End/Beginning

Through the backseat window I watched him fall out of view. To be honest, I didn't even turn my head, didn't let my gaze linger, didn't wait for him to look up, or even want him to. The brief pain of watching his figure intently and feebly unlock his electric bike was replaced by that of the pavements I'd frequented so often in the last years, smoothly glide by like a ribbon of colorful cellophane.

The streets were quiet , but I could hear them. I could here the sound of skateboards cruising over the sidewalk blocks and the music in my headphones that I'm not wearing, distorted by the sounds of people talking and cafe dishes clinking while petite waitresses hurry around dreaming of the day they quit, the cars taking turns at the traffic light rhythmically like waves rolling in and out. I could hear the base of deep house radiating out of every other shop, the sound of the sliding doors of the local mini-market, and the chatter of citizens of the 11th happiest country in the world.

Memory is an incredible thing. With one trigger, you can experience all the sights and sounds and smells and feelings of things that were only ever as real and magnified as you believed them to be at that specific point in time.

Star, soda, rainbow, octopus. He said with a straight face.

He kept on naming words at random, but I was laughing so hard by that point that my cheeks thoroughly hurt and I could only make out his concentrated expression through the tears. We sat at a local restaurant having dinner we both weren't eager to pay for. We had smoked a few joints, and had a bit of wine . The hanging lights around us seemed to create a yellow gold ceiling that radiated warmth, although in fact, I kept my scarf snuggly around my shoulders. He had asked me to try to remember as many random words as possible in chronological order. But my brain was so hazy, and I couldn't stop laughing.

Did you remember anything, he asked when he was done.

I had. Sun, socks, traffic light , car... I looked up at the fuzzy yellow sky trying to recall the fifth. Suddenly bursting out in uncontrolled laughter. The only thing that came to mind was octopus. I had a very clear image of a happy cartoon octopus. Then realizing people eat octopus, I fell somber.

Stars.

It turns out the fifth was stars. Anyway, I doubt I would have ever come to it without his clues.

I looked out the window, trying to spot the stars. I knew it would be impossible through the reflections of the lights but I went for it anyway. The streets seemed quieter than usual.

All the Friday night partiers had either gone home or moved on to clubs in the south of the city. Somewhere out there my friends were living the usual Friday routine; drinks in hand, smiles and loud chit chat, over the sound of music and other peoples' conversations, feet in motion to some sort of beat. Only that tonight one less person was part of this dynamic. One less person in the jigsaw puzzle of the city that never grew up. I watched the shops and bars slowly drift by, and the space between my throat and chest caved as though someone was sucking the air out of my alveoli with an invisible straw.

"This isn't exactly how I would want you to remember me." My voice sounded raspy as I spoke. I couldn't help letting out a chuckle, I brushed my hair back. "a crying mess." I said wiping the singular tear from my cheek.

Standing in my now empty bedroom, the tones were different. The acoustics of the room had changed . It's sobering, how infrequently we're given the opportunity to realize that emptiness is measured by far more than just the vacuity of space. And the opposite of emptiness... I dont even think it has a word. Whatever it is, it's definitely not "full".

He laughed. You're not a crying mess, you're just being human . It's ok . Let it out.

But I continued shaking silently against his chest. I didn't have enough time to explain why I'm not able to let it all out the way I might have wanted to.

I wanted to be able to have enough time...

Instead I flipped off a switch in my head, the switch that I flick on and off whenever my brain decides my heart needs a reality check. I had been using it more frequently of late. I separated my body from his and told him I'd go see if the cab arrived.

It had.

And within loopholes in time impossible to measure, here I was. Watching listening and feeling everything I took for mundane, day to day, the beautiful , the good, the bad, the worse, evolve into a thing called "the past" faster than I could check the second hand on my watch.

If this was a movie, I would press my fingers and nose longingly against the back windshield, my breath would fog up the space near my mouth. Every detail of my fingerprints would be visible through the fiberglass. Suddenly my eyes would spring wide, and I'd spin around on the leather seat and yell at the driver to stop the car! I would throw open the back door and leap out of the cab, not minding the well-being of my three suitcases in the trunk. And likely, it would start pouring rain for dramatic effect, while I stand in the middle of the empty street declaring that I've changed my mind, I'm not going anywhere!

But this isn't a movie.

Instead of yelling at the cab driver I snapped out of my day dream and tuned in to realize that he had been yelling at me for having made him wait. Furthermore, the idea of pressing my face against anything in the vehicle wasn't agreeable in the least. Anyway, I always do what I say I'm going to do, unless logic and reason prevail. And I didn't even need to try to find logic and reason to change my plans, I knew there wasn't any.

So I sat shaking silently once again, only this time with my head leaning against the door panel. The cab driver shut up eventually, and the city lights turned into highway lamps. In the darkness of the ride, I hadn't noticed what else had slipped by in my peripheral vision.

We stopped at the checkpoint entrance to the airport and the driver rolled down the window . A crisp breeze languidly spread into the musty air inside. I removed the vacuuming straw which had been sucking at my lungs for what seemed like aeons, and took a shaky deep breath.

The air that wafted in smelled strangely reminiscent of the spring morning I landed here nearly a decade ago.

I had gotten picked up at the airport before dawn. He was an officer, he had to be up early anyhow. He wore his blue uniform under a sweater. He had borrowed his mum's car in order to pick me up, and then accidentally dropped me off at the wrong address.

On the way from the airport I looked up at the buildings and overpasses.

I'm so fucking crazy I laughed, tired and ecstatic.

Whys that, he said

I threw my hands in the air and let them land on the purse in my lap heavily.

What the hell am I doing here?! I laughed again

He shrugged , smiling. No, why, what's wrong with it, you're doing what you should be. He glanced at me sideways. Why not be here?

I nodded . I didn't have a good reason.

It was the beginning of something, the end of something else, but even then I knew every end/beginning is always, always, a continuation of many other things, that will almost surely continue in some way, to some direction, as well. As far as we know, nothing is definitive.

As I breathed out slowly, this time, a little smoother. The driver rolled up the windows and let his foot off the break.

No, I thought, the opposite of emptiness is certainly not full...