A companion fic to See You Someday Somewhere.

This is an attempt in a different writing style from my own. (But the poem is not mine but belongs to another friend =.=”)

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When I received that call from the hospital. That call in which I was informed of your injury, I almost dropped the metallic object I had pressed against my ear.

The fact that it was a hospital that I had been rushing to did not matter to me. Neither did I waste any time to remember that a hospital was the last place I would ever be seen in. All that mattered to me was the fact that you had been hurt. And I wasn’t there for you.

~Fear silently crept through my inner veins,

Painful thoughts I’d rather forget,

Such as you being taken away from me. ~

In that moment when I had caught my first glimpse of you through the window of the hospital ward, all I could see was white, and that little cot in that room where you laid, unconscious. All I could think was how you’ve changed within the span of a few hours. How different you looked from when you had walked out of our apartment merely a few hours ago.

Looking at how weak you had become, how frail you were, as compared to before. I was almost run over by the pain in my heart. Questions flowed about in my head, almost visible through my stunned eyes. What had happened to you? Who did this to you? Will you be alright?

It was perhaps several minutes after that I was shaken awake by your sister. Your dear twin sister, who was the only one who had not objected to our relationship. Who had even bothered to come here immediately after she had received a similar call as I had.

Turning my head back to the doctor and your sister, I repressed the urge to simply push past them and enter that room where you laid. The urge to touch you, to feel you, and hear your heart beat as I did every night. To know that you were alive, that you would still return to me after this, that you would not abandon me as my family did.

Their conversation seemed to buzz past me, entering my right ear, where it stayed for less than a second before exiting through my left. Bits of information though, I managed to catch. Information such as who was the reason behind your current predicament and what they assumed had happened to you.

If I was still the idealistic person I had been five years ago, I might have thought along the lines of ‘sweet revenge’ at he who had caused you so much harm. Might have thrown my rationality away and, instead, allowed my random impulses to lead me by the nose.

Yet I could not. That was what you taught me. Revenge was never sweet. Instead, it was quite the bitter experience. More bitter than the bitterest coffee. Past revenge, there was nothing one could gain, except perhaps, hatred and despair. But neither could provide for a reason to live and a reason to feel just like any other.

They talk too much. My mental voice commented lazily in my head. A comment I agreed to fervently. They certainly did. And that was reducing the amount of time I would get to see my precious you. Mind made up, and patience at the last straw, I strode past the duo and slipped into the ward. The sounds of the doctor protesting reached my ears faintly, but that was the last thing on my mind.

Drawing your slender hand out from beneath the cool white blanket, I clasped it in both of mine, my lips pressed against the limp fingers, warming it with my breath. If given the chance, I would do the same for your entire body. To protect you from the growing chill, to feel you with my entire body. Yet I cannot.

Muttering a prayer under my breath, I continued to wait. To wait for the moment where you would open your beautiful eyes. For the moment when you would call my name, and all would be back to normal again.

Yet you did not. Not even after your awakening.

Amnesia, they said, after conducting several tests on you. A strange case of amnesia since your head was nowhere near damaged. It could have been due to shock, one of them reasoned. And that reason stayed, whilst your personality did not.

Cynicism and indifference, you seemed to have picked these two up on the trip back to the living. There was perhaps, no more of the fiery determination you had since young, replaced by that blank look you would have on your face occasionally, as you stared into white walls of the room.

~I never understood why I’m so stubborn about you,

Yet I rather just be with you solely and unquestionably,

Even till the end of time if I must. ~

I could not not accept the new you, however. As the number of changes that had been effected upon you never did change that which had been between us. I could still see in your eyes, the same look of admiration, of adoration and love. Pride arose in me at the thought that despite obstacles placed between both of us, our chains of emotions would never break.

We chatted long and wide. From tales of our past to debates of the future. There were almost no topics we could not discuss, and I could not help but to like the new you more and more.

That was, until the devastating incident and news that sent me crashing down to my knees again, forcing me to pick myself up and face the truth with its glaring clarity.

You were dying, and this time, you would never make it back to the living again. You who had always supported me through the hard times. You who had always joked with me, laughed with me, cried with me, and had even crawled your way back to the living to me at the price of your precious memories. Who had retained your kindness, and covered my sleeping form with a blanket, even though you knew how much it would take out of you.

I would never be able to see you again. To hear your melodic voice as I am hearing through my sobs, to feel your gentle touch as I am feeling now, and to smell your intoxicating scent that wafts into my nose every time I near you. Never would we be able to hold our daily conversations or to enjoy the food I had bought from your favourite restaurants.

At these thoughts, my sobs became even more erratic. Tears flowed out of my eyes like an open tap, staining the white blanket you were under at every contact. I could not stop, and neither would I. I had a right to cry did I not? The love of my life, the one who made my life worth living, one whom I had always fought to be with was going to leave me now, never to return to me again.

Yet, there was nothing else I could do. Nothing that could prevent the inevitable, to prevent death from taking one whom I had so cherished away from me. Cry, I had done enough. Enough so that even if I tried, no more tears could leave my eyes.

Wiping the last of the moisture on my face dry with the back of my hand, I pushed myself away from the blanket I had leaned my head against and settled myself on the seat beside your bed. Your face, though pale with weariness, seemed so at peace. As though you had no qualms with your designated fate.

How weak I am. To be the one weeping instead of the one who should. To cry in anguish instead of the one who should have. To shout and scream at fate for dealing such a hand, even as you, who had been on the receiving end accepted your predicament with a silent consent.

Your death had been a huge blow to both your sister and I. That smile that lingered on your face as they laid you in your little wooden coffin remained in my mind’s eye even as I retired for much needed sleep two days following the funeral. The peaceful smile that seemed to mock me even as you laid six feet below ground in your snug little wooden coffin. Mocked me for all my spent efforts to prevent the inevitable.

How sly you were, to remind me of our promise years ago merely a second before your passing. To stop me from losing myself into that enticing oblivion called death, where there may dwell a possibility of our reacquainting. To lock me in this painful world of living, where I would have to deal with your death. The death of my reason to live, death of one who helped me feel, of the one and the only whom I had ever loved.

Not a single second passed without my missing your presence. Not a single minute lost without your fading figure appearing in my mind.

I visit your favourite oak tree in the garden behind the hospital daily, having been given a long leave by my compassionate superior who had heard of and attended your funeral. The oak tree where you had died. Where you laid dead, yet appeared to merely be in slumber. Where you regained all your memories, only to lose them again a second later, along with your death.

Every time I laid my palm against the cracking bark of the tree, visions after visions of our memories would appear in my mind.[1] Which was hardly surprising since that was where your emotions seemed the strongest in the one month and a half that you had stayed in this hospital.

~Looking through the past,

I never knew we’d be this close together,

Which I had hoped to last forever for eternity. ~

I would plop down on the patch of grass beside the tree every time I went. The back of my head leaning against it as I allowed our memories to wash over my consciousness. Where I could leave the burden of living without you behind and, instead, indulge myself with our precious memories floating about.

In those moments, I could pretend that you were still alive. That you were still by my side. That all was really well, and nothing could ever go wrong again. I would allow myself to stay in it for hours on end, where your warmth, your touch, and your voice would surround me, filling me with naught but your essence. The very essence kept me waking everyday. That kept me alive, even as you lay dead. That kept me going, even though your absence tears my heart into shreds.

In those memories, I would not need to care if you were the old or the new you. For neither mattered, so long as you were by my side. I would not care if we were young or old, if we were struggling or enjoying, for I was always happy, so long as you were by my side. Nothing would matter to me, whether we were rich or poor, whether we were happy or sad at that time, as you were always by my side then, and that alone was enough for me.

I would have myself remain in those memories for all eternity, if I had my way. Yet I could not. For your words haunted both my sleeping and waking mind. The very words that prevented me from leaving this accursed life behind. That forced me to look forward, instead of back.

Time flowed just as quickly as water down a waterfall. Before I was even conscious of it, your death anniversary had come round. Dressed in black just like the others, I stood before your grave, staring at the picture on the tombstone. The same picture that sat on my dresser just beside my bed. My large cold bed which, would always be half occupied, until the day that you would return to me.

Your sister would pay me and my apartment a visit every week. Initially, whilst I was still very much submerged in my depression, I would latch onto her, the difference between either of you blurred by the pain in my heart. But that never did last long, for despite the similarity in facial features, your essences were never really the same. Whilst yours burned with a fiery orange flame, only dimming when you had lost your memory, hers seemed like water, always peaceful, yet turbulent as well, given the circumstances.

Few months later though, that habit of mine ceased, as reality slowly made itself comfortable at a corner of my mind, and your death became more of a fact than an unbelievable lie. She would purse her mouth at the sight of all your favourite things lying about in the apartment, almost as though you were not really gone, just not at home. She would always talk to me about it. About setting your things away, and beginning my life anew. About keeping the memories of you as just that. A memory. Nothing more, nothing less.

That always fell on deaf ears, however.

~Words of warmth may make me yearn for your presence more,

But no matter the obstacles I face,

I will endure for the sake of you. ~

Many a times, I would receive recommendations from my colleagues and friends alike. Introducing their male and female friends to me. Friends who wished for that which would never be given unto them. Comments, warm and cool, would always meet me, as I declined their offers just as I did all the time.

None of them, despite their superior beauty and individual characteristics, could oust the pedestal I had you settled on. None could cease my yearning for your presence, and it did not appear that any would in future.

Each and every intimate gesture they made reminded me of you. Every single movement that somewhat resembled you would remind me of you. You who had dominated most of my life with your warmth and your strength.

~True to the fact that there are many others out there,

But you won’t be replaced or more like can’t,

Due to the reason that I’m onto you. ~

I knew, and have known long ago, that even if you were dead. Even if you were lost to the world, never to reappear in my life, even if I myself lay on the brink of death with a coffin awaiting my arrival, I would wait for you. For the time when we would surely find each other again.

-Ende-

[1] Think postcognitive. He is able to see the past happenings/thoughts of a person when he touches or comes into contact with something with strong emotional attachements.

Find you, Someday, Somewhere is a sequel to See you, Someday, Somewhere