27 June 2009

The bicycle still stands parked and locked at the gate of the school. The long walks we took, holding hands in the cover of the night and the extended conversations, as if our first date, made the key obsolete. We only rode on it once, or twice, I cannot remember. But we were dating again. I was sure.

You were crying on the bus to the airport over a span of two songs - one that played repeatedly when I first fell in love with you but thought it could never happen, another by your favourite band that looped endlessly on radio when I was 17. It was in the middle of the first song when I turned away from the speeding highway to notice your teary eyes. My sleeves were made damp, quietly. I remember the stationery shop, you said before the song began its first note. A block of hideous green passed by on our right.

The much anticipated and discussed typhoon headed away from the island on the same day Micheal Jackson passed away - you walked in from a designated smoking alleyway on the outside of the airport to tell us both, answering your own rhetorical question regarding the headlines today. It was a cardiac arrest, you also said. We accepted the news with a brief note on how sudden it was, his death and departure.

We took turns to cry in the last three days. Him first, then me, and then you. Tears, unexplained, your thoughts, unclear, my heart, in disarray. When night fell, after a long day of packing and moving and saying goodbye, I felt like I was back at the first night in Taipei, lost, though not totally, exhausted, but cluelessly.

D woke up at 6/27/2009 12:39:00 PM [comment]

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