The End of The World

The air is hot like the breath of a fresh baked biscuit. It is the end of the world, I am convinced of it. There are ominous signs, like the importunate bird that repeatedly flies into our window during the late hours of the morning.

"Why does it do that?" I ask Gully as we observe the self massacre. Thump. Surely, the bird has realised by now that the window is not open and it is not going to get through.

Thump.

Perhaps it is a form of self infliction, somewhat more courageous than my own. The lines on the trunk of the palm tree outside remind me of the faded lines on my own wrist when they were raw. Or, perhaps the bird is being egged on by it's friend to perform some kind of ridiculous dare. They both flee when Gully moves towards the window to get a closer look.

"It's the end of the world," I tell him.

There is a lightening storm that night. I stand in front of the window, watching the growing cracks in the sky. I think when I was seven, I saw a rocket in a ligtening storm. It is a memory too vivid to have been my imagination, yet I know that it had to have been.

Soon, the world will erupt in flames. I think. It is the end of the world, and I didn't do anything special. I don't even remember what I ate. I lie in bed facing the window, watching the sky flash and waiting until I fall asleep.

I was wrong, tomorrow comes.

My creativity is soaring, but at what cost? It's like losing weight and developing anorexia. I am not there yet, but sometimes I wonder if I should be. My ass is getting bigger, I can feel it when I go to the toilet.


Ham has sewn a quilt cover out of sari material. He folds it precisely, in half, then in quarter, and then again into a perfect rectangle. He hangs his pants so that the seams on both legs are equally aligned. He dances like Michael Jackson, and I realise that we are both still the same people we were five years ago, and perhaps the unseen rift between me on the couch and him twirling in front of Michael Jackson's concert on the television was placed there because for us to work, one of us should have changed. It was never meant to be.

Still I feel sad as he leaves the next morning. He has left before, but somehow this is different. There is a dull ache at the bottom of my stomach, an anxiety that comes with the muffled grief when, years later, you realise that you will never see someone again. I thought that I would feel a sense of victory when he finally realised that his friends were idiots, his job was unsatisfactory and that he did need someone. But there is no victorious joy when I see him in his lonliness, only sadness. I wish, more than anything, for him to be happy. It goes unnoticed by him.


I wipe stray eyeliner from underneath my eyes at the bathroom in the club. I think I look old. 25, too old to be at a dance party. I get the feeling when I stand in line and watch the girls come out, they are perhaps no older than 22. In reality there is probably not much difference between them and me. We are the same size and we wear similar clothes, but I possess the knowledge of my own age. This does not stop me from dancing until 5 in the morning. The birds are out when I return home and I am hit with a sense of nostalgia, the lonliness of the life I once lead, waiting for what I thought would be love.

I found it somewhere else I think as Gully wraps his arms around me. I am not so drunk, only tired. His arms make my insides glow. I imagine the feeling to be that of drinking chocolate from Willy Wonka's waterfall churned chocolate river.


I feel like a nomad. I bore quickly, of my job, of my friends. It is not that they are boring, but more my desire to replace quantity with quality. I know that perhaps an effortless friendship and an effortless job are too much to ask for, but I know this - that they do exist. That when you love who you are with, and what you do, it does become less of a chore. I am not sure what I am looking for until I find it. I think I want to move, but I am not sure where I want to go.


With spring the plaugue is lifting, but not quite. I don't know if it will ever lift. I know that I have had a lot to deal with over the last few months, but still I feel ashamed that I am not stronger. The feelings that I did not do enough are insistent. I just want to fix everything for everyone, and I don't know how.

There are so many things I wish I knew.

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