Fireworks. Bright beautiful fireworks. A reflected harlequin from the surrounding skyscrapers glazed my irises. I eyed the spectacle warily.
Fireworks I liked. The spot I stood on I didn’t like. I’d stood at the same exact spot very many times. On the 66th floor. The last was two years ago. Watching the same fireworks. Having just realized that I intensely disliked the woman standing next to me. At the start of what was to be two terrible months of insomnia. It felt lonely and cold.
Now.
Two years on…I was in love. With a remarkable woman. My waking thoughts consumed by her. My dreams too…if only I could remember them.
Yet, she wasn’t there. Not just her bodily presence. She just wasn’t there. It appeared as if what we shared was a figment of my raving imagination. I was in love and I was lonely. And very very cold. On a balmy summer night.
The shivering didn’t end. It went on through the night. Sock encased toes, an oversize hoodie, air conditioning turned off and a duvet swallowed me – later back at home – fell asleep fitfully.
“Are you suffering now?”, monotoned Drake on the radio as I gulped my coffee down the next morning. Over the next cup of coffee I was to drink this very day, I would hear a chilly silence and indeed, suffer. The lack thereof of an answer… the reason my body had pre-meditated my wintry symptoms.
How did it know? I would wonder much later.
An answer came in her voice. Why did it have to come in her voice? Why oh why? My heart lurched in anticipation of that familiar pang of longing. I grimaced.
That voice would’ve made me smile 12 hours ago.
To Be Continued…
