It was a night darker than hell. A night as dreamy as her eyes. Thunder rumbled, and rain poured down from the sky as if the clouds were vomiting. His apartment’s window pans trembled and occasional whimpers of his dog echoed in his apartment that only had the least amount of furniture possible. Past 10:00 PM, he and his dog were cozy under the quilt that she had brought with her when she moved in with them. They were cozy but sad. In the past, thunder and rain never failed to make him excited and happy. There had been nights that he had spent dancing on the rooftop of his building, all alone, not caring about a damn thing in life, under the naked sky, while the clouds vomited all over him. He knew how absurd it was to do things like those but he didn’t care. These were his ways to rebel. Rebel against the absurdity of life. Existence had always given him nausea so he liked creating absurd analogies. *Clouds vomit when it rains* he thought to himself whenever it rained.
This night was different though. Thunder couldn’t cheer him up anymore. His heart was broken into a million pieces and it was as if nothing could fit it.
Past midnight, when his dog was fast asleep, and the thunder was gone, he still stared at the ceiling. Occasional yellow-tinted light coming from headlights of late-night traffic managed to pierce through glass window pans of his apartment and illuminated his dark room.
He decided to get up again. After washing his face and opening the thirtieth pineapple can of that week, he played “Chamber of Reflection” by Mac Demarco on his CD player. Although he was having stomach cramps because of the processed food and excessive pineapples he had been eating, he savored the square pineapple pieces as if this was the last time any human could ever eat pineapples.
He always thought about how his life resembled Wong Kar Wai’s movies. He could relate to Cop 663. But he wasn’t handsome like him nor he was Asian. And the pineapples that he was eating weren’t about to expire unlike those in Chunking Express. But still, there were similarities he couldn’t ignore.
It had been two weeks since he last wrote. The last time he had writer’s block was an eternity ago. Years ago, when he struggled with procrastination and loneliness, he overcame thyself with sheer effort and commitment. Procrastination or loneliness wasn’t a problem for him anymore thanks to the hundreds of hours of mindfulness, self-reflection, and journaling. He thrived in loneliness for years and managed to not fall in love with any women. He somehow knew that true love is gonna be a disaster in his case so he made sure that all his past relationships were devoid of it. Sure he adored his partners, took care of them, and treated them with all the love and affection but in his opinion, it was anything but true love.
He couldn’t manage to be that way forever though and fell hard in love the second he laid his eyes on her. They were in a library. He was lost in Murakami’s world of two moons when he noticed a girl sitting across his table. He couldn’t help but notice everything about her in utter detail. The way she read her book by tracking progress with her index finger, the way she moved her lips to silently form sentences in her mouth, the way she occasionally shut her big gloomy eyes to give them some rest, and most significantly, the way she entirely covered her face with both of her thin but pretty hands whenever she blushed, it all was like a beautiful lucid dream to him. It was as if she was the perfect manifestation of everything he had ever fantasized about in his entire life.
It was beautiful while it lasted. He didn’t just fall in love with her but started loving himself as well. He didn’t know this was possible. A person is bound to fall in love with themselves if they get their true love in life. Deep down he knew it was too perfect to be true. He knew it was going to come to an end sooner or later. He feared the demons he’ll have to fight once she was gone.
There he was now. Completely unstable. Unable to think of anything but her. He missed her. He craved her in every way. Be it physically or emotionally. He wished he had a job where he could do extra work to numb the pain and distract himself from this. Jobs like taxi driving would have been far more useful but he wasn’t that lucky. He was a writer. Writers can’t distract themselves and avoid the pain by putting in the extra work. They had to first fully feel whatever it was they were going through to continue doing any of their work. Pain is the essence of a writer’s work.
Though it was intense and it seemed like it was never gonna end he also knew how time heals every wound. He remembered the painful times when his mother left him. It was as if the pain would linger forever. But it didn’t. Time healed everything. And he was sure it’d heal him this time too. Nothing can be more painful than losing one’s mother, he thought.
Fast forward to a couple of months, and time somehow managed to heal his wounds again. Though his life was enough before he found her it was still incomplete because he had never truly fallen in love. Now he had that too. He loved somebody he was never gonna be able to unlove. And he never regretted a bit of it. He felt grateful.
He spent those months staring at the telephone, waiting for it to ring, writing his thoughts and feelings in his journal... He had an intense feeling of void in the middle of his chest.
Now that the storm was over he thought how everything in life is utterly “temporary”. He even felt grateful that it was this way because otherwise, his pain would have lasted forever.
