Lazyafternoonswithyou

Clarity.

Taken from various sources.

(c) to their respective owners.

You’re perfectly clear even without these on.

The news kinda hit me hard. To think something like this could happen, something nearly impossible. I didn’t try to want to sleep that night. I told my parents I needed to clear my mind and ran out of the house keys in hand.

Before I knew it, I was at the central park with a couple of things to help soothe the night over

• 2 Bottles of _____ ____
• 4 Bottles of ______ ____
• 4 Bottles of _____ ________

It cost me over 800 _____for all this and I didn’t even know why I bought this much. They weren’t strong enough to knock me out and make me forget. They were pretty weak to begin with. Maybe 2 bottles of _____ could have been enough. But what’s been done, is well done. I had just finished a ________ and a _______ ___ when it happened.

He sat beside me like a close friend, right beside me on the 2nd step of the stairs leading to the park. He looked familiar and vague at the same time. You could remember some certain features of his face but in its entirety, his face remained a blur. Maybe he had a beard or a heavy mustache, but I couldn’t recall. For sure, he had glasses just like mine. He wore a very familiar black shirt and olive green straight pants. He seemed sympathetic but at the same time smug in finding me at my most vulnerable point.

He grabbed one bottle of ______ ____, clinked his bottle with mine and began drinking. It’s funny, I don’t even remember giving him the bottle opener. I don’t remember how I felt sitting beside him. Perhaps I was scared since I didn’t speak for the first few minutes. Maybe I was relieved, I had been asking for signs for nearly two decades and know I got it.

“Shit happens,” he began. Again, he clinked his bottle against mine. His demeanor was oddly calming, something unexpected from the bane of manhood. As he took a swig, I still kept my hand steady.

“Drink up, you know I can finish all of this but it’s no fun drinking alone.” Before I knew it, I had gone through 4 bottles of _____ ___. It was scary that I felt comfortable around him. We began talking about Life and its uncertainties, its unfairness and its cruelty. More and more, his image morphed more and more into an old friend that you haven’t seen in years.

At 3 am, He was still on his first bottle while I had nearly finished all that I had bought. I hate to admit it but I was feeling better, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted.

Then everything changed when the Girl in the Blue shirt sat beside me. She came out of nowhere and just sat beside me on the second step of the stairs leading to the park. He patted me on the shoulder and just left with the same bottle in hand.

Unlike the Devil, I knew this face well. A face that I had come to look to for inspiration. Her hair was tied back and held in place by two dull onyx sticks. She was almost as tall as me now, she used to be much shorter.

“You know, I don’t remember you buying what he was drinking.” She said leaning on my shoulder. She grabbed one of the empty bottles one by one and threw them in the garbage can a couple of meters away.

She took my last bottle of _____ ___, popped the cap off and took a modest sip. Her face scrunched up at the slight bitterness of the liquid. Her effect on me was the polar opposite than my earlier companion. She gave clarity while he gave haziness. The comfort she gave was different, more meaningful.

God. I missed seeing her.

“We haven’t been talking in a while, have we?” she said looking at the sky.

It’s true we’ve been barely talking and when we did talk, it was awkward, forced and at times interfered.

“Everything will work out alright? Like He said, Sh-bad things happen but what we do in response is what matters.” She hesitated at the swear word, her face slightly contorting and eyebrows furrowing.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, God I missed her.

She would raise some points for conversation and I would reply. The hours were slow but I enjoyed them. Her view on the world was different, full of promise and childlike optimism. I admit, I’m not too high on the concept of hope but she made me rethink what I stood for.

The Sunday Sunrise was by all accounts the same, but different. Like my other companion, she gave me a pat on the shoulder but as she was walking away she turned around to face me. She smiled and said, “Goodbye.”

And then she was gone. And then I was gone.

I really shouldn’t be doing this right now. I’ve got a report to do on microorganisms and two exams of Analytical chemistry just hours away but I had a moment just a couple of minutes ago.

In the midst of computing for water hardness or solving for various molarities or concentrations, I got distracted and began viewing my old photos on Facebook and Multiply. I smiled looking through the old photos. Memories of smiles, laughter, victories, defeats and so much more began pouring in me and I got lost in the past. Although, one picture hit me. It was taken on March 2010, a month that was full of hardships and happiness.

I saw myself, smiling the biggest smile I could muster; perhaps it was the biggest smile that I ever put on my face. I looked at that picture and I couldn’t remember why I had that elated look, maybe it was because that month was full of firsts for me. It was my end of my first year in college, the first time I ever manned-up, the first time I literally stayed up for two nights to study for exams, the list goes on. For me to accomplish so much in a month still astounds me.

But amidst all these first, I still didn’t know why I had that smile on my face. What reason could have made me so happy? I found my reason one day and lost it the next.

Sad to say, the succeeding months were not as kind or as joyful. April and May were excruciating. Upheaval was the main theme of those months and I faced it in the most cowardly way I knew.

I refused to accept, refused to understand, refused to listen. I locked myself away from reality and chose to believe in my reality. I changed a lot in the course of two months. I thought differently, entertaining thoughts that I would never have even dared consider in my younger years. I surely acted differently, being something I wasn’t.

I continued on this downward spiral of a path of harsh words and indifference as the days turned to weeks and weeks to months.Eventually I just stopped and chose to stop let this lingering frustration fester inside of me. I wanted to just leave. Trust me, on many occasions I almost did. But no matter how hard I tried, I would come back still thinking that everything would be okay.

Forgive me, I’m not good at letting things go.

A year later and I’m still changing thanks to that one reason. I know at this point in time, I’ll never be what I wanted to be. But that’s fine, cause at least that reason improved me in some ways that only I can see. 

Thank you Dear Reason. :)