wide space in a little corner

it was nice talking with you again. in that little corner where we try to hide from the stares of many. where we don’t mind time. or deadlines. or annoying bosses. or from the truth that we shouldn’t be seen together like this.

because like this is that wide space where people volunteer to join in to cover the distance, to create a false sense of certainty when all they have is a fraction of an abstract, to rush into a shared meaning where there’s none. it’s a wide open space that can fit my bloated ego and someone else’s bloated sense of insecurity.

but what if we did own up to that wide open space, claim it as ours, and fit that right into our little corner? we don’t know because we never thought of asking. we’ll probably not even consider answering.

i’m on the losing end on this one. i’m so used to it already. losing. being a loser. but i take joy in knowing that should we wish, we can always go back and claim that little corner—yet always tentatively—hiding from the stares of many, not minding time or deadlines or annoying bosses. not even from the truth that we shouldn’t be seen together like this.

because like this is how we both want it to be.

the rain and the strange things

it’s raining again tonight. i just noticed after staring blankly into the dead monitor of my TV set, lured by the reflection of the light from my bedside lamp. a silly distraction, i realized, and then i heard the raindrops on the roof. how strange, i thought, that even without seeing the rain, or feeling it, you know it is. that sound, which I couldn’t describe, is way too familiar to mistake for something else. and yet the same familiarity diminishes it to a mere background.

 

last month, while waiting for my ride at a hotel lobby, i met the chief executive of my former company. he did remember me, but only to ask if i didn’t shame him for recommending me to the graduate school where he sits as member of the alumni board. “i’m struggling with my thesis,” i said without feeling, as if the words came together by themselves and out of my mouth. “good luck then,” he said, like the kind you hear out of a movie script, though i sensed he was being sincere. or at least trying to be. the words “thank you, sir” came together by themselves and out of my mouth. i was being sincere. or at least trying to be. how strange, i thought, that the more you think of the right words to say, the more you lose control.

 

a few weeks back, when my brother was having a fight with his girl over the phone and his voice was offensively loud, i stormed out of my peace in the rest room (thanks to the convenience of a bidet) and shouted at him to “grow up” and “be sensitive to other people in the house who didn’t give a damn if they were fighting or not.” you see, i’m a diplomatic person, whatever that means, but on rare occasions when i was provoked,  i said the most hurtful of words that made others, even those older, cry. my brother cried that night, too. but it wasn’t the hurtful words that puzzled me after; it’s that by asking him to stop, it was my voice that was offensively loud. mine was even so much louder. how strange, i realized, that sometimes when you badly want something to stop, you unwittingly become its extension.

 

it’s still raining tonight where i am. and i like it.