A Yearlong Summer
Some fleeting moments that felt like forever
Why don’t you ditch your partner? and come with me. We were born to run; Away from the norms, away from the people who’d tell you that they’re willing to die for you, while here I am… eager to be alive. Even in the middle of this unhabitable moss called life.
From time to time, I think institutions are the biggest love factory. Maybe because it is the only place people can start to bond with others. And maybe it’s because there’s this joy in having things in common, to be at the same stage, to face more or less similar hurdles in life. It’s safer knowing people that way, less disappointment, and yet there is still the bliss of surprise.
Romantic stories sometimes portray the serendipitous encounter between two strangers. A homebody like me can’t handle the risk, the uncertainties, and the towering degree of differences. It is too daunting. Sometimes I feel that it only happens in movies. For in reality, we are too timid to even consider saving a particular someone drowning in the sea of other humans. We all need unifying contexts.
The first time she and I felt a little spark was in the early months of work. Being in the same company and job role, we shared the same problems and trajectory; and suddenly we met on Zoom. The initial plan was a sharing sesh about work. But as in almost everything in life, we digress, we took a detour; humans tend to focus on the thing that interests them most. The priority scale means that she was the most interesting and anything job-related was the least.
As a colleague, we go about our usual routine, sharing inside jokes, gossiping, enduring work. The things that colleagues and friends do in a traditional sense of the words.
We talked a lot about our backgrounds, trending topics, jokes, a thing or two about reading, hobbies, something-something about work. Suddenly it was past two hours. It seems that time is brimming with envy seeing some people having some fun; I hate you, timmy.
2020 was not a good year for us and for me. John Williams wrote that when faced with a collective crisis, we tend to magnify the personal. One cloudy day I got laid off from a well-paying job for a fresh graduate. It didn’t rain that day and I thought it was because my eyes absorb all the water.
We started as eating buddies. She never went to my city once and wanted to try the many mouth-watering dishes out here. They say that love goes through the stomach. But everything that went through the stomach, the ass will spit.
I donned my white shirt, white pants. Sprinkle those perfumes on my neck, arms, and heart. Feeling white, feeling new, feeling clean. Like a virgin who’s about to have his first fuck; like a bridesmaid who’s about to walk the aisle; like a job seeker who’s about to pass his last interview. That day I felt like a small winner. Like one of those who’re about to get through their rites of passage.
Seeing her that day with her fern green satin plain shirt, her tan skin, a smirk, and her penetrating eyes; I felt like a smuggler navigating the Amazonian river, caught bouts of Malaria fever. Undeserving of such beauty; hallucinating beyond relief.
Then we went eating. It was always about eating. We always unconsciously sit beside each other. Soon after, we started to eat pickup lines, setting our speaking voice for only each other to hear (I noticed that she spoke differently toward other people), we’re devouring loneliness and hope, of future scenarios. We started to eat love, the most forbidden among any other forbidden fruits. Suddenly my life becomes all prayers.
She’s a saint and I’m just a commoner. So I confess, a sin disguised as admiration. A pure love that forces itself on reciprocity. I told her that she looked mesmerizing in that plain shirt, magic realism personified. She replied that I was looking pretty rocking a kimono outer. My heart implodes and I’m ready to start a war, wreak havoc, and bring back old empires to life. An empire just for us two.
We loved each other deeply for a week.
“You know, I just wanna enjoy the moment we have…”, She said to me on Whatsapp. Hmm it’s strange that nowadays social media interactions are considered as moments, me thinks.
tap, tap, taptaptap.
“But… I want us to be partners
So…. let’s just go with being a summer fling (?)”. I immediately replied. Get rid of your partner, please!!
brrrt, brrrt
“aksjskakka okkk”.
It’s funny how words paints the expressions of the people you love. Her shy sideways glance, her slight head thrown back when she laugh, her tan skin and pear-shaped face, her ⅞ timed laugh, her almond eyes shot through my soul and stayed there.
Taptaptaptap.
“But I forgot. Because here, the summer lasts forever…”. But I’m sure it will not outlive my feelings for you…
But feelings can get so resilient it sticks on every surface imaginable that it oftentimes outgrow the moments and the times. A week went by and it’s suddenly filled with bye-byes. A week of summer filled with bountiful moments and meaningful feelings can feel like a yearlong summer, burning, refusing to be conquered, ’til the end… ’til the end…
