“Can you stand up?”
She asks, extending her hand. Her hair is getting longer, now the wind can rustles it and mess it up a little bit. She wears her usual blue jeans and gray shirt today. Her lips are coloured by her newest shade of lip cream; a faded pink lip cream.
“I don’t know.” Her companion replies. “I might be falling as well.”
“But you are already,” she lets out a sigh as she pulls back her hand. It seems like her offer is useless. Her companion doesn’t really want to get up.
They are in the middle of an empty stage. The night is already fall, and on the contrary, the moon is up. In this semi-outdoor venue, the moonlight is bright enough to light the stage and its empty audience seats. She can make out the shape of leftover papers scattering all over the stage. Someone doesn’t sweep the stage that well.
While her companion is still sitting in the middle of the stage, she walks forwards, and sits in front of the stage with her legs hanging. There is not much that she can see. Everything has been wrapped out by the crew earlier. Now the venue is just an empty space. She stares at nothing in particular.
“Does it hurt?” She asks again. This time she doesn’t expect a reply from her companion. And as she anticipated, she doesn’t get any words in return of her question.
She hears her companion stand up, but they don’t come closer. She lets them be.
“Now that I think about it, it seems very silly.” She speaks again.
A letter is very, very silly. It is like a child’s game, and what embarrasses her is that she loses her own game. She invents the game, but she is beaten by her own rules. She is defeated; and that is embarrassing.
“It’s only three days,” her companion says from her behind. “You said it yourself that completely forgetting takes time. It’s only three days.”
“I know.”
“But you can’t help but moping.”
“But I can’t help but moping.”
It is her companion’s time to sigh. They don’t come closer, but she hears the sigh clearly.
“Sometimes losing is important,” her companion adds silently. She says nothing.
She looks up to the wires and the stage lamps. They are off now; no more blinding light piercing her eyes. Now that it is off, the lamp looks sad and miserable. The light makes it looks very lively, and it is actually blinding whoever eyes that look right into it. Now it is pitch black and gloomy.
“They called you sweet, you know?” she tells her companion. “Those wishes and all.”
“I am flattered,” she can hear the smile in her companion’s reply. “I was planning it for a week or so. It is good that someone actually think of it as beautiful, and not cheesy.”
“It is cheesy,” she teases.
“I am not having this conversation with you again.”
She hums.
As the night goes, the air goes chillier. She regrets that she doesn’t bring her white jacket. Her thin shirt is not enough to warm her body.
“What now?” She asks to nobody in particular.
What now? Now that everything has come to the end, she realises that she does really miss the moments; no matter how small it was. Even though when there are no interactions at all; but she misses how she could watch the laughter and listen to that sweet voice.
Now that everything has come to its end, she realises that those small things that make him lives in her. Filling her small, poor, decaying heart. Healing her rotting self. Crushing down her self-esteem. Rebuilding her confidence. Crushing it down again.
Now that everything has come to the final end, she realises that actually she is hoping. She is wishing. She is longing. She is wanting. She is everything that is equivalent with expectations.
(No, she knows it from the early beginning, but she also knows the possibility of the chance is almost minus and hence, as the song says, she slowly backs out and walks backwards.)
When it is finally sunk in her mind; when she finally realise it, the heartbreak comes like a plague.
“It is not a plague,” her companion argues. “It is not as deadly as—“
“Oh, I don’t know,” she interrupts. “How can you tell?”
“What comes now is,” her companion ignores her. “That you need to stop falling.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She laughs. “Can you stand up?”
“…it is bad for you.”
“I know, thanks a lot for reminding me.” She replies sarcastically. “But you don’t decide what’s good for me and what’s not.”
“You sent a letter,” her companion’s voice is rising slightly. “Saying that you will get over for good. But what is actually happening? You are not.”
“But I am actually relieved!”
“No, you are not!” Her companion shots back. “It’s just a false report from your denying brain.”
“Do not yell to me!”
She stands up now, her companion does too. They are raising their voices at each other now. At the empty stage, it echoes, and it rings in their ears loudly. The sad lamps are watching from above.
“On whose side are you actually on?” she spats. “You said earlier that it’s okay, it has just been three days, and it is okay. But now you are blaming me?”
“Because you are stupid. Oh, no, no, don’t look at me like that.” Her companion glares. “You are stupid, and you know that. You are pathetic, and naive, and all the things that the world hates.”
“Who gives you the right to say that—“
“And, yes, now I am blaming you. It is clearly your own fault that you are like this. That I am like this. Him doesn’t have any part in this game. He is just a mere quest. This game is just about you and me all along.”
“What the fuck—“
“Oh, honey.” Her companion sighs. “You lose your own game. It is embarrassing. I am embarrassed.”
She approaches her companion fast, and she slaps them, right on their cheek. The sound of flesh hitting flesh is loud in the middle of an empty venue. She can hear the sad lamps surprised.
“Oh, sweetface.” Her companion smiles wretchedly. “Now you are crying to me. There is no use of crying. Like I said in the letter, there is no use to cry over the spilled milk—“
“I hate you.”
“I know.” Her companion nods solemnly. “Hating and blaming yourself is always your alternative to everything.”
“You are the worst.”
“Oh, yes. Because I stick on you forever,” her companion raised her eyebrows in genuine sympathy. “—like a plague.”