutes he dashes down to the communal computer room and checks his email, and there is a new email, everytime, waiting for him. Occasionally, he telnets with her and laughs quietly to himself, oblivious to his hallmates who are searching for pornography to print out and stick to the walls.
She ushers him to the door of the train; perhaps she senses that, in his heartbreak he is extremely confused and even less orientated to his surroundings than usual. This is your train, she says, looking at him. A while ago, in the aftermath of her gentle rejection, he's babbling to her about laptops to buy although he doesn't have a clue about laptops. The harsh backlighting makes her look like a grey shadow, a disembodied voice coming from a person-shaped figure. Maybe that makes it easier to keep talking. He's grateful that they're still friends, and it feels like nothing's changed, much to his surprise.
He steps through the doors and looks at her looking at him, as the train pulls out. Turns around mutely, back against the door, and slumps slowly to the floor, not caring who sees him. Half an hour later, he realises that she's put him on the wrong train, and he's going quite the wrong way.
He's standing across the train platform from her, waiting for his train. She's wearing her school uniform, with that silly stripey tie and the frumpy skirt. His train arrives first, and he raises his hand in farewell.
He stops for a while to wonder if it's true that the further back he goes, the fuzzier the memories become. It's been an unbelievably quiet night so far.
He's deep in sleep when the phone rings. He rolls over and picks it up, eyes bleary, tries to enunciate with some difficulty the word Hullo. He hears a warm burble of laughter, and she tells him to get up! it's saturday and first years should be up by 8.30... he laughs, squints against the sunlight, rolls back over and keeps talking to her with his eyes closed, but his mind suddenly wide awake, and brightly lit.
She's playing with some toys in a toy shop, and suddenly her reservations, that coldness he's sensed all day melt away. She's playing, with him, and they're laughing again. She tries to undo some magic rings, her eyebrows knit and face a mask of concentration, and can't do it. She passes them to him, and he quite accidentally does something right and they fall apart. She looks cross and asks him how he did that! with mock petulence. They play a while more, with a balancing game (he seems to be at least as good as her!) and suddenly she realises the time; she's late meeting her parents. A muffled oath and they're hurrying off.
They're eating dinner at some cheap food court, the table keeps rocking beneath the weight of their elbows. He asks, on a whim, how large her hands are? Someone always used to say her hands were larger than his. She puts out her palm, and they touch, palm to palm, and she claims victory by half a digit's length. He doesn't point out to her that she'd been cheating and they hadn't started with their palms aligned.
He's getting some basic fencing instruction when a girl walks by and asks casually if he'd been invited to Her farewell. His heart stops. Farewell? He'd heard rumours, but she hadn't confirmed them. Didn't she tell you? the girl asks maliciously. He nods absently, his head in a whirl.
She's playing phantom of the opera with mock fury, a twinkle in her eye and a small smile about her lips as her best friend walks in, late, to her final moments as a full-time singaporean, at her house.
She's delivering her farewell speech to all the people who used to know her, some of whom have burst into tears. Everyone's sitting in a ring and she's pacing the outside of the ring, forcing people to turn to look at her as she goes past. She walks behind him and he can't see her anymore, his range of movement at his atlanto-axial joint well exceeded. She's saying something about how she shows her affection to her friends by being nasty to them, the more she insults someone, the more she likes him. He's lost in his own melancholic world, thinking that these may be the last moments he'll ever see her, again, and how he can't imagine never seeing her again, never hearing her again. How he'll miss her. She stops and kicks him, and says softly, "right, XZ?" and he's hauled back into the present, in shock. He's saying goodbye to her, and wants to say that he'll miss her, but instead he sticks out his hand formally, and says "shake?". As she reaches for it, he pulls back and shakes his hand convulsively, making her glare at him in exasperation. It's how she sees him, not as some sentimental sap, and that's how the script is written. He feels like crying but he smiles and laughs as he turns on his heel to leap into his parent's car. His mother observes that she's a very tall girl.
She's decked up in her Prefect's uniform, and walking towards him. He growls menacingly that the production better be good, he's missing German for this, and she smiles uncertainly. She'll never know that his mum dropped him off for German class, and he waited till she was out of sight before sprinting off; possibly the first and last time he ever plays traunt.
He's pacing up and down, waiting. She's well over an hour and a half late, and his better sense is telling him that she hasn't come, she's stood him up. Maybe she didn't want to come, maybe something cropped up, and he's uncontactable anyhow, so maybe she just isn't coming. But he can't imagine her acting out of malice, although he concedes that he's not that important or attractive that a girl would be compelled to meet him. He waits, and she appears through the glass doors, striding rapidly down the brown walkway towards him, smiling, but eyes apologetic. His heart lifts, and he's just happy to see her.
They're eating lunch. She's struggling to use her chopsticks on her hainanese chicken rice, with her thumb bandaged. But she still painstakingly de-skins it all. They're talking, and laughing, and he thinks that he'll remember this afternoon forever. Time seems to be standing still for him, and suddenly the waitor is bringing the bill, in a gentle but firm, subtle reminder that lunches lasting more than three hours are unacceptable.
They're chatting long-distance, on the telephone, random snippets as usual about their mundane lives made animated by flamboyant adjectives and verbs, and a lot of laughing. There comes a pause, and his mind flits back to the past for no good reason; he wonders why one of his letters from three years ago went unanswered, and he remembers the mornings he spent waiting hopefully for post in the common room; and how he gradually gave up waiting; he remembers standing and watching the sunset silently, next to an extremely pretty girl, and her turning to him and telling him that she could see the sadness in his eyes; he remembers giving her an apologetic smile and turning around to go back into the common room, to wait a little more. And then, unexpectedly he hears her saying "do you remember those letters you sent me? I was away then, living with my aunt in B." and he laughs and says it's okay, but he's shellshocked, in his heart. He doesn't, of course, ask her how she knew what he'd been thinking; its even a little too freaky for him.
He turns back to the computer screen from looking out into the blackness of the night. There are too many memories, and each memory brings with it another cascade of memories. And each memory makes him feel imperceptibly, a little more sad.
He stops and heads out to the ward, to find more jobs that might need doing, that might distract him from the flood of yesterdays.

Losing Paddington

She opens the box, and her apprehension melts away into pure and spontaneous joy. She takes out Paddington squealing girlishly. He is mildly surprised and rather attracted as she bubbles and babbles over Paddington. He hadn't figured her for the type to lose her head over a stuffed toy, although he must confess that Paddington is remarkably cute.
Half an hour ago, they'd been laughing and fooling around over coffee, dinner, credit cards and a bottle of mineral water. Her face, lit by the soft, flickering glow of candlelight, her eyes, as always sparkling with barely surpressed laughter and emotion. So, so alive.
Right now, she's alive as well, with her whole being. She's forgetting to mute down her enthusiasm for life in front of him. She's breathtakingly beautiful. She finally remembers, and looking him in the eye, thanks him almost formally, saying its the bestest gift in the world.
They walk in silence along the pavement, now past a darkened park - there seems to be a fountain in there somewhere - then turning off eventually into the driveway up to her uni. Bemused, mutual silence sits heavily but calmly on their shoulders, shoulder to shoulder on the steps of the park, waiting for her mum to show up to take her home. They're both a little shell-shocked, for completely different reasons. Retrospectively, he realises this might have been the perfect moment to take her hand, or lean over and kiss her. Right now, he just wants to sit next to her, and feel the warmth she's giving off, hear her breathing. Right now, he is content to enjoy the silence of the night with her. Before he flies away. He's still trapped in the "last moments" mentality, the impact of what he's done hasn't hit him yet, and he's feeling slightly surreal. Things seem bittersweet, and he's extremely lost and confused.
Headlamps shine on them, and her mom steps out of the car. A puzzled, almost suspicious glance at the two kids sitting close to each other waiting for her. He's about to excuse himself and leave, walk back alone when she offers him a lift back.
Moonlit car-ride in silence. She doesn't say much, her mom is a statue of silence. She reaches back and undoes the clips holding up her hair, and the braids come apart. The car stops, and she turns back, long hair straggling wildly over her face, framing it lovingly on both sides. There's something in her eyes which he hasn't seen before, and it's sadness. Almost a wistfulness. And he realises that maybe it's a reflection of his own sadness and wistfulness. He wishes he could reach out and touch her face, frozen for that moment in time in his mind. A moment of utter beauty, and utter sadness. His heart breaks as he steps out of the car and shoulders his silly blue bomber jacket. Earlier in the day, she'd offered to carry it for him despite his feeble protests. Paddington-in-a-box is gone now, though, and everyone seems to have grown up a little.
He spends a long time sitting by the window in his cheap, higher-level bunk bed later that night, looking out at nothing in particular, and trying to clear his mind to stop it being overwhelmed by sadness.

The Last Wager

He reaches in his pocket, takes out a fifty-cent coin and holds it between his fingertips.
Heads, I stay; and be everything you want me to be, hide my feelings from you, stay your buddy, pine away for a lifetime. Heads, I die a day at a time, for you.
Tails, I turn around and walk away; I run from this ridiculous urge to tell you how much I love you, and attempt to ruin your life and your relationship, with Him. Tails, and I die in an instant, for myself.
He isn't, of course, about to tell her that he can skew the coin flip, and that he's planning to skew it so that it comes up tails. He isn't going to tell her, ever, that he had to do it, because he thought it would make her happier.
(A minute ago, they were laughing as only old friends can do, when he told her he had something important to say. He saw her sense the change in mood, saw the slight crease form in her eyebrows as she waited. He struggled for a bit, then said, I'm so sorry I'm doing this. Okay, let's do it this way, and reached into his pocket.)
That's how it has to be then, just as he's planned it; a skewed coinflip to oblivion.
So he looks up from the coin and meets her eyes, opens his mouth to tell her "Heads, I stay, Tails, I go". But before he can even begin, she, never breaking eye contact, takes his hand in both of hers, the hand with the coin, and says, "Don't".
He sits back, stunned, and doesn't voice the question that's begging to be asked : How did you know what I was going to do?
And so instead, he begins Once upon a time...

Once upon a Time

Once upon a time there was a boy, who grew up too early. Left to his own devices amongst books such as Agatha Christie and Far from the Madding Crowd at the age of eight, he developed into a rather dysfunctional and cynical child, who didn't believe in the intrinsic goodness of people, who watched wars start and stop and didnt feel surprised or moved, and who didn't believe in love.
Then, one unforgettable evening, during one of the less memorable government-sponsored young-people's collectives events (read : dating service), whilst playing a particularly unmemorable game involving water pistols, socks and assassins, someone put a pistol into the small of his back, and said, bang, you're dead, man.
He spins. Eyes meet. Silence.
Painfully jerks himself back to reality. Are you sure that thing's working? She hadn't pulled the trigger. Heads bend to examine the malfuctioning pistol. He runs.
Fast forward a few minutes. He's standing on her doorstep, heart pounding, wondering how the hell he ended up here. He doesn't remember, doesn't want to remember, asking random people "who's that girl in purple?". He doesn't remember walking to this doorstep. And for the first time in his life, he is afraid. And, for the first time in his life, he doesn't have a ready one-liner waiting, he doesn't have a cynical comment as a back up if the one-liner fails. He's blank... the door opens. From afar, he hears himself, and cringes at the sheer sadness of it all. "Don't move, I'm memorising your face; I'll never forget your face".
Silence. Eye contact. An eyebrow raised in bemusement. A twitch of a smile, between two mouths. 180 degree turn, and walk, calmly, calmly. Don't trip. Damn that was cool.
Fast forward a few months. They're talking, on the phone. They're laughing. He's happy. Truly happy, from the heart. The cynic, is happy. The cynic has nothing cynical to say. He says something silly, she laughs, the night melts away.
Fast forward a few years. She's gone. A brief farewell ceremony, she kicks him gently in public and says... what? Does he remember it wrong? Was she expressing her affection for him in public to everyone? He convinces himself he remembers it wrong. It doesn't make any difference anyway, she's going, going, gone.
She's gone. Too far away to talk to. Near enough to write, but everyone knows what happens as you grow up; writing? Dream on.
Fast forward a few more years, she's back, she's gone, she's back. Everytime she's back, he laughs. He realises he's fallen in love with her, his best friend. And he realises it started the second he felt the gun in his back. And he realises that the trigger was pulled after all, the second he looks at her, head bowed in prayer, and wants to spend a lifetime protecting her, by her side, making her laugh, laughing with her.
Fast forward a decade.
He's lost her to someone else, lost her to distance, won her? through irrationality and a six thousand mile, forlorn, pointless flight - against all odds, against the advice of her best friend. And lost her, again, to distance, and common sense. Her common sense, not his. He played along with that, because she wanted him to. He does so much because she wants him to, but he feels something snapping.
He feels cynicism setting in, even when she talks to him. He feels his soul slipping away.
He has to run. He tells her never to speak to him again. She's upset. She doesn't want to. And he says it again. She's hurt, he can see it in her eyes, as she talks on the phone to someone else to tell him to call back later, her world is crashing down around her.
His heart breaks. He wants nothing more than to hold her close and tell her how sorry he is, that he's so selfish, that he's such a rotten friend. If there's one thing he's really wanted to do between them, its to hold her and apologise. You'd think it would be to kiss her on a balmy, barmy, bewildered night, sitting on the steps of an esteemed institution - but it's not. It's just to hold her close, maybe for a fragment of eternity, and press his sincerest apologies into her, through his costal cartilages.
But he doesn't.
Fast forward half a decade.
And he's lost her. So, so completely and utterly.
And he remembers her still. He remembers her laugh; he remembers those eyes. He misses them, almost every day. He revisits places that remind him of her. He's tried and almost succeeded to fall in love with other girls. But he still hears her voice and mind in his head.
And it feels like he's lost. He's got a good 60 years left to live, and he knows it will be good. He knows it will. But part of him is sad, because he knows she won't be in the picture. and the days of laughing, and laughing, and laughing, have died.