~ Lost ~

The graffiti is gone.

This only oasis of colour in the bleak station has now been replaced with an off white splotch of some sort of unidentifiable substance.

People struggle to move in and out of the train before the pressurized doors wheeze close again. I step down; hoping for a comforting welcome but the only greeting is the babble of the crowd. The rushing traffic compels me forward.

I follow familiar streets. There’s the same jagged skyline, the same dented lamp posts. What happened to the city that used to be so full of possibility and vitality? Do you remember streaking through the parks and shopping malls, drinking up the air, the people, and the sounds? Those days are long gone, and the life blood of the city has run dry.

My wanderings take me to the old cinema. The footpath at the front of the cinema has an assorted variety of imprints in the concrete, like a little Chinese Theatre. On the day the first of those imprints came into being, we had defiled the wet concrete. Then, dashing away, we frantically searched for some way to rid ourselves of the layer of hardening muck on our hands. The paint is peeling off the building now, sadly neglected over the years.

I continue walking until I reach your apartment block. For a split second I can see you, calling down to me from the balcony. The sun is shining in my eyes, and when I refocus on the balcony you’ve disappeared. There’s someone else’s laundry hanging on the line. A small voice reminds me that you don’t live there anymore, and that it’s pointless to hang around any longer.

Visiting the places we used to go isn’t going to bring you back.

The day had begun with searing sunlight shining through my half window. Not cheering at all, considering my delirium induced sleep deprivation. Still, I would have preferred not to get up, enchanted by the idea of staying in a permanent state of unconsciousness, or at least remaining in my room. I wanted to just lie, safe, in bed for the entire day, watching the dust gather over the treasures you had left me over the time we had together. Leaving the confines of my room always seems a fatal mistake these days.

But time is a merciless task master, and relentlessly I was catapulted into action.

I struggled through work with a sickening ache in my chest. After enduring until lunch, I finally realised what was wrong with me. I had been suppressing any sign of mourning for your absence. A futile activity assuredly, as by suppressing my pain, I was now suffering a physical manifestation of it. My heart is not broken. Hearts don't break from misery, short of stress related cardio-myopathy. Sure if that nifty little organ in my chest starts to malfunction the only thing I can do is replace it with a new one. Or sacrifice a few foetuses for stem cells.


But hearts can bruise. And it could be years, decades, before my heart recovers from that kind of injury.

Instead of promising myself not to think of you, I went to the city. This was my second mistake. Since you’ve been gone, the city has become a barren and desolate hole. Sometimes there are hundreds of people pressed tightly together until it is impossible for me to move of my own accord, yet I still can’t help but feel alone, but maybe that’s my fault. Being raised here meant that at the best of times I distrusted people and at the worst of times I had an utter lack of faith in humanity.

There’s no trace of you left here, no matter how hard I’ve tried to find some kind of clue as to your current whereabouts. You always were two steps ahead of me, and I guess I never noticed just how far the distance was between us until now.

I had stupidly travelled here, looking for someone who I knew would never be able to find again. Still, I’m standing at your doorway. I can’t move on, neither do I want to.

I don’t want to forget you.

Before I have to decide whether I should flee this godforsaken situation I take one last look at the apartment block. The building is surrounded by a multitude of new imposing structures casting the ground below into shadow. The sunlight still shines brightly from behind the building, creating an aurora like effect. As expected of a mid-afternoon near the end of spring, the sun shows no sign of setting. I close my eyes against the light and my internal argument begins.

If I don’t move along with time, the world will leave me behind. If I stay here, then I will have no control left over where my feet will take me next. The choice is easy, really it is.

I make my way back to the train station. After finally passing through the turnstile, I am greeted with a welcome sight. The station wall has been freshly adorned with a contemporary artwork.

The spray paint isn’t even dry yet.